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.

We had heard about The Corn Palace but it wasn’t on our list of things to do.  Then we realized that we were staying in the town The Corn Palace is located in and we were in search of a grocery store.  Well, we found the Corn Palace and a parade that was blocking the road to the grocery store.  Come to find out that this parade is a big deal in Mitchell, SD and that people travel far distances to see this particular parade.  What was so special about this parade?  I have no idea. 

We saw the Corn Palace and it was interesting but I don’t ever need to see it again.  The building is covered with ears of corn in different colors to make a mural.  Think of a paint by number but with colored ears of corn instead.

The “paint by ears of corns”.  This is what they draw before they put the corn in place.  The best picture I could get.

The corn murals.

When we went inside to see what was in the building we were asked if the kids were participating in the tractor pull.  “The what?” I said.

It turns out the building is a venue for various town events.  This particular day the event was the kid tractor pull.  I didn’t know what a tractor pull was.  For those of you like me, the child peddles a tractor for as long as they can as the weight they are pulling gets heavier and heavier.  It looked like a pretty serious event with prizes and trophies.

My kids don’t love parades but they do love candy so we stopped briefly to watch the parade but really is was just to score some candy.

It was hard to see the candy after this car passed by.  There is no possible way this car passed inspection with the fumes it was giving off.

We did eventually get to the grocery store.  What a great place this was!  I started chatting with the woman managing the gluten free section of the store.  She was telling about various websites to get coupons for gluten free food.  After giving her my email address, I later received 7 emails from her with loads of info on g-free eating.  She also asked if we wanted samples of some items in the store.  Um, free stuff… yes , please! She whipped out her Sharpie marker, began picking up items off the shelf and then wrote “sample” on  the items as she put a slash through the UPC.  I was so thankful for her generosity.

When driving to our campground in Pipestone, Minnesota we just so happened to see a sign for Pipestone National Monument.  I have heard of many of the monuments and national parks in this country but I had never heard of this one.  The kids were excited to do the Junior Ranger program here and earn their first badge of many to come.  And I was excited to find out what this Pipestone place was all about.

Turns out this monument is an active quarry.  Only Native Americans can quarry here and apparently it can be a long process for them to get a permit.  What are they looking for?  Pipestone, of course.  This a red stone that is found under layers upon layers of sandstone (or is it granite?).  Traditionally Native Americans use the pipestone to make peace pipes. 

We walked the 3/4 of mile trail to view quarries and the Winnewissa waterfall.  It was hot and we were all overdressed.  But we made it through and saw some beautiful sights.

There were many different kinds of prairie grass throughout the park.  All of them are so important for the ecosystem here in the Great Plains.

Koah observing a spider web between the amazing rocks.

The falls.

A Native American pipestone artwork.

Taking the Pipestone National Park ranger oath to earn their junior ranger badge.

It’s always risky to take a motor home towing a van down a one lane dirt road that you have never driven before.  We must have looked like die hard Little House fans coming down that road.  It’s a good thing there wasn’t a soul in site because we did need the entire parking lot… well it wasn’t quite a parking lot but more of a turn around.  We were on the hunt for The Ingalls dug out home.  This is what we found…

So we thought we were going to see the dugout that the Ingalls lived in while living along Plum Creek.  It turns out that it is the ruins of the dugout.  The dugout collapsed many years ago.  Although the kids were disappointed that they weren’t able to play in a real dugout, they were all being lured by the fresh spring creek water of Plum Creek, on this hot Minnesota September afternoon.  Koah made the first plunge and the other 3 each followed in time.  We are reading On the Banks of Plum Creek so this made this afternoon swim extra special.

And the prairie…

Instead of Mary and Laura it is Makenzie and Freya.

In the book On the Banks of Plum Creek the Ingalls wheat crop is destroyed by grasshoppers.  While we were following a path along Plum Creek there were thousands, and I mean thousands of grasshoppers. Makenzie said they are locust and she is usually right but which ever they are, there are enough insects to completely destroy a wheat field.

The kids were super muddy when it was time to head out.  The beauty of traveling in a motor home, always a clean (well maybe not clean but at least not muddy) set of clothes and water to rinse off with.