Mt. Rushmore

It seems like we took this trip to Mt. Rushmore a month ago. I am just now getting around to posting those pictures. It has only been 2 weeks but we have been so busy with the end of the school year, Boy Scouts, 4H activities, training with our FEMA dog, preparing for a new foal, ranch work, friends, and of course, MacGyver's work. Oh that! The kiddos do their school work on the laptops so as our schooling has come to a close they have been on them non-stop during the day and I am too tired to think by the time night rolls around. It is now Saturday, MacGyver is on shift, and all the animals have been fed. The kiddos are trying to talk me into making donuts. It has been raining non-stop for 12 hours and was cold (45 degrees) when I woke up. We are snuggled in bed playing on various electronic devices being lazy enjoying our day off. We are supposed to be going to a 100th Anniversary Boy Scouts BBQ/picnic this afternoon. It's not looking so good. Most of the time in Colorado we get rain in the afternoons in the summer around 1:00 or so and it lasts about 30 minutes to an hour. I'm sure we've gotten more than 3 or 4 inches. The creek sure seems louder and our road is rapidly becoming a mud pit. When I went out to feed the horses you could see the tracks the earthworms are making on top of the mud. Weird!

Anyway, Mt. Rushmore. The reason for this post. We basically drove up Friday. It's about a 6-7 hour drive through some of the most beautiful country in Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota. We met up with our sweet friends that we've known since we moved to Colorado in 1997. It's hard to believe we've known them that long. My kiddos think their daughter is a cousin. Works for me! We got up Saturday and hit a few of the local attractions, including Mt. Rushmore. This is our second real trip here. Once we just did a drive-by on another road trip. The first time we were here a few years ago, we camped and made a lot of memories then, too. This is one of the coolest. We woke up to a herd of horses moving rapidly through the woods, being moved to a summer pasture. It was very cool!

I apologize for the quality of the pictures. My camera is broken so I was using my cell phone.

This is the entrance to Mt. Rushmore.

  

Our sweet friends with their new baby!

And then the highlight of the whole trip...

Bear Country.

This is a drive-thru park with all the big game animals of the Rocky Mountains.

It was pretty odd to pay to go here when we live in the Rocky Mountains and have seen all of the below at some point in the 13 years we have lived here. However, it is a "not to miss" attraction. Whether seeing buffalo, elk, mountain goats, big horn sheep (or long horn sheep my husband teases me about calling them once), bear, mountain lions, and wolves is old news or a whole new world, this place was awesome and a feast for the eyes! There must have been 300 bears sleeping, walking, playing, fighting, bathing or patrolling the fences, eyeing all the prey. They walk right up to your car. The kids were beside themselves! Pardon me while I rabbit trail. Colorado only has black bears. They happen to come in every conceivable color; white, brown, red, black, champagne, and even a mix of them all. The northern Rockies, like Yellowstone in Wyoming and Montana and north has both black bears (usually 200-300 lbs) and brown bears (these are the humongo grizzlies you see in Alaska and movies).

 

  

  

  

  

And seeing all those babies! Babies of every kind of animal found in the Rockies...lynx, fox, otters, bear cubs, oh my! They were just so tiny, I just wanted to reach down and pick them up and cuddle them!

  

And then I saw three monkeys climbing all over one of the bears! I didn't know we had monkeys in the Rocky Mountains!

Sorry, I couldn't help myself!

All the Beautiful Flowers

Although both my husband and I grew up in the South, we have lived in Colorado for 13 years. I love Colorado. It is absolutely one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. But then I guess I have always taken for granted how green and lush the South is. I took a few pictures of some of the beautiful flowers at my in-law's but wish those stubborn magnolias I have always loved would just go ahead and bloom, already!

I think they have every shade of azalea, daffodils, lillies, irises, ferns, palms, phlox, bottle brush, hydrangea, hibiscus, wisteria, clematis, honey suckle, rose bushes, magnolias, pecan trees, apple, cherry, pear and banana trees, blueberry bushes, grape, muscodine and scupernon vines, hostas, spider plants, and lantanas, Oh My!

And of course, I can't forget all the towering pines and 300 year old live oaks that just beg to be climbed (by someone younger and more nimble than myself)!

And this is the rosebush that has been in the family for 150+ years.

Oh! The Traveling We Will Do

So, we made the annual 1500 mile trek to my in-laws house in Florida. I love MacGyver's family. I miss them so much and hate that they are so far away from us. And I wish we could see them more often than once or twice a year. But that trip...oh, that trip! It reminds me of having a baby. It's painful and goes on forever. It NEVER seems to end. But then you arrive and forget all about it when you see their sweet, smiling faces. You relax, catch up, enjoy the beautiful weather and forget every painful minute about the brutal 2 days you spent driving. AND THEN you turn around and have to do it all again. Is it worth it? Definitely, yes. Would you do it again? Definitely; but not any time soon. But just like childbirth, you forget all about the pain, decide you want to take that long, hot, painful road again...and then it all comes back to you. OH! This is why we only seem them once or twice a year! But why does it take me so much longer to recover from that impossible drive? Am I getting old or what? Don't answer that. That was rhetorical. I'm a realist. I know. I know the answer.