South Dakota with the Jacobsons

At the end of July, we went to South Dakota to meet up with our friends the Jacobsons. This was a hard trip to figure out. They are busy people, and we almost changed the trip a couple of times. I feel like I had to learn the hard way this summer about trying to do trips with friends. Its fun, but it is also hard. I am always so worried about if they are having a good time. Ha, I don't have to wonder that this time. They for sure didn't have a good time. Spoiler alert, we all got Noravirus and were so sick. 

Well, we didn't know that is how it was going to turn out, so we optimistically loaded up our van with all of the snacks, and left in the afternoon, while John finished up working in the car. Everything was fine and exciting until we hit Evanston. We had planned on driving most of the way through Wyoming that evening and had a reservation for a hotel in Rawlins. When we got to Evanston, we checked the navigation for some reason. I don't really know why we did. I knew that we needed to just head east on I15 until Rawlins. Maybe I wanted to check how many hours it estimated that would be? Well, it was a good thing we did because we found out about a freeway closure! Unfortunately, Wyoming doesn't have a lot of roads. So Google Maps told us that the freeway was closed, and there were no alternative routes. No alternative routes?! Seriously?! How is that even possible? We found out that there was a bad wildfire which is why the freeway was closed, but it sure put a wrench in our plans. 

What were we supposed to do? At one point one of our phones showed an alternative route that wasn't exactly ideal. Basically we had to meander through the desolation of Wyoming. We went north for a while, then east for a minute, then south for a while, then east a little bit more, then north again for while, then south, and on and on. We made lots of jokes about how we were going to stumble across secret government facilities and the real place they keep alien space ships. I mean we were joking, but there were some weird looking facilities in the distance a ways off the road. 

It was all fine, but it did add 3.5 hours to our drive that day, which is a little more than can comfortably be added. The scariest part is that we passed ZERO gas stations through the whole of our drive. We did pass an occasional small town, but there was no gas stations ever. Where do these people get fuel? We ended up stopping for the night in Casper, which does have gas stations, but I think the fuel estimator thought we only had about 20 more miles until empty when we rolled into a gas station. Talk about cutting it close! I don't know what we would have done had we not been able to make it to Casper. Kinda scary to think about. 

We missed our reservation in Rawlins, but the hotel in Casper was nicer. We crashed when we got there because it was so late, but in the morning we got a nice breakfast. We also got to swim in their cute indoor pool. I particularly liked the floating alligator. 

Because we ended up going further than we intended the night before we were able to play a little more that day. We swam in the pool, and then we stopped at the Mammoth Site. 

The Mammoth Site was surprisingly fascinating and a little horrifying to see all of those bones stacked together. Over 60 mammoths (58 Columbian, 3 woolly) have been unearthed, along with at least 87 other Late Ice Age animals. They way they count the Mammoths is to count how many tusks there are and divide by two, which is a little crazy. Why don't they count skulls? Maybe tusks are better preserved? The mammoth tusks are actually incisor teeth that never stop growing. They can weigh over 100 lbs, and the mammoths had special muscles that went into their back to help support the weight of them. 

The Mammoth Site is in Hot Springs, South Dakota. It contains a high concentration of mammoth skeletons because it's a prehistoric sinkhole that trapped animals, including mammoths, in its steep-sided waters, preventing them from escaping. It was essentially a death trap that was eventually closed by skeletons. 

The majority of the mammoth skeletons found are male, possibly because young, male mammoths, who are often expelled from their matriarchal herds, would wander alone and be more likely to get trapped in such a sinkhole. This site is an ongoing excavation site. 

I thought this was a ground sloth, but it is actually a short faced bear. Short faced bears are not actually short. The extinct short-faced bear, Arctodus simus, was a massive animal, standing up to 11 feet tall when standing on its hind legs and weighing up to 2,110 pounds (957 kg). It was bigger and faster than any bear alive today. 

It was kinda freaky to see how high these bears could have reached on this post. So so tall!

Almost all of the mammoths at this site were the biggest types of mammoths. Kinda crazy to stand next to how big they would have been. 

Napoleon Bone-A-Part

Napoleon is the oldest and most complete Columbian mammoth found at the Site

How old was Napoleon when he died?

Paleontologists can determine the age of a mammoth based on which teeth are present in its mouth and their level of wear. Based on his teeth, Napoleon is estimated to have been 49 years old when he died.

