U.S. Roadtrip: SD is for South Dakota (warning - picture overload!)

After a long drive we arrived to South Dakota and Custer. We would have three days here, and 4 nights, so we were looking forward to a little break in the driving and to see the beautiful surroundings. And it was truly beautiful. We ended up realizing we had way too little time.

Stop for dinner when we had made it to South Dakota

This blog post will include the first day, a day where we would see a lot - Mount Rushmore, the Needle highway and Crazy Horse. First Mount Rushmore where we took a lot of pictures and I had a hard time picking out a few so just scroll past them if it gets too much :-) It was mighty to see those big face carvings!

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the U.S.

Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the U.S.

One of my favorite pictures!

We listened to a presentation about the history of the monument

The second stop of the day was the Needles Highway in Custer State Park. An amazing drive on winding roads and narrow passages and tunnels. On the picture below you can see a bus on the other side of the tunnel. It was too big to go through the tunnel and there is no where to turn around... The driver was not sure what he would do when we talked to him but to go in reverse all the way back on this tiny winding road would take a very long time. I felt so bad for the driver and all the passengers!

One of the fun stops we made with many rocks (and trees) to climb

Another view of the poor bus in front of the tunnel

Sweet boys!

Waiting to go through a very small tunnel

The small tunnel

Mountain goat on the side of the road :-)

We loved the Custer State Park and the only regret we have is that we did not have more time. I would have loved to hike and see more of the park.

Our third and last stop of the day was Crazy Horse. A monument made to the Native Americans/Indians in the area. Crazy Horse was a Native American war leader of the Oglala Lakota tribe. A Polish family started this carving in 1948 and it is the largest stone carving in the world (Crazy Horse's eyes are 17 feet 5 m wide). So far only the face is finished but the are several models showing what it eventually look like.

What the final carving will look like

To give you an idea of the coming work

There is a big area with museums, restaurants etc by the memorial and we watched Native American show. She told a story and then danced it with hula hoops.

Gabriel was very inspired by her dance and started practice as soon as we got back to the campground :-)

And that was all for Day 1 in South Dakota!

U.S Roadtrip: NE is for Nebraska (added pictures!)

What a beautiful state!!! We got a very quick view of Lincoln (the capital) where Alex spoke but our main stop was Burwell where we have friends living, who used to live in Florida for a few years. It was so nice to see some familiar faces again, since we left South Carolina (where Aunt Cindy and Uncle Danny joined us).  We have truly met a lot of wonderful people during this trip, in fact, I feel like all the people we have met are so sweet and kind, so far, but there is still better to see people you already know :-)

Stopped for lunch by a playground on the way to Burwell

Arrived to Burwell and our sweet friends where going to see if they could help us with our broken back bumper on the trailer where we had our bike rack. For a while we had had to put the bikes inside the trailer but that changed today!! They were able to weld it back in order while the kids played in the puddles outside :-)

Fun stuff to look at

And fun puddles to play in!

Outside our friends' house

Exploring

A wonderful visit with friends!!

When leaving Burwell we took a wrong turn and ended up on a little adventure... We just followed google maps (seen below) which was not a good idea...

"Just do this little loop" googles said...

The beginning of the little loop...

The road got worse and worse but I don't have picture of most of it since we were holding our breaths while going through mud and big puddles of water. Hoping we would not get stuck! Eventually the loop turned in to more like a field of grass and suddenly we could see the big road again... but... there was a barbwire fence between us and the road... And there was no chance we could turn around in this field of grass...

Walking from our car towards the big road to check out the fence...

Parked in the field, note the dragon fly!!

 We did not see any other option then to break through the fence... We started "untie" the barbwire as carefully as we could so that we could wire it back together again.

We managed to get back on the road and tie the wires back together but we left a note in a ziplockbag for the owner in case he wanted to be redone. So far they have not called back...

Beautiful Nebraska!

Gotta love the trains!!

A looooong train...

Alex had a radio interview during the drive and we tried to stop where me and the boys would have something to do while he was on the phone, but we were just too much in the middle of nowhere and ended up stopping on the "old" road that was next to the road we were going on.

We found a bird nest on the paved road!!??

More charming trains!!

And charming boys

The next voluntary stop was Carhenge, a Stonehenge but with cars. The boys loved it!