South Dakota Vacation - Day 5

Day 5 - we left our hotel early as we had to be in Hot Springs by 9 for our Mammoth Site tour.  We knew it would take up to an hour to drive there as well as a few letterboxing, photo stops along the way.  Our first stop was a quick one to find a letterbox.  While Matt searched, we had a wonderful view of Crazyhorse.

We then stopped in Custer to get some pictures. 

Further south of Custer, we drove through Wind Cave National Park and saw a few more herd of buffalo along the way. 

We got to the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs with a few minutes to spare.  The kids found these fun hats for our crazy hat picture.  The Mammoth Site is an active dig site and mammoth research facility.  The tour was very interesting, to say the least.  We don't totally agreed with everything that they stated, but it seemed to be more in line with our thoughts on creation than other sites that we have heard of.

Our tour guide used a phone system to speak to us rather than yelling to be heard. 

The kids got to participate in the Jr Paleontologist Program.  They got to dig for replicated bones and fossils.  

We ate lunch in Hot Springs and then headed back through Wind Cave National Park to our next stop - the Wildlife Loop at Custer State Park.  We were looking forward to seeing all kinds of animals along this loop.  We stopped in Custer to purchase carrots to feed the wild donkeys and horses.  We looked with expectation all over the landscape for these animals with no luck.  To say we were disappointed was an understatement.  We had seen buffalo in another section of Custer State Park on Day 4.  We had seen buffalo in Wind Cave Nat'l Park (see below)...but NOTHING on the Wildlife Loop.  The 2 buffalo that we saw were near the Coolidge Summer White House (other buffalo picture below).

Will - continuing to be bored in the van (not driving!)

We left Custer State Park and headed to Rapid City for dinner.  We stopped along the way to snap a picture of some big presidential heads!  Here is Will with President George W Bush.

Rapid City has a beautiful "mountaintop view".  We drove to the top in search of dinosaurs!

We stopped back at the Storybook Island to take a few more pictures for our photo scavenger hunt.

We ended our night with dinner at the Firehouse Brewing Co. in Rapid City.  This restaurant is an old fire station!  It was wonderful food and a great atmosphere.

Check out Will's Eagle Nest!

 We went to bed not having a clue that our vacation was going to make a drastic change in a few short hours...