How do we know Napoleon was one of the earliest mammoths to have died in the sinkhole?

In a sequence of rock layers, such as the sediments that filled in the sinkhole, the oldest layers are at the bottom, and layers get progressively younger toward the top. This geologic principle is called the Law of Superposition. This principle is used in stratigraphy, the study of rock layer.

Uncovered in 1979, Napoleon was found in a much lower layer than the other mammoths, making him one of the oldest stratigraphically.

After the Mammoth Site and sweaty picnic outside we headed over to Mount Rushmore. We met up with the Jacobsons there. We ended up there about 5pm, which was an absolutely gorgeous time to go. It was also less crowded than we expected.

Fun Facts About Mount Rushmore

The monument features the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, chosen to represent the nation's founding, growth, development, and preservation. 

The carving took 14 years, from 1927 to 1941, with over 400 workers, mostly miners, using dynamite and precision tools. 

Dynamite was used to blast away 90% of the rock, with the remaining 10% removed by hand by stonemasons using precision tools. 

Amazingly, no workers died during the construction, despite the dangerous conditions and the use of dynamite. 

Each head is about 60 feet (18 meters) tall, and the nose of each president is about 20 feet long, while the mouth is about 5.5 feet wide. 

The entire project cost approximately $989,992.32 (equivalent to $17.4 million in 2020), funded by federal and state funds, as well as private donations. 

The sculptor behind Mount Rushmore was Gutzon Borglum, who also supervised the work with his son, Lincoln Borglum. 

There is a hidden chamber, known as the Hall of Records, carved into the rock behind the giant stone heads, which is inaccessible to tourists. 

The rate of erosion of the sculpture is estimated to be one inch every 10,000 years. 

The mountain is made of granite. 

Mount Rushmore was named in 1885 for New York attorney Charles E. Rushmore. 

Today, Mount Rushmore attracts about two million visitors each year. 

 

Scale Model. 1:12 one inch = one foot. The last model made by the sculptor in 1936 midway during the construction process. Because of a variation in the rock formation. Plans did not include the lower portion of this model. 

For some reason it had never occurred to me before this trip that the massive rock pile/mountain side in front of Mount Rushmore was the debris from the blasting to make the carvings. I guess it makes sense that they had no reason to cart off all that granite anywhere. It does feel like they didn't clean up from their crafting project though. :)  

We went on a walk around the grounds enjoyed seeing the little nooks and crannies of the area.

For some reason, I really enjoyed seeing all of these flags. 

Our girls and the Jacobson kids did the Junior Ranger Program. It was a good ice breaker to get our kids talking to each other. And it was fun to learn all the info they had to collect to achieve the certification.

The next morning we went to Bear Country. This is a tourist attraction where you drive around a nature park and see different kinds of animals from your car. The main event is obviously bears, but I was surprised to see a lot of other fun animals too. 

Majestic Elk

Arctic wolves just chilling beside the road

Big Horn Sheep

The Arctic Wolves don't care if there is a car there or not

The Big Horn Sheep eating their breakfast. 

Reindeer

At first we couldn't really see the bears because they were all just hiding in their dens.

Even those these bears look brown, they are actually black bears. Some were definitely losing their winter coats. It was pretty warm in South Dakota while we were there. 

This poor guy almost seemed like he was molting. 

I was so glad to be behind my car door when this one started walking toward me.

These ones were so fun to watch--their heads just poking out of the water and wiggling around. They were playing in the water. At the far side of the pool there was a water slide of sorts, and we were definitely hoping one of the bears would make use of it. 

Other bears joined them in the water to cool off. Some workers came into the enclosure (outside of a car) and among other things, sprayed off bears with hoses to cool them down. It sounded fun but also really scary to do that. 

Pronghorn

Buffalo

Timber Wolves

Skunks

Raccoon

Porcupine

Bobcat

Maybe the highlight of the whole visit was seeing the bear cubs. They were all wrestling, climbing all over each other, and licking each other (especially the ears). The amount of giggling at watching them suck on each other's ears! The best was when there was a chain of bears sucking on each other ears. It was hilarious. 

Bobcat

All of our kiddos!

