We couldn’t bear to leave Devils Tower without another visit to Prairie Dog Town. The early part of the morning was spent getting ready to move while the girls went off to enjoy the playground again. As soon as everything but hitching was finished we drove over to the Town. Lily and I wanted to stay by the road because there were tons of very active prairie dogs right there. Ella really wanted to walk the trail again. We ended up splitting and Adam and Ella went off for a bit.
We had to keep the visit short because we still had to hitch and we needed to check out by eleven o’clock. Once Ella and Adam returned we went back to the campground. The girls went to the playground while Adam and I hitched. We were on the road at just about 11am. Today's destination was the Rushmore Shadows RV Resort in Rapid City, South Dakota.
We were all excited because this was another five night stay which would give us plenty of time to explore the area. While we were making the 118 mile drive the weather started to change. It got very overcast and started to rain. When we arrived it continued raining off and on while we were unhitching and setting up camp.
[Pictures below of the campground are from another day when the weather was nicer]
Looking over the list Adam compiled of things to do in this area, taking a tour of Big Thunder Gold Mine seemed like the best choice considering the weather. The gold mine was in the historic town of Keystone about 10 miles from the campground.
The first thing we all had to do before starting the tour was put on a hard hat.
Our tour guide Liz took us into the tunnel that was continually blasted in the quest for gold. She told stories all the way through.
There were a few places in the tunnel that were interactive. The girls tried their hand at swinging one of the hammers they used and banged it against a sheet of metal.
Liz pointed out a section of the wall that was wet and had the kids touch it.
Towards the back we were allowed to go into the cart they would use to travel from one end to the other.
Once we were done with the tour we learned how to pan for gold. Finding the specs of gold became a very arduous task and we started to become enamored with the beautiful rocks instead. Ella and Lily each continued to pick their favorite ones until they filled their vials.
After panning, we walked across the parking lot to the wine tasting room and restaurant. We received vouchers for complimentary tastings with our tour. When we got to the counter the gentleman helping us was not like the typical wine connoisseur. He recommended we taste a wine because “it tasted more alcoholy” than the very sweet rhubarb one we tried first. After our second taste we were ready to go.
We went into the historic mining town of Keystone to find somewhere for dinner. Ruby House Restaurant looked perfect. We put our name on the list and browsed in the surrounding stores.
The girls loved the horse statues on the porch and had a good time sitting on them.
Soon enough our buzzer went off and we went in for a great dinner at the Ruby House. We really enjoyed their house specialty, buffalo stew in a bread bowl.
While we had been waiting for our table the girls spotted an ice cream parlor across the street. We promised them if they were well behaved at dinner we would check it out. They did just that so across the street we went. There was a newspaper article framed on the wall about Michelle Obama, Sasha and Malia having ice cream here too. Michelle Obama’s gracious thank you note to them was also framed and displayed proudly. After the girls finished we headed back to the RV to end our night.
