South Dakota Black Hills

    We spent 2 nights at Crystal Park Campground in Newcastle, WY when we picked Makayla up from Bible Camp. It's a very nice campground, if you're ok with a gravel lot with big trees and not many neighbors! We especially liked that they had price options with or without sewer and water hook-ups. Full-time family friends Bill and Lisa were there as well (their daughter also attended camp) so we spent our time wisely and cooked much delicious food and solved as many of the world's problems as possible.

Michael building a "trap" for to catch Ethan :)

The restaurant in action!

     Saturday morning we had to pick our girls by 7:30. After cooking up a great breakfast of pancakes and bacon, everyone scattered for some down time. Some slept, some watched a movie, and some hit the local thrift store :). One of my favorite things about this lifestyle is the chance to check out new thrifts stores in nearly every time. My deal this time was 4 Leapfrog DVD's for $1 each! We've been borrowing them and renewing at every library we can find them so this will be great. If you have 2-8 year olds I cannot recommend them enough! Fun little songs for phonics sounds, rules, and much more make learning a snap! We also had to stock up on groceries.

     Sunday we attended the local First Baptist Church since Jea and Makayla had a girl in their cabin at camp from there. After lunch together we packed up headed south into the Black Hills.

     We had found a boondocking spot near Custer State Park on freecampsites.net and headed there. The road got increasingly narrow and bumpy, especially considering that we were towing a 40 foot 5^th wheel! But, as the internet promised, there was beautiful meadow that was worth every bump. The children discovered wild raspberries on the hill and picked enough to make 2 pies plus we ate a lot!

Near dusk we drove to Custer State Park and drive through the Wildlife Loop. We saw lots of deer and a turkey with her babies before we ever got there! Once inside the park, we were thrilled to see a huge bull bison lazing in the shade of a tree. There was also antelope, prairie dogs, and wild burros to be seen.  

Monday we packed a picnic and drove the Needles Loop. I believe it was about 60 miles and took us through amazing country. We were disappointed that we didn't see more wildlife but the tunnels were a huge hit! 6 tunnels, cut out of the granite rocks were 1 lane only. The most narrow one gave us only 4 inches to spare! I think we were all holding our breath until we made it through without scraping! So yes, you do want to heed all the signs with the width and height warnings! The other cool feature is that several were engineered to frame Mt. Rushmore.

The best surprise was at the peak of Needles Pass where we spotted a small mountain goat lounging on the rocks while lots of crazy tourists took pictures. Parts of this road were so narrow and curvy it was nerve-racking! Most people were polite and took turns so that helped.

Another unexpected surprise was how awesome it was to view Mt. Rushmore from a distance. The loop took us past the Memorial and we didn't stop but still got some cool views. We thought it was cool to see men climbing on George Washington preforming maintenance!

Eye of the needle

Monday evening we drove the Wildlife Loop at Custer State Park again. We were so happy to see a large herd of bison and 4 bull elk!

It was to dark for any good pictures

 Tuesday we headed north towards "home". We drove past Crazy Horse Memorial but opted to just view it from the road instead of paying the high entry fee. It will be massive when it's done!

We had a lovely stop in Spearfish, South Dakota at the fish hatchery and Wal-mart to stock up on groceries. The hatchery was free and one of the best we've been too!

Tuesday evening we were back in Baker and happy to get settled in for a few weeks again :).