WOW, yesterday was long and we only made about 45 miles.  We left the hotel yesterday morning and stopped at Target to replace the tripod that was stolen (tried to get a long without replacing it but the beautiful sunrise pictures at the Badlands were blurry and knew I really needed the tripod.

Then we went to Mount Rushmore again in order to see it in the sun.  Very beautiful and we were able to see some rangers working at the top of Roosevelt's head.  They were fixing the anchor for the cable & winch system that lowers the workers over the faces for inspection & maintenance.

We hurried off to Crazy Horse and wanted to stay there but thought that Jewel Cave closed at 4 PM. So we got a readmit pass and drove to Jewel Cave, about 20 miles away.  Took the Lantern tour- very interesting walking through the caves with gas lanterns the way people would have 50 years ago.  Ranger Ken was a GREAT tour guide- very informative and interesting!  When we were at the deepest cavern he had us turn off the lanterns (we had to raise the glass covers and blow from underneath.  Except Grace who was too young to have the gas lantern so her lantern looked like ours but was battery operated.  funny thing was she tried to blow her lantern out but of course that wouldn't turn it off.)  Then Ken pointed out that although the darkness closed in fast and it complete- darker and blacker than you can imagine- when he re-lit his lantern the light dispelled the darkness even faster and his one lantern was able to illuminate the cavern, even with our lanterns off.  You can see the clear spiritual lesson in this experience.  Just 1 light can make a difference in a dark world- be that 1 light.  Corollary- caves are beautiful places and yet they are buried in the earth.  Our hearts are buried within our bodies and God wants them to be beautiful and He will help us to make them so.

We drove back to Crazy Horse and were amazed by the sculpture.  NOT even finished after 60 years work it was staggering in size.  I don't believe that the full sculpture is even 20% finished and it is massive.  The head is 87 1/2 feet high- that's 27 1/2 feet taller than the Mount Rushmore carvings.  

Another thunderstorm hit as we were leaving Crazy horse and we were exhausted so we got a hotel in the area.  This was a great thing because Preston woke up about 1 AM throwing up and he continued to throw up every hour (almost on the hour).  No fever but feels terrible.  Poor thing-  but if he had to get sick this was the place to do it, not while camping.  Now I'm wondering if/when the other kids will get sick.  Oh well, we're learning to roll with the punches.