Summer Travels 2019: Custer State Park, Mount Rushmore

Saturday morning, we headed to Custer State Park so the kids could finish their Junior Naturalist program.

This prairie dog looks strangely familiar. 

The kids attended a program on bats.

There was a swallow nest in the pavilion with five tiny heads peeking out.

We watched the parents flying back and forth over the field collecting food and then coming back to feed them.

Swearing in as Junior Naturalists.

Obligatory picture with the elk.

They had a little corn snake in the center that they pulled out for the kids to pet.

Me and Matthew went off on a little nature hike (The Cairn Trail) around the center.

View of the surroundings.

Megan worked on a coloring sheet at the nature center.

As did Sarah. She spent around 2 hours coloring her sheet.

Sarah's final coloring sheet

Showing it off with the mountain goat.

Matthew and U were building tracks out of pipes that they had in the back area.  There were different pieces of wood you could roll down the pipes.

The whole set up.

Then we found an area where we could build with big sections of wood.  This is a catapult to defend the house from enemies.

The house is starting to take form.

Megan was playing in the sand box.

We all took a break to participate in the Bison Olympics. We learned lots of interesting facts about bison. For instance, they can do a standing long jump of 10-20 feet and a running long jump of 20-30 feet. They weigh between 1200-2000 pounds.

Here Megan is touching some bison fur.

They had skulls and bones to feel too.

One of the naturalists showing off the skull.

Sarah can lift ten gallons of water.  A buffalo can drink twice that in a day.

This block represented how much food they eat in a day (45-60 pounds of grass).

Sarah is either using a jetpack to hover or trying to jump as high as a bison (6 feet high).

She jumped high, but not as high as a bison.

Matthew jumping.

Megan jumping.

Sarah running.  She clocked in at 18.6 mph. The naturalist told her she should be a runner because she went so fast. Bison can run up to 35 miles per hour.

Megan running. She went 13.9 mph. Matthew ran 10.6 mph.

Sarah made another art project at the nature center as well.

Megan and Matthew hanging out in the house we built. (The log here is artificial but made a great base for building.)

U and Matthew showing off their handiwork.

Matthew in the built up section.

The back side of the house.

The front side of the house.

Matthew picked up a dirt smudge along the way.

This was the governor who worked to create Custer State Park.

Me with the governor. 

Sarah dancing with the governor.

Next we went to the Badger Clark House.  Badger Clark was a cowboy poet and had special permission to build his house in the park.

Baby birds in a nest on his porch.

Picture of Badger with one of his poems.

His guest bedroom. The flag has 48 stars on it.

Pictures and keepsakes over the mantle.  When he died, the person who inherited the house just locked it up so it has been preserved as he left it.

You can tell he was a bachelor.  He stored his poisons with his spices.

All the kitchen stuff is authentic and left from what he had in the house.  This is his pantry.

Pretty pheasant curtains.

His outhouse hasn't been kept up over the years.

Shadows on the ground.

We then went to Reptile Gardens for a few hours. Everyone really liked spending time there.

We ate dinner at the Powder House Restaurant in Keystone.  This is Me's yummy salad.

Interesting facts about the presidents on Mount Rushmore.
Interesting fact about our family and the presidents on Mount Rushmore: we have visited one of the houses of each of the presidents on Mount Rushmore.

Facts about Mount Rushmore.

Afterwards we went back to Mount Rushmore for one more look.

This is the primary sculptor of the mountain.  His son finished it after he died.

Some people say there is an elephant on the mountain to the right of Lincoln.

Good thing we saw the Avenue of Flags the other day: now it is all torn up for remodeling.

Tired kids and Mount Rushmore.