Bear Country USA & Storybook Island

Day 4

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Bear Country USA, Highway 16

Storybook Island, Rapid City

Purple Pie Place, Custer

Mt. Rushmore, Keystone

Camping Food:

We had hot cocoa every morning and tried some fun new recipes.  This particular morning turned out especially delicious.  We had an amazing dutch oven coffee cake that was perfection.  Not like the disastrous hot dogs wrapped in pillsbury biscuits that we cooked over the fire on the first night there.  Half of them fell in the fire or the dough wasn't cooked all the way through . . .  not my finest camping moment, I'll have to say.  And that's probably why I don't have pictures of it.  But this coffee cake was another story.  We'll definitely be making this one again.  Everybody loved it and ate it all up.  The other favorite was cinnamon rolls cooked in hollowed out orange peels, wrapped in foil and baked on the fire.  Super delicious!

Bennett gearing up for another jam-packed day.

Bear Country USA:

First stop of the day was Bear Country U.S.A. outside of Rapid City on Highway 16.  There were several animal-ish parks to choose from that were interesting to us; Reptile Gardens, Old MacDonald's Farm, and this one.  Bear Country won because we'd just seen a bunch of reptiles in Florida at Gatorland, and Old MacDonald's farm (Daphne wanted to go there sooo badly because there was a lot of hands on stuff--feeding animals and petting zoo type stuff) showcased common farm animals that we can see at the state fair.  The first part of Bear Country is driving.  You drive through and see the animals walking around their habitats, and around your car even.  We saw reindeer, elk, pronghorns, bighorn sheep, wolves, cougars, and of course, BEARS!  Lots of bears.  

The second part of the park was more like a zoo.  You park the car and walk around the exhibits.  It's called Babyland, but it also houses the Grizzly, and animals that used to be babies, but aren't really any more, and the favorite thing to look at (besides the grizzly) were the bear cubs.  They were all bunched together in a shady spot resting and playing and climbing on each other.   

Storybook Island:

Next up was Storybook Island, a very cool (and FREE!) park in Rapid City.  We had a picnic in the park outside the park (no outside food is permitted inside the actual park) and then the kids just went wild exploring all the cool stuff inside.  They kept saying, "Take a picture of THIS, Mom!"  So believe me when I tell you that this is the abbreviated version of the storybook island photo shoot.  

Loved this sign at the park's entry:

Waterslide back at Camp:

It was pretty hot this day, so we couldn't wait to get back to camp and cool off on the waterslide.  We all went down, even Bennett.  He had no expression on his face, though so we're not sure if he liked it.  So we ended up taking turns with a parent and Bennett in the pool and the other parent with the other kids on the slide.  It was super fun!  Made me wish we'd had a little more time to stay at camp and enjoy it.  BUT Adventure called, so we had to keep moving.  :) 

The Purple Pie Place:

After dinner at camp, we went to get dessert at The Purple Pie Place on our way up to Rushmore for the evening ceremony.  Oh I loved this little diner.  Whoever decided to paint it purple was genius, because it was PACKED every time we drove by.  And without that purple paint, people would probably drive by and not even remember it.  So the paint, and the dessert were both great.  The kids got Cotton Candy, and Maui Wowie ice cream.  Arthur got Huckleberry and I had a Blackberry Pie a la mode.  Bennett had fallen asleep in the short drive there and stayed asleep in Arthur's arms until the very end!  

Mount Rushmore Evening Ceremony:
I thought this was a special thing to go to, especially during 4th-of-July week.  Everybody met in the big amphitheater, and the park ranger spoke a little bit about liberty--her remarks were great.  Then there was a video presentation that highlighted each president who is on the monument and what their major contributions to our country were.  By then it was dark and they lit the mountain.  Then they invited all the veterans and current military servicemen and women to come to the stage where they each said their name and branch of military service, and then did the flag ceremony.  We all sang America the Beautiful, and the Star Spangled Banner together, and I was really moved to be there in the beautiful Black Hills with hundreds of people I didn't know who also love America.

Hiking, Fishing, and Sliding

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.