Well,  what a cool city this was.  We spent five days here and have loads to say about this place.
We started out by caving at Diamond Caverns and ending up caving and camping at Mammoth Cave.

The Mammoth Cave campground is awesome, but DO NOT camp in the sites adjacent to the bath rooms.
We camped in site 12 and it was next to a bathroom and the light and noise was worse than expected.
The motion flood-lights are really bright and they ruin the camping experience.
We did not visit all 7 caves in the Bowling-Green area, but the two we checked out were the best we think.

We hit the Beech Bend amusement park in the middle along with quite a few other local stops.
The Kentucky Rumber is the bomb-diggitty and so was the tiltin-whirl!
Hand-breaded corn dogs and pretzels are hard to beat.

This city is really cool and has tons for us kids to do that does not cost an arm and a leg.

There are tons of local parks that are free and very kid friendly.

We had no idea that Indiana had 150+ foot tall sand dunes that you could hike and roll down, but boy do they.  We spent a few hours at the Lake Michigan beach just playing in the sand, throwing rocks, and learning to be good polar bears.  The water is freezing!
We scaled Mt. Baldy, the largest sand dune we have ever seen, and rolled down in fine fashion from the top – put all of this in a loop that repeats about 10 times and you have it.  The place was really cool with lots of rocks, sticks, and dirt – the things boys like best.

We made it to Chicago and it was pretty cool as usual.  We walked all over the zoo, biked along lake Michigan in the rain, and had some big old fat slices of pizza pie.  Chicago-style stuff pizza is really hard to beat.

We wrapped up our stop here by visiting the most amazing museum in the world – the museum of Science and Industry.  If you are ever in the Chicago area, you have to hit that museum.  It is lots of walking, but there are tons of things to do and see.  We were able to tour the U-505 – the German sub captured by the US in WWII.  This was really cool and we have been talking about it for days! We saw a real Enigma machine!

Before we got to the park, hunger pains set in and we were looking for an eatery.  The Root Beer Stand caught our eye.  The Root Beer Stand is in Oglesby, Illinois which is not far from the park so we stopped there for some lunch on the way in.  This place was the bomb diggity!  The root beer is homemade ( we talked to the owner to get the scoop ) and has been made by hand for 50+ years.  This place should be on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives ( hear that, Guy )!  The food and drink was splendid!  Ben says the root beer was the best in the world and he did not spill a drop – this coming from my brother who has spilled a drink in every single state he has ever visited – Scout’s honor!  He spills every drink at every meal and is always surprised!  We, on the other hand, always see it coming and try to appear surprised.

We arrived at Starved Rock State Park and it was wet and muggy.  We decided not to camp, as the rain was coming down all over the area and had been for several days.  The humidity was high and water was everywhere already.

The Starved Rock State Park is located on the Illinois river and it is very pretty, with some amazing hiking trails (read more about that below). Our reserved campsite was covered in poison ivy and there were tornado warnings in the area, so we opted to wuss out and stay in a hotel for the night.

The hiking trails were awesome! There were boardwalks everywhere and some really cool waterfalls.  Mom carried Wil in the backpack carrier until we got to the bottom of Wildcat Canyon, where all of us got into the water.  He loves water, but since he can’t swim, we really had to watch him.  Dad had to go into the water with his shoes on because Wil took off & fell into a hole; all we could see were his blond curls floating on top of the water until Dad grabbed his shirt and yanked him out of the water!  Best of all, he was smiling and had his big fat grin on when he come up – what a monkey!  We hiked through 5 different canyons and viewed waterfalls from so many different levels.  We crossed paths with many deer & we even saw a mama deer with twin fawns.  That was so cool!

The bad news on Starved Rock State Park is that the camping sites are across a road and not connected to the Visitor Center and hiking trails.  You essentially have to drive to the hiking trails as you cannot get there from the campground.  That was a bummer as well.

For supper, we drove our car across the parking lot, braving the hurricane-force winds & rain, to eat at…wait for it…the Cracker Barrel.  Yes, a chain.  It was raining & CB was close, please don’t pass judgment; you know you all love the games anyway.

Well, with Sioux Falls behind us, we headed on to Muscatine, Iowa.

We had Sasquatch and Lock Ness on our minds so we routed our trip to hit Spirit Lake and Okopoji Lake only to find no monsters other than the thousands of retired people.  We love retirees, but we were looking for some Squatch pics and only found moth balls and lots of dentures.  While quite scary in their own right, not what we had in mind.  We thought about calling in the local BFRO, but just kept on moving  Check out Finding BigFoot on Discovery for more on the BFRO.  🙁

Hunger pains got the best of us as well as a few missed exits so we ended up running aground on Jethro’s BBQ Island just outside of Des Moines.  Bevery Hill Billys and Gilligan’s Island collide.  I highly recommend Jethro’s to anyone looking for BBQ in the Des Moines area.  It was soooo gooooood!  The BBQ French Dip was amazing!  The MacNCheese was great!  It was all good other than the gaining of ten pounds.

