This year, we decided to branch out and spend our big vacation some place other than Colorado.  (We still took a quick Colorado vacation around Labor Day).

We chose South Dakota.  Why?  The reasons were numerous:

1) DH was born there (Sioux Falls) and moved when he was 2 wks old.  He's never been back to see the state that he lists on every piece of paperwork that asks where he was born.

2) The children are studying the early years of our great nation, and so a trip to see 4 President's head carved in a mountain seemed appropriate.

3) My parents visited the Black Hills when our oldest was a little tyke and brought him back a rock.

4) We had heard the Black Hills were beautiful, esp during autumn.

So, we loaded up the van and we drove to Custer, SD.  We had an awesome family cabin that was half price b/c it was off-season (Calamity Peak Lodge).  We took quite a bit of food w/ us and cooked several meals there.  We took in a ton of sights:  Mount Rushmore, Wind Cave, The Mammoth Site, Crazy Horse, Custer State Park.  We even drove on into Wyoming!

A few quick stories about our adventure:

*We traveled the entire Custer State Park on a week long pass.  While there, we saw a ton of animals just roaming around.  They were on the road, they in the ditches, they were even surrounding our van!  We had several wild donkeys poking their heads in the van windows, so like good tourists, we gave them a pet!

*I love caves, so a trip to one of the caves in the area was a must!  We chose Wind Cave.  It was about an hour and a half long walking tour full of stairs heading mostly in the downward direction.  I packed  baby on me, and the other 4 had to walk.  When we lined up w/ the other people to go into the cave and the park ranger informed us that we would be LOCKED in this cave, I am sure there were a few people who looked at us w/ our 5 littles and thought "AHHHHHHHHH"!!!!!!!  One woman did say, "You are brave taking 4 kids in a cave w/ no way out."  I politely informed her that there were actually 5.  To which she exclaimed, "You are crazy!"  And, yes, there was a moment when I thought I was going to chicken out, but I didn't and all was well--even when they turned out ALL the lights!  In fact, it was another couple w/ a toddler about the same age as ours who had trouble--I felt so bad for them, b/c I am sure they were mortified (b/c I would have been), but their little one soon calmed down and you would have never guessed there were any small children on the tour.  We even had an older woman tell us on the way out that we had a beautiful family.  It is comments like that that make my day!

Before the tour, the park ranger told us a story of a man named Jim losing his hat down the entrance of Wind Cave and how it was never seen again.  Well, our 3 yo spent most of the tour LOOKING for the hat!  She kept saying, "Nope, Jim's hat not here."  She also was given a flashlight at the start of the tour, so she kept telling me that if I got scardey and needed her, she would bring me the light.

Baby got hungry on the trip, so I can add CAVE to my list of places I have nursed!

*At the Mammouth Site, our 9 yo helped the tour guide w/ her demonstrations and even led the group while she took my husband and the littles in the stroller down the wheelchair ramp.  She came up to us after the tour was over and had tears in her eyes.  She said it gave her goosebumps to be around a family such as ours b/c she sees many families and sees that they have no boundries and the children are not blessings.  I didn't think we had done all that well (the 1 yo constantly wanted out of the stroller, and reasoning w/ a 1 yo is next to impossible), so her comments were a relief.  I often wonder what people do think when they see us coming.  I probably don't want to know!

I would definitely recommend The Black Hills as a vacation destination!  And I would definitely recommend the off-season.  The Hills are beautiful this time of year and the price is right!