Year: 2015

 

My birthday started off with a trip to the Reptile Gardens. We saw lots of shows. I loved the snake show. They brought our venomous and non-venomous snakes to show the crowd. No one was bit or hurt so I was happy.

The same young man did the alligator show. It was educational vs alligator wrestling.

We explored the gardens.

I loved the replete house. This place holds the Guinness Book of World Records award for most species in one location.

The giant tortoises were fun to watch eating the grass.

The had prairie dogs and you could pop up inside of their enclosure. We could have stayed here all day watching the little guys run and dig.

I almost got eaten by a boa constrictor but I managed to escape!

Afterwards we went to the Museum at the Black Hills Institute. This is the area that they found the famous Dinosaur Sue and Dinosaur Stan.

They had on display, lots of skeletons and stories of uncovering dinosaurs.

We headed across town to Wade’s Gold Mill. First we learned how to pan for gold. The older gentleman were so kind and patient with us as we swirled, sloshed and sifted.

I picked out my few flakes of gold and found lots of tiny garnets.

We then took a tour of the property where the father of the tour guide had set up an amazing collection of old mining tools. Many of them worked today. With the pump of the steam and a flip of the switch everything began to whir and bang.

 

Tomorrow begins our journey home to Florida. We have 2000 miles to go with a few stops along the way. It has been an amazing journey and we all look forward to more adventures in the camper and traveling around the US! There are SO many more places, parks, monuments and more that we want to visit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were rolled out of bed at o-dark-o’clock! We drove to the Minutemen Missile National Historic Site. We were first in line when they opened. They only have a limited number of tours each day (tours only take 6 people). We were excited to go see the missile facilities. We drove up the road a few miles to meet our tour guide. He actually used to work in the missile silos for many years. He had lots of stories to tell.

We saw the upper barracks buildings. The officers got the nice rooms.

Then we prepared to head below ground.

There was a blast door that was HUGE! It was about three feet thick! They painted a funny saying on the door.

Heading in to the tiny box.

This was the control facility of the missiles for the area.

The tiny key hole had a plastic cover to avoid sabotage. You could break the tip of your pencil off in it to prevent the key from turning. Primitive security at it’s finest.

Can we control the buttons, PLEASE?

Good thing we knew how to get out because this sign was on the ceiling of the elevator and I am not sure was an “EmergAncy” exit is? Are you?

We earned out Junior Ranger badges and patches. To get patches you have to do extra activities, like the tour.

Next we drove to the Badlands National Park. We did a Junior Ranger program then waled and explored the Doors Trail.

The Badlands was quite barren. There were no trees and the ground was just clay, sand and rock.

We had a fun time not he trail because you don’t follow a normal path. You go guide post to guide post.

We made all the paths the hardest we could climbing through rocks and low spots.

Mom lagged behind because she found it tough to walk and take photos.

I was a pretend raptor running across the planet.

I was walking along and found a rogue selfie stick. I turned it in at the visitors center. 

We earned our Junior Ranger badges after completing the book. We already earned our patches by doing the Junior Ranger program on animals and layers in the park.

Next we drove out to D-9. Another launch site for the Minutemen Missiles. 

You were allowed inside the gate to look around. But you were NOT allowed to launch the missiles. Actually the missiles were all decommissioned at the end of the Cold War.

There is still a missile in the silo but it is non-operational.

You can look down inside and see the missile.

 

On the way out we stopped at Wall Drug for exploring and lunch. I rode the giant jackalope.

Next we visited Ellsworth Air Force Base.

We explored the visitors center and museum while we waited for our tour time.

I had fun in the cockpit and with the simulator. 
Although Mom is convinced I should never fly a plane. Look carefully at the below photo. MY flying abilities are a bit… upside down!

Our tour took us by shuttle bus onto Ellsworth AFB. There were LOTS of really cool planes all over the place. We had a tour of the base and then went over to the minutemen missile silo that is on the base. Boy these things are all over the place!

This was the entrance.

There were “peacekeepers” all over!

we got to go down into the silo and peak through the holes and windows at the missile.

Also decommissioned, just the shell remains.

We found a map of all the missiles in the area. Wowzer!! 

Back on the bus to head back to the visitors center.

We saw the trucks that bring out the missiles.

Next we walked around the center looking at all the planes. we learned what makes a B-52 a “B”, it’s for bomber. We learned lots of other types of planes.

The storms were rolling in so we walked quickly to make sure we got to see all of the airplanes.

The B-1B was HUGE! If you click on the photo to enlarge it you can see us standing under the middle! BIG PLANE!

The storms move fast and the entire sky darkened. That was our clue to high tail it out of there back towards Custer State Park.

 

We celebrated Dad’s birthday meal the night before since we would be out late on his birthday. We had a great meal and I even ate a buffalo steak!

E and I even rode our bikes down to the store and bought pinecones that change the campfire colors. I played not he cell-phone as the fire got going.

Green and blue flames!

