Without an internet connection at the “cabin” in South Dakota, I couldn’t post a daily activity log of my vacation with my family. So, you get it all at once…

September 8

Left Texas before the sun rose – YEA!!!! Saw my first glance of the Rockies as I flew into Denver. Then boarded a plane to South Dakota. As my first set of flights were cancelled two weeks ago, the best flights I could get arrived just after nine. Which means I got to wait…and wait….and wait…until my family arrived around three. But I didn’t much care. My family, mountains, cool breezes – everything Texas doesn’t have and I love. Hooray!

Drove an hour northwest to the Deadwood area. Found Lost Miner’s Cabin, up among the hills and ponderosas easily enough. Picked out the beds we wanted, ran to the local grocery store and just lay around. After being up for nearly twenty hours, went to bed!!!

September 9

First stop: Mt. Rushmore. A breathtakingly beautiful day! The blue skies are gorgeous here. And the landscape reminds me of New Hampshire at times – sheer rock walls they’ve blasted to make roads, hills, white birches, rocks everywhere. But the northwest has a landscape unique to itself. The mountains – or Black Hills – are truly black with ponderosas covering them and yet many of the hills are topped with huge rocks. The hills roll, yet the landscape stretches out before you like the plains. It’s hard to describe, but it’s truly lovely. On the way, we saw deer along the road.

“Those are friendly deer,” Abby remarked.

“Really?” someone asked. “How can you tell? Did they wave at you?”

Mt. Rushmore is amazing. I took enough pictures from every angle to fill an album. We walked the trail, had lots of fun, ate ice cream, and raced up the stairs. (Caleb beat us all, but it’s hardly fair when he can take three steps at a time.) God’s creation is these hills is truly lovely.

Second stop: Jewel Cave National Park. Dad, Sally, Grace, Abby and Caleb went on the Lantern Tour, which enters the Historic Entrance of Jewel Cave and includes some crawling as one’s only light source is the lantern in one’s hand. Mom, Jenny and I went on the scenic tour. This one included 723 stairs and some truly beautiful sites of cave formations, each one intricately made by their Creator. It’s astounding to think of the detail God put into even the creation we cannot see on a daily basis. I don’t think I would care to be a cave explorer, but there are all kinds of things to discover down there. Like a large cavern in Jewel Cave that can only be reached by over a half mile of very narrow tunnels to be crawled through (a mere six inches in height in some places). The first person to ever enter this cavern shown his head lamp around the cavern larger than a football field and claimed, “Wow, this is a big room.”

The person behind him pulled himself from the tunnel, glanced around and replied, “Duh.”

Therefore, the name of this cavern is The Big Duh.

September 10

Stop of the day: Wyoming. After all, we can’t be a half hour from the state line and not visit. Or search for my potential husband (family joke) – whom we did not find.

But I will say Wyoming is an amazing state. The landscape is incredible. Rolling hills, deep valleys, gulches, layers of red rock. And, we learned, the lowest point of the state is more than 3,000 feet above sea level. Which accounts for the COLD temperatures. Jeans and a sweatshirt. Now I can die happy.

The main purpose of the trip was to see Devil’s Tower. Now this thing is beyond words. For it’s unlike anything I have seen or probably will ever see. For one, it’s just there. Take it off the hill it sits upon, and that hill will look like any of the other hundreds in Wyoming. Yet there it sits – a huge rock formation that is almost impossible to describe. Of course, man sits around and tries to explain it. The Indians tried legends. In our more “cultured” era, we try science. Both fall short. Why can man not accept that God just said, “Let there be…”?

It was a bit rainy, but we bundled up and took off down the path that encircles the Tower. We had a lot of fun, laughs, and jokes (mostly at Abby’s expense) as we skipped, walked, climbed and ran down the path for the next hour or more. To top off the adventure, we got to see prairie dogs in a field as we left the park. They were adorable!

September 11

Where were you nine years ago on this date? I was at work in New Hampshire, watching the world as I knew it crumble around me. Today, I was in Rapid City, South Dakota.

The first stop of the day was Cabela’s. Not a store where I would do a lot of shopping but fun to visit. We found an old bookstore to haunt, which led us through the very nice downtown area. We tried to spot the statues of the corners of the Presidents, but we didn’t see them all and couldn’t name a few of the ones we did see. After lunch, we took a quick trip to the mall. Then we played putt-putt with some pirates. One brief stop to Wal-Mart and then back to the cabin for movies, games and hamburgers on the grill.

September 12

A day of rest. We slept in, studied the Bible as a family, took some walks around the area of the cabin, ate lunch, napped, played games, watched movies and a few of us took off to Deadwood to visit Mt. Moriah cemetery where Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane are buried. Did some laundry, packed and dreaded tomorrow…

September 13

At the airport bright and early so my family could head on back home. But my flight doesn’t leave until after two. But I have books to read, and my laptop and an internet connection so this can be posted. And I’d honestly rather sit in an airport where the outside temperature is around 60, the sky is a lovely blue and mountains rise in the distance than suffer the 90s, billboards, flat lands, and concrete of Texas. But I can thank God for several days with my family in a beautiful place. And I can look at pictures for days to come, with tears in my eyes. May God give me grace.