Summer Family Fun - Day Three

Warning!  This is a long post.  We crammed a lot into one day!

 We started off day three of our journey at Custer State Park.  My description won't do it justice, but suffice it to say, we could have spent a week just there alone without doing all of the other things on our agenda.  This just means we'll have to come back.

 It was indescribably beautiful, but truly, my favorite part was just watching my boys take in the beauty and enjoy themselves and each other without needing our direction or electronics to have fun.

 There were many wild animals that live in the park. We don't get to see big horn sheep, prairie dogs, antelope and bison in the wild in Texas.

 During our drive through the park, the boys asked us to pull over so they could climb this large hill.  It is hard to tell from this picture, but it is very steep.  Andrew and Matthew made it to the top with Paul.  Jacob tried his best to keep up, but ended up turning back to get a drink and a snack.

We continued our expiration at Mount Rushmore.  

 We checked out the museum portion and hiked the grounds. It is truly an amazing sight!

 Not far from Mount Rushmore is the Crazy Horse Memorial.  This is the model with the mountain in the background.  Only the face is completed at this time.

The memorial's mission is to honor the culture and heritage of Native Americans.  Work began on it in 1948 and there is no official completion date scheduled,   Jacob fell asleep in Paul's arms while we were there, so  he missed Crazy Horse, but it was time well spent for him as we still had one stop to make at Jewel Cave National Monument.  

 Jewel Cave is the second longest cave in the world.  

 It has a year round temperature of 49 degrees.  This cave is still being explored and mapped out.  Each weekend during the summer, cavers head into the darkness to find and map new areas of the cave.  It is believed that there are between 7 and 14 BILLION cubic feet of cave in total.  Cavers have to be able to squeeze into a 7.5 in space to explore new areas.  The boys ALL had to prove that they could do it.

 More adventures to come tomorrow as we head east to Minnesota!