That's it. Off in the distance is Devil's Tower National Monument. Mount Rushmore was a long day but we rushed to see if we could quickly see this site. Glad we did because it was perfect and still left us only 1 day behind.
On the way there, we saw a small herd of these straggly looking goats. There were 6 or 7 of them on the side of the road so we stopped to get a picture.
We made it to the Visitor's Center at 6:15 and it closed at 7. So we rushed in to see how fast we could get our Junior Ranger stuff done. The park ranger was very nice and went ahead and filled out certificates and gave me the badges to give the kids when they finished. PERFECT!!! We were able to relax and just enjoy the site while the kids worked on their stuff (which was a nature booklet. If they saw a squirrel, check it off. If they saw ... Pretty easy stuff.) These telescopes were free to see close ups of the large rock formation.
And there it is. And Alex is sporting her Mount Rushmore badge. That was the only badge she earned on the trip so she was extra proud of it.
We followed a trail around the base of Devil's Tower and the kids enjoyed climbing some of the side boulders. You'll see Izzy's beginnings of a black eye (at the end of this post) from not being so careful on these rocks.=(
You can kind of see random ribbons tied to some branches in the trees all around the tower. These are hung up by indians who still worship at this site. They are prayer ribbons to keep the evil spirits away or something like that. Very fascinating stuff. I didn't know there were still rituals like that still performed for real instead of just show. Very cool indeed.
And there it is. The humble beginnings of the famous black eye to be. At first glance it looked fine, but very quickly swelled to be a golf-ball sized lump on her cheek. (Also notice her fancy badges.=)
It doesn't look bad ... yet. Wait til tomorrow.
Almost done with our trail, Glen spotted 2 deer grazing in the grass close to us. They just watched us and slowly went their own way. It was a fun close-up.
And I finally got to show Glen a mountain bluebird. I'd seen a few so far on the trip and had never seen something so bright blue before. Absolutely gorgeous.