We were up early on Dad’s birthday and wet for a walk. We were surprised that the walk went to the Buffalo Safari Jeep rides.

We had our own private Jeep and an entertaining driver.

We were able to go off the main roads and see the buffalo and calves in the fields.

We also saw many more pronghorn.

We drove up to one of the animal salt licks and SO many buffalo there in the area. Many had calves and 1-2 year old bison as well.

This little calf was just getting his horn buds!

We drove to the highest point in the park and viewed the expanse of the park. It is a HUGE park.

Back to the trails.

We saw a mama and baby pronghorn. They were so cute. The baby was very small, about cat sized.

Even the donkeys had babies!

After the safari ride we toured the old homestead of a South Dakota poet laureate.

We drove a twisty road up to the Needles. This tunnel we had to fold in the mirrors on the truck to get though.

We also stopped with our carrots and apples and fed the donkeys. These were the only animals in the park you were allowed to feed.

We stopped at a fort structure on the way out of the park. During the gold rush this was built to keep the gold searchers safe from the native americans.

We drove back to Mammoth Site for an AtlAtl class. We learned about the history and functions of the atlatl. Then we got to practice throwing at targets.

Mom killed the short faced prehistoric bear.

It was really weird to throw an atlatl but I eventually got the hang of it.

I did well enough to get my certificate at the end.

Up next was an advanced paleontology class. We listed to all the instructions and then were given different grids to dig in.

Daddy had the outside one.

I had one in the middle and was having a hard time finding anything with my test holes.

Finally I found a speck of something white and then kept digging. It ended up being a vertebrate of a mammoth.

We learned how to cast an object and how to remove it from the dirt for transportation.

I helped a group of teenage girls dig out around a giant mammoth femur.

Back to my bone. I did a great job uncovering and making a pedestal for it. 

 

We had an amazing time celebrating Dad’s birthday and learning all about the atlatl and hot to properly be a paleontologist.

 

 

 

 

In the morning we got up quite early and drove to Wind Cave National Park. It is both a spectacular park about AND below ground. We played around int he visitors center while waiting for our tour. We also worked on another Junior Ranger program.

We learned that the cave breathes. Today the cave was breathing OUT and 6.78 mph.

When we were on the tour we saw the natural entrance (it was the size of the ranger’s hat). The air was certainly blowing OUT.

 

Every cave seems to have it’s own uniqueness. Wind Cave has miles and miles of caves all stacked and squeezed into a 1 mile cube. Their famous formation was box work. Box work was formed with parts of the limestone washed away and minerals filled the cracks. The limestone continued to erode leaving really neat honeycomb like structures in the cave.

We had an amazing guide, Ranger Sam, and he was able to answer all the questions we fired at him. After the tour we wrapped up our books and went and turned them in and received our badges after the pledge.

 

Up next was Mammoth Site in Hot Springs. This is quite a strange place. It was once a sinkhole filled with water. Mammoths came to drink and fell in, at least that is what they THINK happened. Oddly they have only proved all the skeletons to be those of male mammoths. They side is excavated in-situ. That means they left the bones in place and just cleaned out the dirt and limestone.

We had to wear funny headphones to hear our guide. It was neat to see all the work that is being done at the site still. They have plans for a lot more excavation.

A giant building was constructed around the site to preserve the fossils and bones.

We had such a great time Mom found out they had mini camps starting tomorrow so we booked a few classes and will come back again.

 

 

We are staying at Custer State Park in South Dakota. We have this park as home base for a week or so and we will be taking little day trips out to explore. Last night when we arrived we set up camp and then enjoyed a drive around the park to get the lay of the land. We saw lots of buffalo and many pronghorn. This male wanted to play roadblock.

We spent the evening watching a movie at the campground theatre about the Buffalo Roundup. Every year they round up all the buffalo, vaccinate them and then sell off part of the heard. They keep on average 1500 buffalo! Amazing!

We took a morning trip out to Jewel Cave and explored the amazing Jewel Cave National Park.

Their specialty in cave formation is dogstooth spar. It is a crystal like formation and very pretty.

We had a great tour in the caves.

This strip of cave bacon was about 20 feet long! Spectacular!

We successfully earned our Junior Ranger badges and patches.

After the caves we headed to Mount Rushmore. They charge you to park, even if you have a National Parks pass. The food was expensive but we had to eat. We worked on our Junior Ranger books, watched a film about the making of the monument and toured the museum.

Mount Rushmore was pretty amazing. The walking trail that takes you closer was under construction so we just viewed from the patio.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I loved the flags from all of the US states and territories.

We earned our badges and took yet another Junior Ranger pledge.

 

We headed back to the campground and Dad dropped us all off at the visitors center for a Junior Naturalist class. We had a nature scavenger hunt and had to find things like bugs, scat, animal fun and feathers. E and I teamed up and got done first.

We headed back to the campground and relaxed around a campfire. We went to another campground movie on the history of the park. We had to attend the movies for credit towards their Junior Naturalist program. It is a very hard program to complete but we are motivated.