Fort Laramie, Crazy Horse and Mt. Rushmore

After our first KOA experience, we woke up ready to go the next morning. I was really excited about getting a shower first thing in the morning until I saw the huge line of teenage girls also waiting.  I decided it was worth it to wait in line, but after 30 minutes of standing there and listening to the girls talk about hair, make-up and boys in what seemed like a whole other language, I decided to just get dressed so we could go.
We got on the road and, after a breakfast stop at IHOP that left us feeling slightly sick, we were on our way. Our first stop was Ft. Laramie. We didn't expect to be so impressed, but the walking tour was amazing. We loved looking inside all of the houses, and the rooms were decorated with all of the artifacts that archeologists had found on the site. The kids loved it; Tessa especially enjoyed looking in all of the children's rooms. There were several rag dolls and dolls with glass heads that she liked.

There was a group of archeologists there and they had just uncovered a plot of boots, shells from rifles and a perfectly intact and beautiful perfume bottle that was absolutely beautiful. 

From Ft. Laramie we went to the Crazy Horse exhibit in the Black Hills. As soon as we rounded the corner up the hill we saw a huge mountain looming in front of us, we could immedietly see that it was the side of a face. We didn't have any cell service for the majority of this time so of course we were seperated from Kathleen and Tammy the majority of our drive. Once again though, we ended up running  into them right as they were pulling into Crazy Horse. It was a happy reunion as T & K had been chasing a few hours behind us all day. 

We went inside of the muesum with Brodie, Vera and Tully holding hands and Tessa, Fiona, and Ashton chasing along behind them. They spent some time examining all of the buffalo hides and Indian Teepee's. We watched a short movie on the history of Crazy Horse that Tully loved. After that we had dinner at the reasturant at Crazy Horse, I think we almost gave the staff a heart attack when we walked in with our SEVEN hungry kids dancing around. 

After that we headed off to Mt. Rushmore trying to get there before dark. I have to admit that after a really long day and seeing how huge Crazy Horse was, Mt. Rushmore was a little bit underwhelming. It was really pretty and very cool, but we were so tired! We stayed for a little while but we didn't make it to the light show. Matt and I drove off to another KOA to set up our tent in the dark and K&T went to a nearby hotel. 

Check out Matt's $3 Mt. Rushmore shirt that he got at Wallmart. The scary thing is we saw whole groups of people wearing the same one.