Onward ho – Muscatine was a bit boring.  The Mrs. Pippy river was rocking as usual, but that was really all that Muscatine had to offer.  Sorry, Muscatine, you just didn’t have much going on.  People actually live on the Mrs. Pippy river which was a bit odd as that just does not seem like  a safe place to live.  Anyway, that is it for now.

Well, it was sad to leave the Black Hills, but we had to move on.
We drove all the way across South Dakota to Sioux Falls.
Along the way, we stopped off to see the World’s only Corn Palace and had a cheap meal at Taco Johns.
The place is made of corn cobs.  The first Corn Palace was built back in the late 1800s.
The currently place basketball games in the building.
Check out the pics.

Well, after waiting for three days, we finally went fishing and boy was it fun.  We caught rainbow trout in a stream just a bit down the road and across from the Coolidge General Store.  We used homemade stick fishing poles and shrimp flavored marshmallow bait.

By the way, the Coolidge camp ground is very nice, but quite close to the road especially if you have little kids that like to run out in the street.  It has a beautiful stream that runs through the camp and lots of fishing spots.

After our big fishing trip, we stopped by the Peter Norbeck visitor center to show our work to earn our Junior Naturalist status.  We were awarded our Junior Naturalist badges and certificates in a small ceremony.  We were very proud of our work and all that we learned in the process.

The Peter Norbeck center is where you should stop first when visiting Custer State Park.  You can get a schedule of the programs and make sure you do not miss anything.  The programs at Custer State Park are really nice if you have kids that are cub scouts / girl scouts.

Donkeys, donkeys, and more donkeys – if you visit Custer State Park, take the 18 mile wildlife loop and take corn or carrots to feed the donkeys.  We saw tons of Buffalo, Prong-horns, and Deer.  Animals are everywhere on the loop – they come right up to the car as you can see from the pics below.

After our amazing ride through the wildlife, we stopped off at Badger hole to see the home of Badger Clark.  What a cool house and way of life.  The Badger Hole hike is only one mile, but it is very steep and quite a workout.

We woke up and went gold panning. I didn’t find any gold but I did find some quartz.  I got lots muddy and had a blast washing the rocks in the ice cold river water.

Next, we  caught water insects for the junior naturalist  program.  The Junior Naturalist Program is great and most all state and national parks have some kind of program like this.  We learned all about bugs and were given nets to use to catch the bugs.  We put the bugs in jars and had the chance to really look at them closely.

Then, we went to Sylvan Lake up on top of the Black Hills.  We drove down Needles Highway.  It was a beautiful drive.  Lots of interesting rock formations to look at on the way.  The lake was really cool.  Part of National Treasure 2 was filmed at Sylvan Lake so it was cool to see the lake up close as we like to watch that movie from time to time.

After Sylvan Lake, we drove over past Custer to see Jewel Cave.  We completed the junior ranger program at jewel cave and received our Junior Ranger badges.  We drove to Wyoming after we were done just to say we did.

We drove back to Custer to eat dinner at the purple pie place that was, you guessed it, purple.  This place has awesome food, pie, and ice cream. If you are ever in Custer, the Purple Pie Place is the place to eat!

We had a great meal after a long day of hiking and learning. Whewwwww!  What a long and amazing day!

Well, it was a bit chilly for the first night here in the Black Hills.  The temp dropped to about 45 degrees which was a bit cold in our tent.

First thing after unfreezing ourselves was to trek to Mt. Rushmore.  Ben says it was “just a big mountain with four faces on it.”  We all thought it was a neat thing to see, but really like the mountains in their natural state just as well.

We roasted weenies up on top of the black hills on the way back from Mt. Rushmore.  The views and rocks were spectacular.  What an awesome place.  We stopped off right after the pig tail bridges on hwy 87.  You can’t miss it.  The crew also found the most amazing natural rock playground.  They found slides, platforms, and lots of rocks to climb.

Next, we took the 18 mile wildlife loop.  We saw more Buffalo, Prong-horns, Deer, Turkeys, and Burros.  The burros like to eat corn and stick their heads all the way up your grill – literally, they will run head first to your car and run their heads all of the way in the car with teeth out looking for food.  Sam says “it was the most terrifying thing I have ever seen in my entire life other than snakes and bears.”

Well,  the drive from Nebraska to South Dakota was somewhat uneventful.  We stopped off and ate a sandwich by a lake with a cool playground and 45 mile per hour winds, but that was about it.

We arrived at the Black Hills and before we ever entered Custer State Park – bam – Buffalo were everywhere!  What a sight!

We reserved site 21 at Stockade Lake North and it was beautiful.  We had a rock fortress behind our campsite and a view of the lake just beyond that.  We camped up on a hill and could see everything and were protected from most of the rain.  It does rain in South Dakota in the summer and nobody will tell you that!  The site was huge and our tents are way in the back up on the hill.  There was enough room at most all of the Stockade North sites for multiple tents.  Lots of space between the sites.

The park is gorgeous and animals are everywhere.

More to come later.