Spring Break

This year has been very busy for our family (written Spring 2017).

• Tanner has been working hard to keep good grades. He also began playing tennis.
• Myranda has been keeping good grades while playing soccer and serving on the Hope Squad.
• Noell is in her final semester to complete her Bachelor's degree and has been student teaching.
• I've been rolling out changes from LDS Employment Services to LDS Self-Reliance Services. The change moves me from managing an employment center with hours from 8-5 to working with stake leaders with work most Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday nights. It's been a challenge to arrange when I'll work and when I'll have time for my family, my church callings, and personal time. It's been a difficult change, but I've loved the way this work is blessing individuals.

Because of how busy things have been, we've not made plans for spring break. About 10 days ago we felt like we might go to Zion Canyon and hike Angel's Landing. 

On Sunday, Noell said, "Everybody will be going South for spring break. Maybe we should go somewhere else. As we discussed possibilities, she suggested that it might be great to go to Mount Rushmore. We discussed it with Myranda and Tanner and they liked the idea.

On Monday night we loaded up the car and drove to Green River Wyoming for the night. The next morning was beautiful and sunny. Although, the weather showed that it would snow. I thought that it probably would, later in the afternoon, but by 9:00, as we were leaving the hotel, we began to see snow flakes. We continued on our journey and were surprised to find that at several places we had three inches of snow on the road. 

After we passed over the continental divide (for a second or third time), and a very difficult snow storm, we saw a sign. We were in the middle of the Wyoming desert where we had seen little traffic, and fewer animals. The sign said, "Martin's Cove." We immediately took the road to the visitor's center. 

The snow was still blowing down as we got our coats and hurried toward the visitor's center. As we approached the building, we realized that getting out of the car was Barb and Denney Pugmire, our neighbors. We rushed into the building and went on a tour with them. After the tour, the Pugmires left. We spent about another hour walking around the area. During that time four other people came. It was amazing to me that of the ten people visiting during those two hours, six of us were neighbors. 

While we walked around in the piercing Wyoming wind, we began to imagine how terrible it must have been for the early LDS Church members who were late leaving and faced many delays as they crossed the plains pulling their food, clothing, and shelter in a handcart from the East to Utah. The Willie and Martin handcart companies suffered far beyond my capacity to comprehend. 

We then headed toward Mount Rushmore. On the way, we stopped to take a walk on a dinosaur trail. When we found the road for the trail, we began down the muddy road. As we progressed, the ruts and the mud got deeper. We didn't get far before we realized if we continued, we'd get stuck. We turned around and drove the long road to our hotel in Rapid City.

On Wednesday morning we went up to Mount Rushmore. It was truly as amazing as we'd hoped. As we left the parking lot, we saw a group of five mountain goats. We then at lunch at a German restaurant. While we enjoyed the food and even loved the bread pudding, memories of Selina were better than the restaurant.

We then drove to Crazy Horse and enjoyed the quick view of that amazing work in progress. Hopefully someday it will be completed.

We then proceeded up to the needles highway. We loved the view as we drove, because of the snowfall, the highway was not open the full distance. The disappointment of the closed road immediately changed to excitement as we saw the stunning Sylvan Lake. We hiked around the lake and took a lot of photos. Sylvan lake was shown in the movie National Treasure 2. I now see why it is called the jewel of the Black Hills.

We then took a very uneventful drive through Custer State Park. It was uneventful until we drove through a tunnel with a beautiful view of Mt Rushmore. We then enjoyed the beautiful pigtail bridges. Wow! I couldn't believe the many amazing things we saw.

For Thursday we mapped out our plans. We first drove to Wind Cave but were too late for the 10:00 tour. We purchased tickets for the 1:00 tour and then continued to the Mammoth dig site. This incredible dig site is an active geological dig site. They have currently found 61 mammoth skeletons in the site. They've dug about 20 feet deep and know that it goes at least 40 feet beyond that. Besides common animals found in the area, they have also found fossils for relatives of the camel, llama, and even the Giant Short-Faced Bear (larger than a polar bear).

After lunch we returned to wind cave and saw a cave like no other in the world. It had 95% of all boxwork in the world. They have currently discovered 147 miles of the cave and they are still discovering passageways and rooms.