Day 2 we got up really early because we had tickets to go through Jewel Cave. The cave was awesome, but I didn't enjoy the tour as much as I could have because I was worried about Brooklyn the whole time. At the first of the tour, the guide stopped a lot and the group would just be standing there listening to him for like 10-15 minutes at a time. She was fine with us holding and carrying her as long as we were constantly moving, but when he would stop to talk, she just cried to get down and run around. That's not so easy when you're in a dark cave and there are cliffs all the way around you. We both thought we were going to have to turn around and not finish the tour because she was being so loud and distracting, but then we started moving a little faster and she eventually fell asleep on Ben's shoulder. It wasn't until then that I could finally relax a little. There were several other caves in the area that looked interesting but after that morning we decided it wasn't such a good idea with our little monkey.
After the cave, we stopped at a little ghost town called Four Mile. It had a bank, jail, saloon, hotel and a bunch of other things. It was fun to walk around and look at them all.
Then we headed over to Crazy Horse Monument. It was really cool to see.
After Crazy Horse, we took the 2 hour drive through Custer State Park on our way to Mount Rushmore. We weren't going to, but someone there suggested that if we had time, it is worth the drive. I'm so glad that we did. It ended up being one of my favorite parts of the trip. It was a beautiful drive with beautiful scenery! We went on Needles highway which has a bunch of tunnels that you drive through. Brooklyn slept the whole ride, so she got a good nap in and was really happy once we got to Mt. Rushmore.
Our first view of Mt. Rushmore was through one of these tunnels! So cool!
Mount Rushmore was awesome! Definitely worth seeing in person.
I loved the patriotic feeling there! They have all the state flags and pillars with each state with the date they entered the union. Of course we had to take our picture by Utah.
Little Miss Independent!
They do a lighting ceremony every night, and we wanted to see that, but we had a couple hours to kill, so we headed over to Keystone and played a round of miniature golf.
Back at the lighting ceremony, Brooklyn and this little girl became fast friends. Brooklyn wouldn't leave her alone, she kept going up and hugging her. Her parents were really nice, we talked quite a bit with them. They were from Texas and they said that we were the first people they had ever met from Utah.
Horrible picture, but it did look really cool all lit up.
