Day 12--More Black Hills

Day 12 already?  We would have slept in longer if we'd known that Val & Nathan were gonna cook breakfast for everyone but their famous "2 hour breakfast" was worth the wait.  Here they are taking a break after their strenuous morning.

The plan for the day was to hike a short trail in the Spearfish Canyon, hit up Mount Rushmore, and then drive the famous Needles Highway.  Before we started Aurelia got her Nathan fix in.

The Spearfish Canyon hike was beautiful and we had great weather compared to the day before.

We parted with Sara, Danny, and Katie (who apparently think it's fun to drive 6 hours each way for a 24 hour vacation) and headed to Mount Rushmore.  Beth and Aurelia were so moved with patriotism that each recited the pledge of allegiance, conspicuously littered, and then punched a random person.  America!

I wanted to get a good Japanese tourist picture in.

Along the short hike around we ran smack dab into some mountain goats.

That begins a theme for the rest of the day.  Basically this part of the Black Hills was a western safari.  We saw more wildlife here than anyplace outside of Pikes place market or the local HyVee.

Oh, there's a buffalo right along the road.

Oh there's a herd of mule deer.

Oh, there's the Cathedral Spires.  Maybe we should climb up them?

I'll post a video that Nathan took once he uploads it, but yeah, Aurelia braved the winds and we managed to summit the spires of doom.

Here's Val and Nathan showing off their dominant goat genes.

And here's Beth and Aurelia

We made some great fajitas for dinner with the leftover steak from the previous night, hot tubbed for an hour or so, and then hit the sack.