"Now Somewhere in the Black Mining Hills of Dakota....

...lived a young man named Rocky Raccoon."  I always thought that song said "South" Dakota.  Are there Black Hills in both Dakotas?  I'm sure I don't know and am not really going to take the time to find out, no matter how easy it is with Google, Bing, etc.

After Cabin Time, This set of Worleys, young and old, headed for those Black Hills.  We were going to see Mount Rushmore.  In South Dakota.  And to see anything else that struck our fancy.  So we struck out in our trusty Jeep and Mini-van, loaded with kids and snacks.  On July 30.  We saw lots of motorcycles as we went.  Lots. Of. Motorcycles!  Come to find out, it was the start of the annual Sturgis Rally.  In Sturgis, SD.  If you do not know what that is, feel free to Google it!

Our must stop place was Wall Drug Store.  In Wall, South Dakota.  We stopped, we ate, we shopped around.  It is a lovely place to spend a lot of time walking around.  After we had been in the car all day, it was nice for the kids to burn off some energy.  The only sad part was that we arrived in Custer, SD in the dark, and missed seeing a lot of beautiful hills on our way in.


The next day, we decided to see the Crazy Horse Monument first.  I had never heard of it!  I was not thinking it would be very impressive, but it actually was.

This might be my favorite view of Crazy Horse!  You would have to enlarge the picture to see the monument itself.  Which is not nearly completed.  They are working on it with donations and not government money, so it has taken a lot of years to get this far.  There was an interesting museum, good video about the sight.  You could actually pay extra and take a van to the top of the mountain and stand in front of the face of Crazy Horse.  We opted out of that plan.

This is a statue of what the entire monument is supposed to look like when it is finished.

This is a better picture of what you could see with your eyes.

We had a refreshing snack, and then headed on over to Mount Rushmore.  And it is a very pretty drive.  Lots of green.  Something we don't always see in Texas.  I was expecting it to be cool up north.  It was in the 80's, which IS cool, but not as cool as I thought it would be.  And if you are standing in the hot sun, it is still rather warm.  But it was a beautiful day for sightseeing!

This is the view as you walk in and head toward the main viewing area for Mount Rushmore.  Again, beautiful!  There were again museums, book stores, videos etc. for you to see to learn more about the history.  I don't know if the kids will remember any of that, but we have proof they were there!

They were sitting on a wall.  It looks scary when you look at the picture, but it wasn't.  Although it looks like Miles might have thought it was a little scary.  Or, he is just planning in his head how he is going to climb that mountain!  I guess I should not show him North by Northwest with Cary Grant.  But things have changed a lot since that movie.

Now on to The Badlands.  This is my family walking way off from where I was.  Wow.  I didn't want to walk that far.  So I took a picture instead.  There is no way to describe this whole area.  There are lots of scenic spots to explore and take pictures.  And we did.

I think I was trying to take a Panorama picture here.  But look where we were sitting.  No fences, either.  You just could sit there and take it all in.

I'm guessing the kids will remember playing in the rocks of the Badlands.

And I love this picture of Eli!

Another panoramic view.  There are so many different types of rocks and hills in The Badlands, that it would take up way too much space to put all the pictures on.  It was a glorious day driving from one scenic spot to the next.

And what would a trip through The Badlands be without a close encounter with a buffalo!  When we first saw him/her, we weren't sure it was real.  But it started moving.  I'm taking this picture,  taking my time, and Jay is shouting that I'd better hurry up and get back in the car.  Our friendly buffalo kindly ignored us and strolled across the parking lot to another patch of grass.

All in all, a great vacation up north this year.  We took the scenic road back.  Mike and I decided to stop in Liberal, Kansas.  The rest of the family headed on home.  By the time we got there, it was almost midnight.  We were glad we stopped, because it was fun driving through all the little towns on the way home the next day.  Don't think it would have been as much fun in the dark!

The Lord says, 

"I will make you wise and show you where to go.

I will guide you and watch over you."

Psalm 32:8