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.