Yellowstone Trip Day 3

Guess where we went first? 

The kids loved Mt. Rushmore, can't you tell?

I loved the name 'Borglum'. He was the main sculptor. Say it out loud and you'll love it too! It just feels so funny in your mouth.

Peeky-boo George. 

If you're in shape for walking lots of steps, I highly recommend the little hike at the park. Its a good chance to stretch your legs and is pretty.

Next we travelled down to Wind Cave National Park. We were early for our tour, so we had PB&Honey sandwiches from the cooler. They were sooooo good! I've become a fan of car lunching on vacations. 

The day before, I had stumbled upon a podcast about Wind Cave, so we listened in the car to prepare ourselves. That made it even cooler. This formation in the above picture is box work and 95% of the box work in the world is in this cave (the other 5% is in Jewel cave nearby). Imagine you built a house out of sugar bricks and regular mortar. Then when it rained, all the sugar dissolved away and just the mortar is left. That's what the boxwork is like; the rock dissolved away and the minerals that had seeped in the cracks was left behind. Cool! It makes a lot of sense so I'm amazed you can't find it elsewhere in the world.

This cave was also different for us because it didn't have a lot of big rooms to stop and chat. Lots of long, tight-ish passageways and only a few stops. We all enjoyed it!

After that, we headed to the Mammoth Site at Hot Springs (different from Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone!) for the kids' 2:00 dig appointment. It was a great break while traveling. The kids took their shoes off, got dirty, used all their muscles and were amazed at how huge a mammoth scapula really is!

That night, we stayed in CASPER, Wyoming. Of course we did! So fun to see our name everywhere. I told Jim I really wanted Chinese food, so he found a good one using Yelp which happened to be in an old Pizza Inn in the industrial part of town. Only the best for us! (but it did taste good)

More swimming and sleeping that night. Tomorrow - we finally reach our Yellowstone house (5 hours late).