Back to South Dakota

Glacier Trip Jewel Cave (7 of 9)
Originally uploaded by Olivia Linkel

The sole purpose of our journey back to South Dakota today was to hit Jewel Cave and if w ehad enough time. Crazy Horse. We left Bismarck around 6:45 mountain time and arrived at Jewel Cave around 3:00 after a brief stint at a rest area for lunch. It was a pretty boring drive considering most of it we have seen and we finished Farmer Boy in the Little House series. Unfortunately, I only brought 3 of the books so we don't have the rest to read on the way home. We are going to stop into DeSmet, SD on tomorrow's drive so that we can see the real towns that the next couple books in the series are based on. Should be fun but I really wish we had the books to read tomorrow.

Anyway, back to Jewel Cave. We picked up our tickets and stopped into the visitor center for junior ranger books. The could get a patch and a badge this time around so we heard a ranger speak about a fire in 2000 and then did the cave tour at 4:00. The kids really enjoyed the tour and unlike our adventure in Virginia in 2007, no one lost their shoe. They took a lot of pictures and even saw a cave troll.

After the tour, we completed our books and drove backs towards Mt. Rushmore to stay at the awesomest KOA we have ever been in. Seriously, if you ever come to Mt. Rushmore you have to stay here. They have chuck wagon dinners and a water slide, horse rides and all kinds of other activities. We made pizza for the kids and grilled hamburgers for us and then headed over to the pool. The brochure says the pool is heated but I think that these folks in SD, ND and Montana, must be used to some pretty cold stuff because there was no way that pool was heated. I opted for the hot tub and eventually Scott and the kids joined me. Then we all took showers and went back tot he camper to build a campfire. Most of the places we have been have either not allowed open fires (fire danger on the prairie) or we have not felt like making one (too windy and cold in Glacier) so I was very happy that our last night out here before officially returning East we could have a fire and make s'mores.

I love s'mores. I am not a fan of marshmallows on their own but once you add the crunchy graham crackers and the soft sweet chocolate, I am hooked. I sometimes even make microwave s'mores at home. Luke mostly likes to eat the chocolate and burn the marshmallows, Scott mostly like to poke the fire and Lorelei likes to eat them but only if someone else makes them. We had a very nice time with the fire and saw the space station pass overhead for the second time on this trip (the other was at the night sky program in Badlands). Scott and I also got to see enough stars in the sky to actually make out the Milky Way which is something we have never seen before. The kids were finally in bed by 10:45 and we have an early start tomorrow with the hopes of making it all the way to Kansas City and then hopefully a 14 hour ride on Saturday to make it home from there.

We have no more National Parks that we plan to see but a few stops along the way will be good if we can manage them. We have completed 4 states on this trip towards our 50 state goal.