Riding the 1880 Train

On Thursday we decided to ride the 1880 Train from Hill City to Keystone.  We got there early to pick up our tickets, which gave the kids a chance to run around exploring the old caboose and looking at all the train things.

Ben and Dad waited in line to save us seats together while Grandma, the kids and I got to see the engine back up and take on water.  Nathaniel, especially, was fascinated by the steam engine.  As you can see, he didn't want to look at the camera, he wanted to look at the choo choo.

The steam engine was very loud, and you could definitely smell it while it was moving.  This photo of Megan covering up her nose and mouth reminds me of Becky. 

Once we got on board and found our seats toward the front of the train, Nathaniel was anxious for the train to start moving!

Although the conductor made a big point of saying that arms and heads must stay inside the carriage at all times, Nathaniel spent most of the ride to Keystone with his head stuck out the window.  He LOVED riding on the train and looking out the window, at least on the first half of the trip.
 

Mom and the kids and I got out of the train at Keystone so that the girls could go to the bathroom, but there wasn't time to do anything else because the train left again right away.  The engine took on more water and moved to the other end of the train, so this time we were sitting towards the back of the train and we could see the engine when the train went around curves (like in the last photo above).

Nathaniel found the return trip to Hill City a little big long; he got pretty squirmy and was anxious to get moving.  He and I read a few of the train books that I had packed in my backpack (actually, Megan's pink backpack from Aunt Julie) and he spent some time playing with his shoes.

He also had fun taking selfies, or watching while I took selfies of him, since his arms really aren't long enough to do it himself.

 
Since I sat by Nathaniel the entire time, I really don't know what the girls did on the train ride, although someone did take one photo of Megan looking through the binoculars.  The guy in front of us was very good at spotting deer; I think I saw seven of them.  So perhaps Megan was looking for deer?

We did not pay for the cheesy green screened photo of our family taken "in front of" Mount Rushmore, but a very nice passenger offered to take our family photo on the train.

This may be the only photo of the seven of us all together on our trip:

 
After the train ride, we ate lunch at Desperados Cowboy Restaurant in Hill City.  Each of the kids got a bandana with their kids meal; Nathaniel wore his like an outlaw (or like a bib, whichever you prefer).

The kids menu had a questionnaire about cowboys, if the kids completed it, they got a chocolate chip cookie at the end of their meal.  I thought it was nice that they had to learn something to earn their cookie.  :)  The restaurant also had a horse that the girls got to ride on as we were leaving.

While Nathaniel was napping that afternoon, Dad, Mom and I took the girls to a rock shop, where Mom bought them a few more rocks for their rock collections.  Here is a photo of all the rocks that they had at the end of our trip.

Then we drove along a dirt road looking for a rock cut where the girls could find some cool rocks.  They ended up picking up a LOT of clear, yellow and orange quartz, most of which Dad said was leverite (like leave-her-right-there), but we brought a bag home so that we could add them to our fairy gardens.  They are much prettier than most of the rocks at our house.  Dad also seeded the area with a few pieces of dinosaur bone for the girls to find.  They were SO EXCITED to find their own dinosaur bones!  Dad and I also found a big piece of rose quartz that we brought home.  Megan had fun digging with Grandpa's rock hammer.

After a busy day and a delicious homemade dinner (it was so nice to be able to stay in a house and cook dinner every night), we decided to go to the Purple Pie Place for ice cream.  We had driven past it before and taken note of the vibrantly painted pink and purple building.  I have no idea what flavor I had, but I do remember that the ice cream was very tasty.  The girls were being goofy trying to eat each other's ice cream while sitting at the kids table:

As we were leaving, we saw a pink and purple pig, and we decided that Grandma Jane needed silly photos of the girls riding on the purple pig:

Mount Rushmore

After the wildlife loop in Custer State Park, we drove through the tunnels towards Mount Rushmore.  We didn't stop to take photos of the tunnels or of Mount Rushmore, because it was getting late in the afternoon already (we crammed a lot into some of these days), so you'll just have to deal with this photo taken out the window while Ben was driving.

Both of the girls were very excited to see Mt. Rushmore, Amelia especially so.

Megan wanted to take some photos of Mount Rushmore, so here are her shots.  I like Nathaniel photobombing the first one.  I had to crop and edit them because it was really bright out, but I think her second photo is really nice!

The girls did the Junior Ranger program right away.  Megan is hard at work drawing a picture of our family looking at Mount Rushmore.  She even drew glasses on Roosevelt and a cute beard on Lincoln.  Mom helped the girls with most of the questions, because I had to head back to the car for some reason (was it to get Nathaniel's diaper changing thing?  Maybe so.)

