Well, now I get a taste of what my life will be like in a few years! I woke up to two 16 year olds, two 12 (or nearly so) year olds, a ten year old and a baby. 

We started off our day at the pool. There are two things I look for, and will pay extra for, in a hotel. One is a pool, the other is included breakfast. It always seems like such a waste to me to pay for breakfast for my crew. We stayed at the best Western in Sturgis, South Dakota. The breakfast attendant was the nicest man ever! Breakfast was hot and tasty, with lots of choices. The pool was indoor and warm.

Or first tourist destination of the day was wind Cave National Park. This isn’t the most beautiful OK if I have ever been in, but we had an amazing tour guide, named Earl. He really pointed out the interesting features about this cave and made the tour totally worth it. This case is one of the oldest, 300 million years old, with features like box works, which are only found in this area.

  
Then we headed over to Mount Rushmore national monument. This is what Amanda had been looking forward to the whole trip. We did the 1 mile viewpoint walk, Junior Ranger programs, and stayed for the lighting ceremony. The best part of the lighting ceremony was when they invited all the military personnel to get up on stage and introduce themselves. We all wished Deon were there.

  
The only downside was that, for some reason, we seem to have the stink eye mark today. The man in the bookstore was mean to my little niece, and rudely kicked her out for trying to sit and complete her junior ranger book. He had already been rude to me, so we could commiserate. Then during the lighting ceremony I had two people obviously unhappy with me for letting Kieran quietly play in the walkway. I wondered what exactly they wanted me to do. Leave the group of children I had brought? Hold Kieran against his will and have him scream at the top of his lungs? There was one nice woman, who played with him with a pebble, and smiled kindly of me. I took a minute to thank her afterwards for her kind smile. These things happen, I suppose.