South Dakota Part 5 (The Final Chapter)

On our last day (Saturday), we packed up and drove south through Custer State Park. We saw herds of buffalo. They were all over, and blocked the road several times. We even saw some wild burros who stuck their heads in people's cars looking for food.



We headed a little further south to Windcave National Park and enjoyed a picnic lunch before our 1 1/2 hour tour of the cave.



Windcave is the fourth largest cave in the world, and the only natural opening is about as big as a manhold. The main formation is boxwork which is basically very fragile eroded limestone. It's like a brick wall without the bricks - only mortar. It looks really cool (as you can see).



There was also "popcorn" formations in this cave, which are very sparkly and pretty, but fairly small. We also saw some fossils.



The cave was nice and cool, very humid - and nothing lived in it. We were even able to experience absolute darkness - which was a little scary until they turned the lights back on.

After our fun spelunking, we drove back home - it was a super fun time, and the kids actually did really well. I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that they had playmates that weren't their siblings.