We knew nothing about the Buffalo Roundup, we just so happen to land in Custer the Monday prior to the roundup which was on Friday.  There was a lot of talk in town about the Buffalo Roundup.    It turns out that this is such a big deal that over 14,000 people come into Custer to attend this.  Some come just to see the roundup, others come for the buffalo auction, some come to attend the art festival, and many come for all the weekend activities. 

So I kept asking everyone, “What is this Buffalo Roundup and is it worth the early wake up? We were told the gates to the park open at 6:15 and we should get there by then and still be ready to sit in a bit of traffic.  We ignored this useful piece of information and thought that leaving by 7:30am would be just fine.   And we sat in more than a bit of traffic.  At one point Jeff and Koah got out to walk and if they had continued to walk I think they would have gotten to the parking lot well before we did.

We still managed to make it in time to see the roundup.  We waited and then watched as 1600 buffalo, that typically roam freely in the park, came running over the hill in the distance being driven by cowboys.  The cowboys then drive the buffalo into the carrels in the park.   Seeing 1600 buffalo charging at full speed ahead over a hill is quite a sight.   This event was not easy to photograph but here is a small glimpse of what we experienced.

Here they come (in the distance):

Slowing down:

After the buffalo are rounded up some of them are auctioned off.  They are not sold to be slaughtered, many people come to buy buffalo to add diversity to their herds back at their farms, some as far as Russia.

I love this picture.  Koah refused to look at the camera and I laugh every time I look at it.

When you’ve been on the road for 5 weeks and have seen many sites of this amazing country its hard to pick a favorite place/park/state.  But I have to say this place lands in my top 10 favorite spots so far.

It took us awhile to find this place, confusing Cascade Spring with Cascade Falls. 

But when we did finally find the spot marked Cascade Falls the gate to the park area was closed.  We were a little reluctant to park and slip under the gate to go anyway.  But we had just watched a group of Native Americans slip under the gate and continue down the path so  I thought if they could do it why can’t we.  I’m so glad we made the decision to go.

For some reason I had in my head that this was a natural hot spring with water temps in the 80s.  It is a natural spring but it is not hot.  And it’s good thing it wasn’t hot because the chilly water was rather refreshing on this 100 degree September day in South Dakota. 

There was a nice little area for Freya to swim in and then an area off the rocks where the water is approximately 10 feet deep.  I took the first dive and kids followed in time, along with another family that had joined us.

Sitting at the picnic area at Cascade Falls you can’t see or hear this water.  If you didn’t already know it was there you might miss it.

This place is like a hidden gem. And we couldn’t have picked a more perfect day to come.   I highly recommend Cascade Falls if you are in Hot Springs, SD… and it’s free and we just love free! 

Couple quick facts we learned about Mount Rushmore from the Park Ranger:

1.  Borglum completed this monument in just 13 years.

2.  Originally Lincoln’s head was started on the left side of Washington’s but the stone was found to be unsuitable for carving.

3.  Funding for the monument was completely cut after the bombing at Pearl Harbor.  Borglum died while trying to raise more money to continue the monument.

The park ranger started telling me about some of the interesting people he meets and the funny questions he gets asked.  His all time favorite question came from a woman who asked “Do the presidents heads get lowered at night to be stored and then raised up in the morning during the winter months?”  The park ranger said he was pretty much speechless, as was I.

Strike a pose.

I guess we picked a good day to come… an empty cafeteria.

Inspired by Mount Rushmore, she began her own carving… in her ice cream!

Picture courtesy of Makenzie but I wish she was in this one.

Jr. Rangers hard at work.

It’s one of those places that you can’t stop looking at.

The touching evening ceremony honoring all those who served in the armed forces past and present.

It lived up to its wildlife name and did not disappoint.

Prairie Dogs

Buffalo

Donkey

Pronghorns.

