Nebraska Here We Come

This year Jason's family decided to have a reunion in Nebraska.  Jason could only get 3 days off, so he made it a whirlwind adventure.  We left on a Wednesday and drove 14 hours to Custer, North Dakota.  There is a lot to do in that area.  I swear if I spent a week there I still would not get to all the things. 

 Fist thing Thursday morning we started out at Jewel Cave.

 It is the 3rd largest cave in the world, it was amazing.  Hard to get pictures of because of the low lighting and my skills as a photographer are very limited!

 Over 700 steps, and we only saw a tiny, portion of the miles and miles of cave. 

 They had a Junior Ranger craft that my kids crashed and made animal tracks.  The two extras are my niece and nephew, two of  Jason's brother's kids.

 We then took a drive to visit Mount Rushmore.  Always worth seeing, it was sooo hot though!

 This is my favorite picture.  This lady came and asked us if she took our picture then would I take theirs.  I said sure.  It wasn't until later that I realized this is the picture she took.  Where is Mount Rushmore?  Good question!!

 Thank goodness Jason's brother was willing to save the day and took another for us. This time with the actual monument in the picture too.

 I collect smashed pennies from wherever we go.  The kids are getting into doing it as well.  Beckett had to do it all by himself.

 Next we took a train ride.  It was about an hour each way, and I have to say it was my most favorite part of the day.

 I decided I like trains rides.  The kids thought it was boring, but there was such pretty scenery, and wildlife and some cool historic things too. 

 Jason kept letting Beckett stick his head out, and later got in trouble for it.  It made for a cute picture though.

Beckett liked the ride. 

The next day Friday we headed to a Mammoth dig site.

 The kids got to be "junior excavators" and dig up some bones.

 Dillon got really frustrated at first, because Truman found a bone before he did.

 Soon enough he found one, unfortunately he and Elleree found the same bone.  It was so large that they each found an end.

 Beckett sat on the side and played with a rock.

 I think the kids really enjoyed this part of the museum..

 Then we went on a tour of the actual dig site.  It was pretty cool.

 They have remains for over 60 mammoths.  These are not the Wooly Mammoths we are used to seeing but some sort of ancestor that is larger and has less hair.

 They don't remove any of the bones because they are too heavy and don't want to damage them.  So they just dig around the ones they have found. 

It was seriously just a huge sink hole.  I circled Jason and the kids so you can see the size of just a portion of this site. 

It was a neat little museum.  After that we headed the rest of the way to Nebraska.