A family trip to Mt Rushmore, The badlands and all the sites that amaze!

GOD IS EVERYWHERE, EVEN IN SOUTH DAKOTA!

God is everywhere! His majestic wonders abound from one side of our country to the other. We travel thousands of miles to foreign lands when we have but to look around us to be amazed with His creations.

My husband, Gary, and I enjoyed a vacation in South Dakota a few years ago. Neither of us had been there before, and we were questioned repeatedly before we left by friends wondering why in the world would we go there. Well, we went there because my younger sister called one day and said, “Let’s get all our siblings together and go to Mt Rushmore for a vacation!” Now, when my little sister says let’s go, I don’t hesitate because I know it will be a fun filled time.

I have to admit when we arrived at the Rapid City airport at 10:00pm and that little sister was not there to pick us up I was a little concerned about how the week was going to turn out! And about 30 minutes later when a voice came over the loudspeaker and announced that the doors would be locked and lights extinguished in ten minutes I was getting a little hot under the collar. After we waited in the dark for about twenty more minutes a car arrived at the curb and hugs and kisses ended my bad thoughts of getting even.

We drove to Custer and arrived at our cabin long after dark so we didn’t realize until the next morning what a beautiful land we had discovered. If you have ever used the expression, “God’s Country”, you were describing what we woke up to. Ponderosa pines surrounded the cabin, a herd of about eight deer wondered by almost continuously. If we had stayed any longer we would have had to name each and every one. We saw big furry looking animals slinking along the ground that we were later told are marmot, also known as groundhogs or woodchucks. I didn’t know they were the same animal!

Well, the family members straggled in a few at a time until all twelve in the party had finally arrived at the cabins. I have four sisters and two brothers. We couldn’t talk the brothers into joining us but all five sisters, our spouses and my son, Doug, and his wife, Diane, showed up and what a wonderful week we had. My daughter-in-law is a super young woman who pretty much says what she thinks. At one point she confessed that she was a little fearful of coming on this vacation. I guess she was afraid she wouldn’t have much fun with all the senior citizens but she was the first to say, “Where are we going next year”! I guess she now knows that senior citizens aren’t necessarily old fuddy-duddies.

Monday morning found us all packed into a twelve passenger van, with a driver who made the seven hour trip a real information-filled adventure. We drove through Custer Park (I think he drove us around and around in circles to make the trip last long enough for us to get our moneys worth) past every imaginable wild animal wondering beside, and sometimes across the road.

Buffalo as huge as, well, as huge as they look in movies, antelope in large herds, wild burro begging for anything you might have to eat! They were so cute! Various colors and sizes, walking right up to the cars and sticking their heads in if you had food in your car, or you could walk right up to them and they would eat the bread right out of your hands. Our driver, Duane, brought lots of bread for us to feed them. Of course, we took what seemed like hundreds of pictures.

We rode past rocky mountains with tunnels barely wide enough to drive through. Duane said a bus got stuck in a tunnel the day before. He didn’t know how they got it out. Almost every hill has huge rocks jutting out of the ground and most every yard seemed to have rocks large enough to carve their own statues.

Speaking of rock statues, Mt Rushmore is as spectacular as every picture you’ve ever seen and Crazy Horse is going to be immense when finally completed. It has been a work in progress for many years and all you see is the face and part of his arm, but there are pictures and mockups of what it will look like when finished.

I have to admit one of my favorites of the trip was the Chuck wagon dinner, complete with covered wagon hayride and a cowboy playing a guitar and singing trail songs all the way out to the dinner. It was an hour long ride from where we climbed aboard the hay until we reached the chuck wagon. It was a fife-teen minute ride back. Seemed to me that was another one of those riding round in circles to make it worth our money!

There are several cave tours available in the Custer area and we chose Jewel Cave for our journey to the center of the earth. Well, maybe not quite that far but it sure seemed like it by the time we climbed up and down seven hundred plus stairs and saw amazing rock formations, some of which really did look like Jewels.

Don’t even consider a trip to South Dakota without seeing the Badlands. It is a spectacular vista of sandy looking hills made up of many colored layers. It is likened to what the surface of the moon looks like but since we have never done a “Sibling Trip” to the moon I can’t vouch for that.

There is no way that you could go to South Dakota and see all the natural beauty and not appreciate all of God’s creations. He really outdid himself when He decided to form the land and lakes of that little corner of the world. It is truly a wonderfully spectacular country we live in here in the United States of America. Get out away from your televisions and computers and experience God’s creations. You will feel His presence beside you each step of your journey.