The Black Hills of South Dakota

When we found out the Mathews' reunion was in Wyoming this year, my SIL encouraged us to go to Rapid City, SD for a little sightseeing. I wasn't expecting it to be so beautiful and mountainous. I thought SD was nothing but plains and buffalos. The above picture was our home for 4 days- isn't she pretty? We traveled there with Chris' brothers Brent, Scott and his sister Maria. There were 12 of us in the cabin and we fit comfortably in it's 4 rooms. We cooked most of our meals together and enjoyed the pool table, hot tub, and beautiful veiws from the deck.

We drove around quite a bit before we found this buffalo, standing right by the road. I thought it was a statue or something, cause you couldn't see it move for the longest time.

We drove through Bear Country wildlife park and saw everything from bears and wolves to elk and mountain lions. We even witnessed a dumb wolf trying to steal food from a bear- he got smacked pretty good by the bear! They walked right in front of our car. A reindeer almost knocked on our window with its antlers too.

Mt. Rushmore was a highlight for everyone I think. It's amazing how they carved those faces with such amazing detail on the side of the mountain. We did a little hike around the monument so you could see it closer and from all different angles.

Nathan was getting a closer look at Theodore Rosevelt's glasses

Chris' older brother Paul and his family of 9 met up with us there too. This was our whole group at Mt. Rushmore (half of Chris' family). I was pretty proud of myself to get this picture!

Brent and Lindsay have 4 kids and Nathan enjoyed playing outside the cabin with them. They collected scavenger hunt items, had stick fights and played games. We had a couple BBQ's out on the deck and enjoyed the cool mountain air!

So much fun playing with cousins!

These boys are all within two years of each other. We met up with Paul and his family again at Reptile Gardens- picture Sea World, but with reptiles. There were bird, snake and alligator shows and lots of reptiles to look at. These boys touched a baby alligator and snakes along with giant tortoises.

We went down into one of the country's longest caves, Jewel Cave. Jackson was happy for awhile and then he was not so much fun down there anymore. It was pretty cool to see the different formations inside the cave.

You can't go to the Black Hills and not check out the dinosaur museum. There were lots of fossils and bones found in the Black Hills. Meet Stan: one of the largest and most complete skeleton of a T-Rex found in South Dakota. Nathan, as you could imagine, thought this was pretty cool. They also had many other dinosaur bones and a skull of a mammoth.

Jackson being a cute little gold miner at Tunderhead Falls

We did a dinky little hike into an old gold mine to see an underground waterfall. It was a little less than spectacular, but I got a good group shot anyway.

This little train was the highlight of the gold mine. We could have let the kids play here all day!

Well, I'll end for now, but I still have pictures from the second half of our trip. The actual Mathews' Reunion and all we did in the Cowboy State!