If you are from the Arizona desert,and rarely see snow, you'll understand how exciting it is to go play in the white stuff whenever you can find it. We thought we'd seen the last of the snow when we left Yellowstone this morning but we had forgotten about the Powder River pass through the Big Horn mountains of Wyoming that crests at almost 10,000 feet. Ally spotted the snow the minute we opened the door and off she went.
This time she decided to show Elvis how to play with a snowball. Being a Vegas dog this was his first time to bounce around in the snow. Charley too.
She was so busy with Elvis she didn't notice Grandma aiming for her. Score one for Grandma! It's about time.
We all had a great romp in the snow. I'm thinking with Ally's love of snow that perhaps she should visit Alison, Steve, and Cody next winter for a big dose of the white stuff in those beautiful Colorado mountains. Is it time to learn to ski?
One last snowball for the summer. We're headed for the prairie. No snow there for sure.
We've landed at Spearfish (SD) City Park for the night. What a nice surprise. Our sites are terrific and there's an historic (late 1800's) fish hatchery at the park. It's a great place to just relax after a long day's drive.
Ally will be leaving us when we get to Minnesota. Charley is worried about who is going to take over as "Chef de S'more". He thinks he's the one to do that so he's paying close attention. Do you think we'll ever see one of those S'mores if he's cooking?
It's a beautiful night to sit around the campfire and sing campfire songs. That last part is a bit of a stretch. I think I'd better stick with it's a beautiful night to sit around the campfire.
Despite the fun we're having, I think our travel companions for the past few weeks (Gil, Nancy, and Elvis) and we are feeling a little sad tonight as we see this adventure together coming to an end after we visit Mount Rushmore in a couple of days. They'll be headed back towards Montana as we head to Minnesota. Our plans are to hook up again in August but, seriously, who will be our S'more chef?????
After our night in Spearfish we moved on to our next home, Custer State Park (SD). Wind Cave National Park sits just south of there so we decided to explore one more park and were glad we did. Wind Cave is the 4th largest cave in the world in terms of its discovered passageways. That's about 132 miles at the current time and it is still being explored. What is really interesting is that all of these passageways sit under one square mile of surface area so it's like a high rise of caves. It doesn't have some of the more common formations that are commonly found in caves but it has a very unusal formation called boxwork. The ceilings are covered with the lacy boxes. It's very different and beautiful. We had a wonderful tour Ranger, Mike, who had been with the park for many years. After our tour Ally wanted to shop at the park store and she picked out the latest edition of the book on Wind Cave to add to her collection. She was thrilled to see Mike's photo inside and now she has an autographed edition.
She also managed to complete her Junior Ranger workbook on the park and score another Junior Ranger badge. She was lucky in that this Junior Ranger program could all be done at one place, the Cave, versus Yellowstone or Grand Teton where you have to travel to different places. Some are easy and some are tough but the important thing is that these programs make you learn about the parks.
Pronghorn are a little skittish and are very fast which can make photographing them a challenge. On our way from Wind Cave to our campsite in Custer State Park we were lucky to be able to sit and watch these Moms and babies for a while. As our MN RV friend, Sandy, said, "The photos look like Fore and Aft." So here's
"Fore"
and here's "Aft".
I saw these two adults talking and could hear one say to the other, "The kids are driving me nuts!"
As we approached our campsite these female Big Horn Sheep wanted some attention and they got it. Traffic just stopped for a spell as they decided where they want to go.
Both mornings we were in Custer State Park we were greeted by the Bison herd moving through on their daily routine. There was much growling going on to keep the herd moving.
This big ole guy thought he was in charge...
but this Mom and calf had another idea.
While camped at Custer we visited Mount Rushmore National Memorial.
Ron and I had visited Mount Rushmore last September. It was a great time of year to be there. I have to admit the crowds and the heat this year were a bit much.
I was glad that Ally could do most of her Junior Ranger program at the museum and visitor center.
After learning lots of interesting things about Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Abe Lincoln we treated ourselves to some of the best ice cream I've ever had at the ice cream shop at Rushmore. Maybe it was the heat, or all that brain power we'd used, but that ice cream was the best!
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