We headed to Crazy Horse late in the day thinking that a couple of hours would be more than enough time to see and experience this monument.  What we didn’t know was that at the monument is also a huge museum on Native American history.  I could have spent all day just at the museum learning about the history of the Lakota Indians among many other tribes from the area, minus 4 kids in tow.  I have a thing for Native American history so maybe that is why this was so impressive for me.

We watched a short intro film about the monument.   We learned that this monument is not government funded and it only gets worked on when funds are available, which are all from entrance fees and donations from the public. 

The face on the mountain was unveiled in 1998 and because things don’t look much different on the mountain than they did in 1998, I wonder what the monies are going toward.  After talking to some locals at the laundry mat, they also have the same question.  They said it’s rare to see the mountain being worked on but did agree that the museum is quite impressive.  But I don’t know how the money is allocated and maybe currently more money is being poured into museum artifacts. Don’t get me wrong, it cost us just $28 for all of us to enter and we all agreed it was well worth our time and money.

This is Crazy Horse currently:

Here is what Crazy Horse is supposed to look like upon completion:

We were selected to participate in The Snake a Native American dance about the strong bond of friendship.

They also had a small hands on area for the kids.  Here is Makenzie trying to grind corn kernels.

We rolled in Custer, SD one week prior to the town’s busiest weekend all year… the Buffalo Roundup.  More on the Buffalo Roundup in a later post.  Mom and Dad also flew in to meet us for our week here in Custer.  Woohoo!!

Day1:  Destination Jewel Cave.  The third longest cave in the US.

The boys did the long cave tour.  Approximately an hour and a half and over 700 steps.

The girls and mom and dad did the short 20 minute tour of the cave and spent some time outside sniffing Ponderosa Pines.  The ranger at the visitor’s center asked us to sniff a Ponderosa Pine and report back to him on what we thought it smelled like, vanilla or butterscotch.  Vanilla all the way at first but then there were a few that did have a hint of a butterscotch smell.  When the wind blew in the direction you were standing, the aroma in the air smelled like a baker’s kitchen.

We also learned about bats in the cave which are generally found at the caves natural opening miles away in Wyoming.  The kids completed the Jewel Cave Junior Ranger book and took the National Park oath which included listening to your parents and making your bed every morning.  There is no such thing as making your bed in our motorhome.  It is either turn your bed back into a table or move your blankets over because more blankets need to be piled there because the table is being put up.

Ranger talk on bats.

Pretending to be a caver.

Working toward earning a Junior Ranger badge.

I must mention that the weather couldn’t be more perfect.  Sunny and warm today and all week long.  Beats the several inches of snow Custer had just a couple weeks ago.

Oh and one more thing… Happy Birthday to me!!

After seeing approximately100 billboards for Wall Drug the only thing left to do was to see what this place was all about.  With billboards reading, “Come see the T-Rex”, “5 cent coffee”, “free ice water”, “homemade ice cream”, and a hundred other things we figured it was worth a “quick” look.  And a quote from their website said, “Free Admission to this 76,000 square foot wonderland of free attractions!”  We were curious.

Wall Drug is more like a department store.  It takes up about a block of the small town of Wall, SD.  It really is the only reason people stop in Wall.   The hundreds of billboards has been a great marketing tool that keep tourists curious and willing to make the stop.   I’m not sorry we went but it’s one of those places that I can’t seem to get my kids out of.  There was always more “stuff” to look at and just one more room we hadn’t explored yet.  Someone told me to give the kids $20 each and let them have at it in this place.  Keep in mind this was coming from a person with one adult child.  I said $5 sounds like a more appropriate amount to me.

The story of how it all began is a sweet one. This is how the story ends on their website,  “Free Ice Water. It brought us Husteads (Wall Drug owners) a long way and it taught me my greatest lesson, and that's that there's absolutely no place on God's earth that's Godforsaken. No matter where you live, you can succeed, because wherever you are, you can reach out to other people with something that they need!”  You can read their story here, http://www.walldrug.com/t-history.aspx.

