Mattmiller Vaca -South Dakota Tour - Part 2

The second day consisted of walking the shops of Keystone, taking a ride on the 1880's Train and visiting Crazy Horse.

Tons of fun!

The train ride was lots of fun. Very pretty views along the way and also very informational. The girls were so excited to ride on a train!
We went from Keystone to Hill City and then back again after a short break in Hill City. It was a couple hours total.

Thumb's up!

Here it comes!

SO excited!

Sidney loved looking out the window!

Silly Sidney

The girls thought giving the tickets up to get checked was pretty cool.

We actually saw quite a few deer along the route.

cute little bridge

That afternoon we decided to go see Crazy Horse, since I was the only one who hadn't seen it yet.
It was pretty interesting and they had quite a lot in their museums.

There were so many beautiful things inside the museum area.

These are the measurements of the finished project

details of Crazy Horse's finished head

It was neat to see! We also had a good supper there before we headed back to the hotel.
We had promised the girls we'd take them swimming.....we did. But it was SOOO cold....only momma went in the pool for a little bit with the girls. None of us made it very long before we were sitting in the hot tub.....but the hot tub felt so freakishly hot since the pool was so cold!!

The girls got to end the night with some ice cream grandma and grandpa picked up at a shop and we all went to bed exhausted.

The next morning, Rick and Carol had to part ways and they headed back to WI. It was hard to say goodbye after spending a whole week together.

Mike, the girls and I headed to Reptile Gardens to see what that was all about. It is actually pretty cool and they have a ridiculous number of snakes there! Mike did very well since all but 2 snakes were behind glass. :)

Check out my next post to see photos from our visit there!!

Mattmiller Vaca -South Dakota Tour - Part 1

After restocking our bags and Mike's parents packing all their things up (they were heading home from SD), we headed up to Keystone, SD.

The girls on our way up to Keystone. They both loved riding in the minivan we rented for the week!

So much space!

First order of business was a trip through Bear Country USA. It was a really nice drive through it because it was a little cooler, so all the bears were a little more active. We had to take a five minute break when we first pulled into the parking lot towards the end since it started raining, but thankfully, it let up quick and we were able to go see all the little animals.

I took a RIDICULOUS amount of photos....so I will try to post as few as possible....but I might make this a 3 part series instead of 2 parts.....we'll see. :)

Elk

Baby Reindeer - it's ok, you can say "awww" at the incredible cute

baby reindeer

another baby reindeer with momma

Wolf

BigHorn Sheep

little baby sheep blending in with momma

Play time

Bath time

Snack time

Timber Wolf

Fight time

It took me a moment at first to figure out what on earth

were those two red things rolling around and digging in the corner....

Just REALLY Dirty badgers!

Sleeping bobcat

There was one lynx that was a little worked up and was

doing everything it could to try to look up and out past where we were standing...

never figured out what it was trying to find.

awww, baby bears!

This little one took his time getting down to go get supper.

Running back up tree after they ate.

Coyote

arctic fox

Took a picture of Kylie taking a picture. :)

These two little guys put on quite the little roll around show for us. :)

I mean, just look at their cuteness!

Ok...so of ALL the bear country photos I took, I only edited 45 of them....and only managed to pare it down to 32 for the post.....yikes....sorry. but those little guys are just so cute!

Next two photos are of views of the remains of a fire that Mike was on for a couple days....

 There were some really cool storm clouds that would build up in the late afternoon/evenings every night. Here is one that was building just East of Rapid City.

So next post will be from the 1880's train, and Crazy Horse. And then I will finish the vaca posts with Reptile Garden pictures!