10+ years ago we ventured out to South Dakota to enjoy its many wonders. I've been itching to return and let Jadeyn explore and be amazed at the beauty and variety that it has to offer. We had a long weekend so we thought, let's give it a shot!!! It didn't disappoint.
We stayed at one of the Custer State Park campgrounds and ventured out from there. The wildlife loop came with so many beautiful young bucks in velvet and several baby deer still with spots. The Pronghorns and are a given at Custer as well as the prairie dogs, but seeing so many deer was a real treat.
We went on several hikes that were pretty spectacular. One went right
through the Cathedral Spires, giant rocks shooting straight up in the
air completely surrounding us. Amazing and pretty humbling! We went on several hikes that were pretty spectacular. One went right
through the Cathedral Spires, giant rocks shooting straight up in the
air completely surrounding us. Amazing and pretty humbling! 
As we clambered over boulders and rocks, Jadeyn made a pretty cool discovery. Just off the path there was a huge pile of pine needles. Well, move just the top layer of the needles and we found out it was a massive pile of hail stones underneath!!! Two days before while we were in Custer it had hailed and rained pretty heavily. We saw the hail on the side of the road when we returned. But to have hail that big still after two days was incredible!! The pile was about a foot deep and had formed as the rain had washed all the hailstones down through the rock cracks. Jadeyn wanted to play tricks on any hikers behind us and scooped up handful after handful of hail and piled it on the pathway to make the next hikers really wonder!
What to do while camping in a rainstorm!? Well, we are firm believers in not just sitting around in the tent waiting for the rain to stop...so we donned our rain gear and went hiking! We had a beautiful lake trail all to ourselves! (The next day in good weather there were tons of people and motorcycles there!) This trail had a bit of everything; rocks to climb over, granite stairs carved in the the ground, streams to hop over, huge rock steps laying just under the surface of the water to walk on, waterfalls, and ducks! I love my little boy who is so happy in the rain!
Mt Rushmore. One of the coolest sights is found on the drive toward Mt Rushmore. There are several long tunnels carved into the mountain where only one car can pass at a time. Then at the end of the tunnel, perfectly framed is Mt Rushmore in the distance! Quite the sight! We decided not to go clear into the park since we could get such beautiful views from the road. It still is a marvel to me that such perfect faces could be carved into solid rock! Wow!
Okay, So this one is kinda gross...but here it is. We are used to Jadeyn telling stories, making stuff up. He has an amazing imagination. We had just gotten back from the Reptile Gardens and were hanging out around camp when he went off exploring. He came down to announce that he discovered a dead snake!!! He saw a coyote take it and leave the bones. We went with the story until we realized he was being more adamant than usual. Up the hill we went, and by golly, there was the dead snake, mostly bones! Wow!Wind Cave National Park
Jadeyn's first "real" cave and he loved it! Wind cave has a pretty cool history and is special in the caving world since it contains 95% of the world's "Boxwork" formations. That's a pretty astounding number when you consider how many caves there are in the world. I may have my facts a little off, but Boxwork was formed when cracks formed in the solid limestone rock. When the limestone cracked or fractured, calcite filled in the gaps. Rainwater mixed to create carbonic acid and dissolved away the limestone leaving the much harder calcite. Kind of like making a brick wall and then dissolving away the bricks leaving just the mortar behind. It was beautiful and kind of had a spiderweb effect in places.
Wind cave got its name from the way the cave breathes. When the atmospheric pressure changes outside, the cave tried to regulate itself to match the outside so it will breathe or force wind in or out of its small natural opening.
One of our favorite parts is when they tour guide has everyone put away their cameras and phones and asks us all the hold onto a railing. Then they turn out the lights. There are few places where you can truly find complete and utter darkness. Its amazing. Jadeyn was shocked to find out that there wasn't any difference if his eyes were open closed; either way, he couldn't see anything!
Jewel Cave Natural Preserve
We couldn't just do one cave when we were so close so we tour Jewel Cave as well. This cave was created entirely differently from its sister cave so close by. The caves are so close that they predict that someday they will find a link between the two and it will create the absolute longest cave system in the world. 80% of Jewel cave is covered with crystals. They aren't the translucent sparkly ones you may expect, but they are about 1/2 inch thick, 6 sided crystals about 1-2 inches long covering everything! There are placed where the crystal layer is so thick (about 8 inches) that the whole section has fallen away from the underlying rock and you can see a beautiful cross section of the rock.
Since Jewel cave is a "wet" cave, be received several "cave kisses" or drips from the ceiling. Tons of stalagtites and stalagmites, columns and even soda straws! And...drumroll please.... Cave Bacon!!!! The longest example of cave bacon in the world, over 25 feet! Its a strip of rock formed by the dripping water that has a ribbon like quality and really looks like bacon!!!
Wow! Can you say beautiful?! Some of the rarest poisonous snakes and sweetest collection of reptiles in the country are housed in the this place. The plants and landscaping were breathtaking as well.
Of course we loved the crocodile show. The guy presenting it had a funny sense of humor and we all watched a little nervously as more and more crocs and gators started climbing up onto land and surrounding him! Feeding time was cool and watching him wrestle on down was exciting as well. Jadeyn got to pet a baby alligator as well!!
I loved the bird show of course, but the highlight was when our little boy was picked as a volunteer to hold out a dollar bill to be snatched away by one of their fiercest birds. Silly little chicken just ran right past the dollar!
The snake show gave us a little more respect for some of these amazing creatures. Jadeyn was mesmerized and knelt down right against the glass with the other kids in the audience.
And of course, I couldn't go through Reptile Gardens without putting in a few pictures of the prairie dogs!!
The giant land tortoises were our favorite. 10 years ago when Kevin and I visited this place, we love Methuselah, an massive ancient tortoise donated to the gardens by Wild Bill! Sadly, we found out that he died 2 years ago at the age of 130!
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