Both of them said that their favorite thing in the visitor's center was pushing the dynamite handle to make part of the rock explode.  Nathaniel really liked that part, too, and must have done it ten times in a row.

Then the girls said they wanted to walk the presidential trail.  Dad stayed with Nathaniel while the rest of us did the walk.  There was a path down to what the girls thought was going to be a cave, but it turned out to be a little view of Mount Rushmore between two big rocks.

At one of the viewing platforms, the man next to us pointed out a cute little baby mountain goat:

In addition to seeing the immensity of the rocks that were blasted away from the mountain, you really get an interesting look up the presidents' noses from down here:

 Megan had so much energy that she hopped up and down most of the stairs.  I believe National Treasure 2 was also filmed on these stairs.

And we went inside the artist's studio, which had a large model of what Borglum wanted Mount Rushmore to look like.  It would have been a lot of extra work to carve the mountain down to Washington's waist!

Ben took a lot of other very lovely photos of Mount Rushmore, but I am sure you all have seen it already, right?

Custer State Park

Wednesday morning was beautiful, so we decided to drive through Custer State Park.  We started in the north section so that we do the wildlife loop then drive through the tunnels to get to Mt. Rushmore.  Mom found a nice hike with some rocks to climb at Sylvan Lake.

All of our kids were excited to get to climb on more rocks.  These rocks were larger, with steep dropoffs into the water, so Ben mostly followed along after the girls while I tried to help Nathaniel.  Megan is fearless around heights, whereas Amelia loves to explore, but is careful to stay well away from edges.  I was a nervous about Megan at one point, especially because when I yell "STOP" she doesn't always listen. 

Nathaniel was determined to try to go everywhere that the girls went.  When I told him I was going to stop helping him, he decided he would try to climb up by himself.

Mom and Amelia found a fun crevasse that the girls could climb up.  I think it was easier for them with their little feet than it was for me, although Megan did need a boost at one point.  Around the corner from the first shot, there was a cool little hole in the rock that everyone had to peek through.

I liked this tree growing between two huge rocks.  The dirt was eroded so that you could see all the tangly roots.

The trail took us below the level of the lake and there were two little waterfalls and a small dam.   The girls found a little canyon to hide in so that they could jump out and surprise everyone.  And then we go to walk through a natural rock tunnel before we made out way back up to the surface of the lake.  The girls lead the way on this part of the trail because Nathaniel wanted to walk all by himself down the steps.  He walked the better part of the mile long trail.

There was a path over to the top of the dam that involved jumping on some big flat rocks.  Jumping on rocks across water is right up the girls' alley, so they must have done that three or four times each.

Does anyone recognize this lake yet?  It's the lake from National Treasure 2, where Nicholas Cage finds the eagle flying under the cloudless rain.  Sadly, we did not find any hidden treasure while we were there.

We found a nice place to take a few family photos.  It was very nice to have Mom and Dad around to get photos of the five of us; I think we have more photos of all five of us from this trip than we have from the last year and a half.  My camera threw them off a little, Mom tried to look at the screen instead of through the viewfinder.  I found that interesting because she used an SLR camera for so much longer than she's used a small digital camera.  Anyway, thanks for taking pictures of all of us!

 I have those photos horizontal, too, if you want to see more of the lake, Mom, but I zoomed them in so that you could see the people better.  I sent this photo of our family to school for Megan's teacher to put up in her classroom, since she asked for a recent family photo.  Let's see, right after this, we got to the end of the scenic trail around the lake, and Dad skipped a few rocks.  The girls wanted to try it themselves, so Dad gave them a short lesson.  Of course they threw all their rocks in overhand, so they didn't skip any at all.  I think Dad got as many as 7 skips one time.

I have no idea where on the trail these photos were taken, but I do remember that Dad spent a lot of time watching Nathaniel while the girls went exploring.  Thanks, Dad!

We walked right past the lodge at Sylvan Lake on our way back to the car, so the girls went inside the store to look for prairie dogs.  Thankfully they had them!  There was a bit of debate because the prairie dogs weren't EXACTLY the same as Natalie and Noah's, but I told them it was these prairie dogs or no prairie dogs, and so of course we got them.  The prairie dogs got a little goofy in the car the rest of the day, and I had to take Megan's away a few times until she could control it's behavior.  Anyway.  We had a nice picnic lunch and then started the wildlife loop in Custer State Park.  We saw one bison all on his own; he was scratching his shaggy head on this pointed stick:

We saw a few prairie dog towns; the girls instructed their prairie dogs to wait in the car every time we got out so that they wouldn't decide to run away to a burrow.

We saw a pronghorn:

We saw the begging burros, although we did not feed them:

And we saw the herd of bison, from very far away.  Mom had brought binoculars, so we used those to try to see them closer.