We did all have 5 cent coffee (that tasted like water), a delicious homemade donut (none of that Dunkin’ Donuts crap), and of course a cup of ice water.  How could we not?

The list the kids made before we went to Wall Drug.

Coffee all around when it’s 5 cents.

Donuts!!

Shopping, ice water, and the history of Wall Drug

We waited 12 minutes.  Apparently the T-Rex wasn’t hungry today.

Aside from the donuts this is what I was most excited about.  If you know, me then you know my phobia of public restroom door handles.  This is a beautiful thing…. touch-free handle!

We didn’t leave empty handed.  Now that we are in the west, what better to purchase than a few cowboy/cowgirl hats, except for Korben who refused.

The kids had such a great time at this place, that is before we got kicked out.  Yes, we really got kicked out of the Prairie Homestead.  I’m going to try to make this short, even though I was quite upset when this went down.

This is an original sod house from 1909.  When we arrived the friendly woman at the counter advised us that the Prairie Homestead likes to try to give an authentic experience.  She then proceeded to show us where the dress up clothes were and that the kids could touch all the things in the house and feed the animals hay in the barn.

So we did just that for about 3 hours as the woman behind the counter watched us from the large window at the house we entered in.  After those 3 hours of play the woman came walking toward us.  I wasn’t thinking we were doing anything wrong until she began yelling at Freya.  Hold on a second… then she began yelling at me and telling other customers that we weren’t supposed to touch anything.  Then she asked us to  leave.  I was so confused; so I confronted her.  We had quite an argument but what it came down to for me was these 2 questions:

1. You told us to play with everything.  Were we not supposed to do that?

2. We have been here for 3 hours.  If we were doing something wrong why didn’t you come tell us right away?

Her response (over and over again) was, “I told you the kids could touch everything, not play with everything”

Is this woman for real?   I’m going to end the story here… our exchange of words is better left unsaid. 

The sod house can be seen from the parking lot.  Save your money and view it from there since you aren’t allowed to touch anything once you pay to get in.

Here are some pictures of the fun the kids had before we were kicked out.

There is something about this place that leaves me speechless…

It was one of those moments… one kid was tired, one kid was hungry, one kid was thirsty, one wanted to be read to, one was screaming, one had to pee, one was cold, one was hot.   I think that count is at 8 yet I only have four children… although the volume in the motorhome sounded more like 8 kids… on the Scream Machine. We were in need of a break but we were trying so hard… too hard to make it to the campground we had just made a reservation that same afternoon.

Then all fell silent!

Why, you ask?

Because it sounded like the roof of the motorhome blew off.  There was suddenly a loud noise and it wasn’t humans.  Now would be a good time to mention that we had been driving about 2 hours straight in 25mph South Dakota winds.  Two hours might not sound that long but for a motorhome towing a van in the South Dakota hills, it’s a really really long time.

Well, we got that much needed break we all desperately needed.  And we also almost lost the three vents on the top of the motor home.  All three vents were hanging on by one last screw.  All three had blown open while driving which is what created the “our roof blew off” sound.

Thank you to man who offered us zip ties to tie the vents back in place.

It may appear in this picture that Jeff is wearing a crop top.  Trust me when I tell you that he is not and that this is wind practically blowing his shirt right off his body.  At one point, one of us opened the door from the motorhome to go outside and the wind  blew the door so hard that it actually put a hole in the outside of the motorhome.

And what were the kids doing?

Sliding down a pile of dirt in the lot we were parked in… or at least we hope it was dirt.

Only three kids is these pictures… where was #4?

Soaking up the rays of the South Dakota sun.

God has a funny way of giving you exactly what you need.  We needed this time outside, even in the wind, to let go and unwind for a bit… sometimes it takes a little unexpected turn of events for me to do exactly what needed to be done anyway.   This little story could have had a terrible ending but I am thankful we were are all safe and so was everyone else on the road that these vents could have easily hit had we gone any further.