Keeping Up With The Joneses: June 2014

Amy, Stan, and I thought it would be fun to take a family vacation.
We headed out on Thursday, June 26th.

Our first stop was Little Bighorn Battle Monument near Crow Agency, Montana.

There is a military cemetery at the base

with lots of guys named "Unknown" buried there. Turns out, Unknown are all remains of Custer's 7th Calvary who were never identified, as many of them were quickly buried after the battle.

There are also other soldiers buried here, veterans of wars ranging from Little Bighorn to Vietnam.

The monument includes the graveyard, small museum, and the lands where the fighting took place.

This place was know as "Custer's Battlefield" until the early 90's, when it was renamed "Little Bighorn Battlefield". Over the years, the focus has appropriately changed from Custer and his men to Custer and his men AND the Indians.

We spent a long time at this diorama, a depiction of the way the Calvary used their dead horses as shields. Some little girls were not pleased.

The battlegrounds themselves are quite picturesque.

We learned that Custer's army of around 600 men were surprised by around 1800 Indians.

Soldiers were buried where they fell, including Custer (the black marker), whose remains were later moved to West Point. Horses were also buried in a mass grave here. There were 288 men of the 7th Calvary killed. Estimates of the number of Indians dead range from 23 to 160. Indians removed their fallen soldiers and took them home, so exact numbers of dead are not known.

New since I've been here is the Indian memorial, telling the Native American side of the story. Historians agree there was bad behavior on both sides, but that the U.S. was guilty of breaking promise after promise to local Indian tribes, eventually attempting to force them off of their promised lands in order to take control of local gold mines in intolerable ways.

This large ironwork sculpture is part of the Indian memorial. The decorative girls are removable.

Another new thing since I have been to the monument: markers for known fallen Indians. As of yet, there are only five. We visited 138 years and 1 day after the original battle, but a day before the two-day reenactments that take place each year. Too bad-we had no idea we visited so close to the anniversary or we would have plan our timing a little better.

Our next stop was Broadus, Mt.

Is it just me, or is this really creepy?

Apparently, the main street business owners got tired of drivers running into their buildings and solved the problem by bungee-cording dolls to the posts. It must be working. We didn't see any squished dolls.

We ate lunch at the only place in town- a local hamburger joint. This meal will stand out in my mind as the worst food I've ever eaten. The meat was freezer burned and older than the hills and the buns were whole wheat-not a happy combination.

You can see how popular this hangout is. We could hardly find a seat.

Broadus does have a nice library.

Five or so years ago we passed through Mt. Rushmore with Megan. It was only 5 hours from Billings. Now that we are travelling with the grandkids, they've inconsiderately moved Mt. Rushmore 25 hours from Billings. Trust me. It was a loonnngg car trip.

Hailey demonstrating how tall she is compared to Washington's nose.

Makayla, studying the faces.

Hmm. Where were these smiling faces while we were in the car?

We explored the museum, watched a movie on the making of the faces,

and walked down to Gutzon Borglum's studio to view his models.

Hailey, intrepid explorer that she is, insisted we explore the other side of the monument, a place I've never thought to go.

It was actually quite interesting, giving us views of the monument we'd never seen.

We could get close enough to see the blasting marks on the faces.

We wanted to stay for the evening program, so we ate at the cafeteria at Mt. Rushmore. It was actually very good, and very reasonable, especially since some of us were satisfied with cereal.

Ya gotta love Tom.

I had vanilla raspberry swirl. Yum!

Unfortunately, they lit the monument an hour early while we were eating and hustled us all home since there was a big storm coming. We didn't get far before we were caught in one of the worst storms I've seen--raining coming down so hard and fast it was difficult to drive on the water-covered road, and lots of thunder and lightening. Makayla kept us all alert by shrieking and crying in fear the entire thirty minutes it took to get back to our motel.

Just so you know, she totally doesn't believe the "Angels are bowling in Heaven" story.

Speaking of motels, we stayed at the Motel 6 in Rapid City. Not only was it right next to the noisy freeway, but I didn't realize until too late they didn't serve breakfast, and worst of all, you had to pay extra for wifi. We went wifi-less.

They did, however, provide a room fridge so that we could utilize the local Walmart for food.

On day two we hit Reptile Gardens.

They still have the bird show,

where Hailey was chosen as an audience participator. Here, she demonstrates her superior waving ability.

The show had a bird that flew

back and forth between her and the other volunteer

and took a treat out of their hands. Love Hailey's body language.

Later, Hailey and Makayla stood in line

for the privilege of letting this bird

take money out of their hand and put it into a box.

While at Reptile Gardens we visited Prairie Dog Town,

and the tortoise

visited by grandma

and mom in their own childhoods.

Then it was on to the alligator wrestling.

Hailey was rather disappointed "wrestling" was just some guy sitting on top of an alligator, not actual, fair, fighting.

We waited in line again for the joy or petting the two year old alligator/crocodile,

then headed off to the snake show

to learn about snakes and pet the albino python.

We checked out the greenhouse dome to learn more about reptiles

and try out the silly mirrors.

Of course, no visit to South Dakota is complete without visiting the Cosmos mystery house, where

you shrink or grow by changing sides

stand on the walls,

and generally have your sense of balance seriously challenged.

We stopped for refreshment

before heading off in a hunt for souvenirs. I found this lovely rock, now safely in my yard,

along with some of the rest of my rocks in my rock collection.

Strangely, Makayla and Hailey also chose rocks. Why in the world do these girls love rocks so much???

I've been paying them to read this summer as a way of earning spending money for this trip. They love having power over their own money. Later they also each bought a mood ring.

Our next stop was Bear Country. This is a "stay in your car" place with bears, elk, dear, mountain lions, big horn sheep, mountain goats, buffalo, and antelope.

We saw the food truck arrive to feed the bears and eagerly drove to see what they eat. Today hamburger buns and raw chicken was on the menu. They pretty much ignored the chicken and scarfed down the buns.

There is a small zoo in Bear Country

including a pen of baby bears, separated from their mothers after a few months to keep the male bears from killing them.

It rained every day we were there, including some really heavy, scary storms.

It was a bit windy, too.

We made one more stop before

heading for Jewel Caves. Unfortunately, the tours fill up early in the day and we arrived too late for a tour. There were lots of disgruntled tourists being turned away after we arrived. We were lucky to get in at all.

We signed up for a cave lecture, took a walk,

and checked to see if we could fit into the cave if we ever decided to become professional explorers.

The cave is currently 170 miles long, but they believe it is 210 miles in total. They add a few mapped out feet per year, but the professional explorers have to be able to fit through 8" by 14" spaces.