Crazy Horse and Back Again

After the cave, we drove through Custer State Park, and stopped for a minute to see the Crazy Horse Monument.  I didn't even know this was a thing.  It is a whole lot bigger than Mount Rushmore, but it isn't finished yet.  The future plan is to have a horse, flowing hair, and his arm pointing to his lands.  It's pretty cool.

 We seriously only parked in the parking lot for a minute.  The kids got out to see it and then we moved on.

The ride was beautiful.  It's totally flat just outside of the black hills.  We drove across Thunder Basin National Grassland.

 Blue skies and green grass as far as you could see.  Amazing.

When I was driving, I enjoyed having different littles come and sit by me in the passenger seat.  Allie was like a dog and when she wasn't up front, she was sitting at the table with her head out the window.  Jason took the picture for me.

Jake watched a whole lot of movies.

When Mike was driving and Allie was up front, a big horn sheep crossed the road in front of them.  It was the first time Mike had ever seen one, so he stopped and pulled over to watch it lope across the field. 

I didn't have a big enough zoom to really get a good picture.  It was huge though.
We ran into some really dark clouds near Cheyenne.  I got an alert on my phone that there was a tornado and severe weather warning for our area.  All the kids were anxious. (Except Jake).  What is it with them and their worries?  I thought it was cool to see the lightning strikes across the sky and the black clouds.  I wouldn't want to be in the Leprechaun when a tornado rolls through, but we weren't in any danger where we were.
We made really good time though, and decided just to go on home instead of stopping for the night.  We pulled up to our house at midnight.  It was a great trip and so much fun.  We burned through a whole lot of gas, but we also made a whole lot of memories.  The motorhome ran great (except the power loss) and we were comfortable as we traveled.  I can't believe all that we were able to see in such a short amount of time.  The Little Schwabbies can put another sticker on the map.  We saw South Dakota and we loved it.

Dance

Allie asked if I'd go to the school to watch her dance in the end of year dance festival.  Not very many parents were there because it was just for the kids, but I was glad I went.  Nate and Allie both got reading awards and a coupon for free ice cream for being the top 10 in their grades for reading counts points.  Nate was super excited to hear his name read and Allie was surprised because she didn't think she had enough points this year.  Way to go kiddos!

The next part was their little dance...

I smiled at Nate's fancy footwork...

Allie's class did a dance with sticks.

They did some moves with their sticks and then ended up forming a star in the end.  Allie was the star holder...

I love elementary school.  They do such great things there.  I'm glad Allie gets to stay another year.

Cave Exploration

We went to visit a huge cave just outside of Rapid City.

It used to be a hideout for people running moonshine.

It has all sorts of cool features.

This really does look like an alligator.

They have poured concrete in there for stairs and flooring, and have hand rails at some points in the cave.  There are three levels and lots of different cave formations and crystals.

It reminded me a lot of Nutty Putty, but with a whole lot more room to move around.

This was as far as the tour took us down...

It was fun for the kids.  They haven't ever been in a cave before.  I wish Nutty Putty were still open so I could take them there.  We'll have to go to Timp cave this summer.  We had a good time.

Our Camp Site

The electrical stuff quit working again, so we were hot with no a/c.  We didn't want to find a camp spot with no shade, so we were so happy to find a beautiful place by a reservoir.  It really was so beautiful.  We had so much fun there.  The kids built a great fire, collected wood, "cooked" brews on the camp fire, told stories, laughed, fought with stick "swords" and "guns", had a dance party, and soaked in the beauty.

We had the ingredients for s'mores, so we made those too.

 Jason was too impatient to toast his, so he just shoved it all together and chowed it.

"It's good!"

 Allie was the best marshmallow toaster.  She made perfectly browned marshmallows and the boys were jealous of her skills.

Allie also took my camera for a hike and got some pictures of the boys and of the trees.

She also managed to get a selfie...

Jake got stuck reading.  He hasn't been lost in a book at home for a long time now, so it's fun for me to see him devoting big chunks of time to reading again rather than playing video games.

Everything is a weapon when you are a little Schwabby.

 Nate wasn't away from the fire for long throughout the night.  He loved adding sticks and stirring things up.  He's a little pyro.

It was just a perfect evening.  We had good tunes playing and the kids were all off on some wild adventure.  I love nights like that.  We stayed out long after dark and watched the fire burn down.  South Dakota (at least what we've seen) is beautiful.  When we were about to put out the fire, Mike took us on a walk up the hill to see the stars.  The little boys got more and more nervous as we got out of sight of the fire and camp.  They thought we'd get lost.  We tried to talk them out of their fears, but they wouldn't calm down.  They couldn't even take comfort in knowing we were all together.  They were just sure that we were going to get lost and spend the night out in the wilderness (100 feet away from the motorhome).  When we finally turned around, Jason was so relieved.  He finally said in his little voice "I was just so afraid that we would get eated by something".  Poor kid was terrified. 
When we got in the motorhome, he was still pretty scared, so he made me close up the skylight window.  "What if an animal comes in through it in the night?"  We've got to toughen him up!
Life is good.