After Bear World we went to Storybook Island. We had a picnic lunch first which was super yummy! And then we walked around this darling park that had all these classic stories represented. It was adorable. Unfortunately it was boiling at this time, so I think most everyone didn't enjoy it that much. We stayed for probably too long considering the temperature, but it was really cute. 

Robing Hood

The Three Little Pigs

Winnie the Pooh

Cinderella's Carriage

Noah's Arc (not fictional)

The Wizard of Oz

Cat in the Hat

Jack and the Beanstalk

Jonah's whale (not fictional)

Lion King

After the sweltering Storybook Island Park, we headed to downtown Rapid City to go to the Natural History Museum. This was fun, but not crazy amazing compared to the museums we had seen in Boston. Still some cool fossils, minerals, and gems though. 

I must have been smiling at one of the girls taking my photo on their phones. 

Good thing we're raising a bunch of nerds for this kind of activity. :) 

Glow in the dark minerals

There was a dress up station!

The shark tooth found with this mosasaur skull confirms that these two animals coexisted in the Cretaceous seas. This tooth is from a shark that was most likely too small to prey upon the large mosasaur. The tooth probably fell out while the shark was scavenging the mosasaur after it died

Tylosaurus

a mosasaur from South Dakota

The problem with this museum was that we accidentally left Holland in the parking lot. We were worried about where we were allowed to park on this campus and connecting with the Jacobsons. So when we parked and hopped out of the car to talk to them, we didn't notice that Holland didn't hop out with us. I feel like a terrible mother that I didn't notice for a few minutes that she wasn't with us. She just tends to run ahead or behind, but not often right with me. So when we got there, we couldn't find her. I do feel like some of the responsibility is on her. If everyone is getting out of the car, she shouldn't keep reading. She should be self aware enough to join her family in getting out of the car when we are getting out. But still I felt terrible. Not the best mothering moment for sure. Not that John is any less guilty than me, but still the only person I can control is me, and I know that my number one priority is my kids' safety. That should be John's responsibility too, but that doesn't mean that I didn't fail too. Thankfully we noticed and went and found her. 

After the museum we headed to a little lake up in the Black Hills. This was surprisingly fun. We should have and would have spent more time playing at these lakes. They are gorgeous and all over the place. I wish I knew which exact lake we visited, but it was great. We just parked and went to the sandy beach. We weren't planning on playing during the day at the lake so we didn't have our covering swimsuits. In fact I only brought swimming suits on a whim in case we time to swim at the hotel (we did, just not at the expected hotel). It was weird to not having covering swimsuits. I felt like I had to explain that us wearing "normal" swimsuits, was so not normal in this situation. 

The kids were super cute doing hand stand contests, chucking sandy mud at each other, and just having water fights. The cool water felt heavenly after the hot, hot day. I can't believe that we happened to got to South Dakota during a heat wave.  

We just hung out with Jeff and Debbie and tried to make sure that Darcy wasn't going to drown. We were doing that great of a job in this photo considering we're looking away from Darcy to take the photo. Jeff was funny and first took a selfie on our phone. 

Sand castle from Holland

And that was the last photo from the trip. It is so sad that we got sick for what was hopefully going to be the second day of the trip. We had planned on going to a cave tour and to another lake. Not to mention just hanging out together. Well we did hang out together but everything else got cancelled. 

After the afternoon at the lake, we headed back to the rental. Debbie made dinner, and we were laughing and having a good time, until Mason said he didn't feel well. Pretty soon he was throwing up. At first they blamed how hot he got during the day. And then other people started getting sick. Next we blamed it on the lake water that the kids probably ingested. But the adults started not feeling well, which wouldn't have come from the lake because none of the adults got close to drinking any of the water. So then we started blaming it on the mouse that we saw in the rental because we hadn't really eaten any food to speak of together. Eventually because of the vomiting and fever and such we decided we just must have been exposed to Norovirus in the rental because we all got sick at virtually the same time. Per usual Miriam got hit the hardest in our family. She threw up like 50x she said. John and I mainly got a fever. Thankfully Darcy and Holland didn't really get it. Phew! 

Well, after enduring a day of that we spent one more night and drove home the next morning. I just took some meclizine and dozed for a lot of the drive. John was a trooper and drove the whole time. Thankfully we were able to make it home via the most direct route, and it all worked out with no vomiting on the drive. I don't know if the Jacobsons will ever want to go on a trip with us again, but it was fun before the virus hit.