Day 3
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Stockade Lake & Fishhook Picnic Area, Custer State Park
Rushmore Alpine Slide, Keystone
After a much better night's sleep (I never sleep the first night of camping, but usually by the second night, I'm good. Well, good might be an overstatement, but well enough anyway . . .) we were up for a full day of fun! First item of fun was a hike in Custer State Park. We did an easy 2-mile loop next to Stockade Lake.
Sydney wore out pretty quickly but I kept her walking by playing the "yellow flower" game. In case you ever want to play this game, here's how you play it: Whoever sees a yellow flower calls out "YELLOW FLOWER!" and gets a point. The person with the most point wins. After awhile, Sydney said, "Mom. I'm not playing anymore. I already winned." But by then we were on the downhill stretch, so the game served its purpose. :)
As you can see in the pictures it was a beautiful hike--lots of gorgeous views and wildflowers and grass as tall as my kids. There were also quartz rocks to be found everywhere. The rocks in South Dakota are full of minerals that sparkle and shine, so you can imagine Sydney's pockets full of glittery rocks.
Side note: When Sydney got dressed in pants that morning Sean said, "I've never seen Sydney wear pants my whole life!" Which may actually be true. I had to do some convincing for her to wear these jeans instead of the one skirt she managed to sneak into her bag.
Bennett was such a trooper on this trip. We weren't hanging out at camp during nap time, so he just slept whenever he could. In the car, in the backpack . . . such a good sport.
Me and my girls in a wild rose patch
Garietys at Stockade Lake
After our hike we drove around looking for a nice picnic spot. Boy did we find one. Fishhook Picnic Area was one of my favorite spots on this trip. We ate lunch and then Arthur and the kids explored the river banks and fished and it was perfect.
COOKIE!!!
Funny story about these cookies. Well, a couple of funny stories. When Arthur and I ran into the Custer Market to grab a few picnic items, we were ready to check out when we passed these cookies. I resisted the urge but then Arthur said hopefully, "Hey Sharee, aren't these your favorite cookies?" (They were those super soft Lofthouse cookies with a nice thick layer of frosting on top.) What's a girl to do with an invitation like that?? So two packages of the cookies ended up in our basket. And we all scarfed them down at lunch. Now we all like those cookies, but Bennett, well I didn't get a picture of him eating these things because I was too busy trying to get video. I'm telling you, I've NEVER in my life seen somebody eat a cookie as fast as Bennett can eat one of these Lofthouse cookies. I wanted to keep giving him cookies just so I could watch him shove it into his mouth in one fluid motion. Truly. awe-inspiring.
"Oh what do you do in the summertime when all the world is green?
Do you fish in a stream or lazily dream on the banks as the clouds roll by?
Is that what you do?
So do I."
(This is my favorite picture from our whole trip.)
Fishing
Daphne was the only one in our family to catch something that day. It was her very first fish! In fact she caught two! But they were both tiny little guys so we threw them back. Still, though, pretty exciting to reel one in! Go Daph.
Seriously, could this day be any more perfect?
On our way out of the park, we turned a corner right into the middle of a big herd of bison, which was pretty awesome. So we had to pull over and check them out for awhile.
Lots of cute babies in the herd.
We took Iron Mountain Road out to Keystone. This drive was pretty cool--lots of switchbacks and bridges and tunnels. The road is designed to face Mt. Rushmore, offering spectacular views throughout. In order to accomplish that, the road and tunnels spiral down like a corkscrew, called Pigtail Bridges--that was some very impressive engineering. This particular tunnel was especially placed so a straight-on view of Mt. Rushmore greets you on the other side.
Very cool. They used lots of dynamite.
In Keystone, we did the Rushmore Alpine Slide. I'd never done an alpine slide before, but it was pretty fun. It's kind-of pricey but we figured out the most efficient way for a big family to do it and bought a 10 pack of tickets for $80 and paid the $4 child rates for Syd and Hayden. We each got to ride twice, and took turns staying at the bottom with Bennett. It doesn't look very steep in the pictures, but if you wanted to, you could really get some speed. Very fun.
Love Hayden's face in this one.
After the slide, we had pizza in Keystone, and then walked the main road a bit. We "needed" some taffy, and also stopped to check out the 1880's steam train that does round-trip rides from Keystone to Hill City. If it weren't two hours long, we'd have considered doing it on one of the days, but I think our littlest ones would not have loved sitting on a train for that long. So it was great that it pulled into town while we were there. The train whistle scared the bejeebers out of everyone nearby. It was funny to see that many people jump!
It had been a full day and time to head back to camp, but we had to make one more stop to take some pictures of a breathtaking double rainbow arcing across the whole sky. (My camera lens wasn't quite wide enough to get the whole thing in one shot.) I still unconsciously hold my breath when I remember the gorgeous sky that night. And as we drove through each little town on our way back to camp, there were people outside taking pictures of the rainbow.
Back at camp for roasted marshmallows,
and a cool owl sighting in a nearby tree. The robins were not happy he was there, and were making quite a fuss dive-bombing and screeching at him. Can't blame them. He took out one of the bunnies the night before. Still, I've never seen an owl in the wild, so I thought it was pretty cool.
