Jeremiah & Kara Burns Family: October

So october was an eventful month. It didn't start that way but it ended up being a fun month. About the middle of the month, Harley had a 4 day weekend. We were just planning on staying home. Then Mylie and me were doing a map puzzle and just happened to see Mt Rushmore on the South Dakota piece. I thought, well we have never been there why don't we go. I called my sister who is a teacher and asked if she wanted to go with us. All together is was the Burns 5, my 2 sisters, my brother in law, and my aunt Karen. We drove from here in Utah the 14 hours through Wyoming to South Dakota. It was an ok trip, Quinn did amazingly well and traveled great!
We went to Mt Rushmore and spent about 5 hours there walking around and seeing the museum and how the moutain was formed. Pretty amazing stuff. One thing that was interesting to Jer was they started building a granite vault behind the monument, similar to granite mountain here in Utah that the LDS church stores its family history records in. It was never completed, because they ran out of money.
We also went back later that night and saw the mountain lit up. That was beautiful.
WHile we were in the "black hills" we took the girls panning for gold. They got a few small pieces. I would say about .25 cents worth of gold!!! But they had so much fun I think it was worth the 10.00 to do it!
Our last big thing to do before we heading back to Utah was to take tour in the Jewel Caves Monument. It was an hour or so long tour that only covered about a half mile of the cave, but it seemed like we walked forever. We went down about 300 feet into the cave and walked in and out of rooms. I was slightly scared. But it was amazing. The guide told us a long time ago the whole cave was filled with water. They also said that they measure the wind and how it comes through the cave and by that they can guess how big the cave might be. They have only explored 300 miles of the cave, but estimate that the cave could be 5000 miles long, big. It is amazing to think that there is so much cave unexplored. He said in one part of the cave for 6 ft it is only 8 1/2 inches tall. People go there and do extreme caving and spend 5 days in the cave. I think I would freak out squeezing through a opening 8 1/2 inches tall.
It was a fun quick trip. We are going to do this more often as a family, so if anyone has an suggestions for our next trip, please let me know. We are open to anything. Maybe next time we will hit Yosemite. None of us has ever been there!

Mt Rushmore. My sister Robin, me and Lumpy, my aunt Karen, and sister Jaime. Our family and where mylie spent most of the day, on Jer's shoulders.

Random wildlife. Mylie and Harley fishing. We stopped and fished at 2 different spots. Never caught anything.

Devil's gate in Wyoming. This is where the Willie and Martin Handcart companies were when the rescuers found them. Not too far away is Martin's Cove. Harley is crawling through the 8 1/2 inch height that you have to be able to pass through to extreme explore the cave. Then the 2nd lake we stopped to fish at.

More random wildlife. Crystals inside the cave. And running through the middle of the last picture is what the guide called "Cave Bacon". Really does look like a strip of bacon!

Better view of the 8 1/2 inches with Mylie crawling through. I don't know how adults do it!
More crystals and cave goo.

More cave pictures. There were some pretty interesting things in the cave!

Mt Rushmore. We drove through 1 lane rock tunnels where you honked your horn the whole way through. The girls loved it. We also drove on amazing all wooden bridges. And lumpy just being adorable.