Ben Folds Five reference, anyone? Anyone?

Ok, well before we get underground, we have a few stops to make.

By the time we left Angostura Reservoir, we’d been there almost two weeks! We really, really enjoyed that spot. We have a freezer full of fish, the animals are in top physical condition, and Andy and I are tan and relaxed.

Additionally, we have an album full of photos of unbelievable views! The summer weather in South Dakota makes for some stunning sunsets and thrilling storms. Unlike the storms we’re used to in Portland, these lasted for hours and hours. We sat outside on multiple evenings, snuggled under the awning in blankets, drinking wine and watching the show.

So cool, right? South Dakota, man. We love it.

Eventually, though, it was time to leave the reservoir. We had other spots on our list to check out, so off we drove to Wind Cave National Park. This park is super neat! Wind Cave is one of the longest caves in the world, and that length counts just the 5% of the cave that has been explored. You get to walk down, down, through winding tunnels that open into big rooms with amazing minerals and rare boxwork formations. A lot of Lord of the Rings references were mentioned by members of our tour group from room to room.

I have very few photos of our cave tours, as they do the experience no justice. Here are two that help you imagine what it’s like, but as with most things, it’s much better in person.

I love spelunking! There’s something so far from normal about climbing deep into the earth and seeing things that were created without any help from humans. If you have any imagination, it will go wild down there! They even have caving tours you can take where you spend four hours crawling on your hands and knees in areas most people don’t get to go, but as a portion of the tour requires you to squeeze under rock with just a 10″ clearance, I passed.

We stayed two nights in the campground at the park, saw fireflies, rode our bikes through the park, listened to rangers tell stories at the amphitheater in the campground, and were gifted some homemade moose dinner by our lovely French neighbors.

As we left the park, we made a number of stops on our way to Jewel Cave. We pulled over in Pringle to see a huge bike sculpture. . .

We stopped to see Flintstones Bedrock City, and discovered it’s being torn down after 50 years for a Western-themed campground. . .

We visited the National Woodcarving Museum, where you can see charming animatronic carvings made by the man whose talents inspired Walt Disney to ask him to help build Disneyland. . .

We toured the Four Mile Ghost Town, a collection of antique buildings and items set up in a little town, with a cassette tape recording to guide your way. . .

And then after a tasty lunch at Pizzaworks and a beer at Sick-N-Twisted Brewery, we stopped for the evening in the Black Hills. Andy picked a lovely wildflower bouquet, I read my book, Scout played frisbee, and Gracie climbed trees.

The next day, we stopped by Jewel Cave for a tour.

Now let me interrupt myself to point out that, while it took us a day to make it from Wind Cave to Jewel Cave, for those of you planning trips, they’re not a day apart. That’s just Turtle Time. For travelers in a regular vehicle, they’re actually about half an hour apart! We move slowly, but you can easily visit both in a day. And it’s worth it; they’re very different caves.

Jewel Cave is the third longest cave in the world, and is chock full of sparkling formations and stalactites and stalagmites. We took a tour a few years ago, and I was excited to be back to see the shining crystals again. Unfortunately, it was a very popular day to visit the cave, and by the time we got there, the standard tours were all sold out for the day! They did, however, have a Lantern Tour a few hours later, so we got our tickets and had a picnic while we waited.

As our tour group assembled to hear the beginning of the tour and get our lanterns, a storm started to blow in. We hiked single file around the hill to the mouth of the cave, and right as we got inside, the clouds broke and it began pouring! We stood inside the dry cave and lit our lanterns, the thunder booming and the wind pushing the rain sideways in sheets outside. It was so exciting! It felt like being another person in another time. We heard some history of the cave’s discovery from our tour guide, and then walked into the cave.

If you ever want to know how it feels to be Indiana Jones, this is the tour for you! If you grew up watching The Goonies and wanted so badly to adventure underground searching for One-Eyed Willie’s treasure, this is also the tour for you. We just laughed out loud with excitement the whole way. The tour took us  down incredibly steep and narrow steps that descend endlessly, until finally we reached The Heavenly Room. We all sat on rocks and listened to more stories, and then were instructed to blow out our lanterns. The darkness was absolute. It was thrilling.

We had such a great time on that tour! It was a great way to end our time in South Dakota, and we discussed how much we loved it the whole way to Montana.

And here we are now, fishing licenses in hand and ready to spend the summer playing in Montana’s backyard. Bring it on!