Rolling Black Hills

Last week, I took one of the last Robinson family vacations for a long time. Ian couldn't get the time off of work, so it was just me, Jen, Scott, and mom. We got past Casper, WY, and then hit a sever thunderstorm. It was so bad, we all got texts from the National Weather Service to seek shelter because there was a severe tornado warning! We didn't know our phones could do that! Anyway, we slowly drove through it and I had a huge panic attack. We drove all the way to Custer, South Dakota, to see the black hills.Unfortunately, they have been severely destroyed by a fire in 2005 and by a beetle infestation, which, when it ends, will have killed more than 70% of the ponderosa pines. Sad!

All the brown trees have been killed by beetles.

On our first full day, we went to Wind Cave National Park, which is huge and encompasses a game reserve. We saw tons of prairie dogs and bison/buffalo! We also did a candlelight cave tour, which was pretty neat to hear all the discovery stories, and see the cave by light of a candle. The tour also went into parts of the cave that wasn't on a path, so that was pretty fun. Wind Cave has the most amount of something called boxwork anywhere, so it was a lot different from any cave I had ever been in. water didn't drip on us, and there were no stalagmites or stalagtites. Oh well. Afterwards, we went to Mt. Rushmore, and got to see that up close. It's pretty neat, just really touristy and we spent an hour there and were done. 

the view from a hike in Wind Cave National Park

Jen hanging around

family selfie.

my first real buffalo! Little did I know how many others I would see.

at Mt. Rushmore

A view up their noses...

A real mountain goat greeted us as we left Mt. Rushmore!

While looking at shops, I convinced Scott that jackelopes were real, and a shop owner helped. 5 minutes later he figured out he was tricked, and I made him hold up this bumper sticker without him knowing what it said.

On the 2nd day, we went to Custer State Park, which is partially in the Black Hills National Forest, but the has really neat granite spires everywhere. We kayaked on Sylvan Lake for an hour, and it was a pretty small lake. We still had 15 minutes left, so I came up with this idea to race around this huge rock in the middle, once going right and once going left, and the person with the best average would win best kayaker! We all went, and I won with an average of 29 seconds! Whoo! We then went on the Little Devil's Tower hike and got 98% of the way up, heard loud thunder, and saw lightning, so we turned around because getting caught on a slippery and steep trail in a real strong thunderstorm was not on my list of fun things to do. We decided to drive on the wildlife loop, where we got stuck in a herd of buffalo on the road for a while, but it was fun to watch and see the hundreds of buffalo roaming. We also stopped and pet donkeys, and saw lots of pronghorns. We headed to Keystone for the night, and walked the touristy mainstreet and ended up eating at the worst restaurant in the state of South Dakota. as a tourist, you know nothing, and we walked along the mainstreet, and read about the restaurants and saw the prices. We chose the one we ate at because it seemed alright, and didn't have burgers. However, the dishes were expensive (most expensive of the whole trip), and the vegetables were canned green beans (YUCK). Needless to say, we will hopefully never be able to top such a terrible restaurant experience.

the smallest tunnel we had to drive through

granite spires

Sylvan Lake, where we kayaked. You can't see the whole lake.

Little Devil's Tower hike

I loved this rock crevice we hiked up.

wild donkeys!

Did I mention that the worst restaurant had creepy mirrors on EVERY wall? Yeah...

The last whole day in South Dakota was focused on a jeep tour my mom was so excited for. Cowboy Kasey with red hair was our driver, and filled us with lots of information about buffalo and great folktales about Lazy J and a lot of goldrush and stagecoach stories. It was neat, but we did not see any new animals, just other parts of the park. We got up close to the buffalo again, and saw turkeys, bunnies, and lots of pronghorn. After it ended, we picniced with our Subway sandwiches in a beautiful spot next to a pond and then decided to go on the Prairie Trail hike. It was beautiful and went through the prairie and the forest, and it was neat to switch back and forth. We were almost back to the car, when the story of the trip happened. I was leading, and walked through the last foresty patch of trees, Jen followed and as she stepped, noticed a snake coiled on the edge of the tiny trail. She hollered "SNAKE," which is when my mom had a panic attack and Scott when all Steve Irwin and tried to move it off the trail, without success. Eventually, they just went through the tall prairie across around the foresty part and bypassed the rattlesnake. Jen and I got so lucky. For dinner, we ventured into the biggest town we saw on the whole trip, Rapid City, and ate a delicious meal with pie for dessert! Overall, it was a great trip, and a great way to say our goodbyes for a few years!

back seat buddies

the "jeep"

sooooo manyyyyy buffalooooo

prairie trail hike.

Can you see our little friend?