On the Road Again || South Dakota 2018 Part 2

Day three of our South Dakota trip, we spent meandering through Spearfish Canyon. It was located closer to our house than Mount Rushmore and Black Hills National Park, but was definitely not lacking in beauty. It was a blissful day! 

We started the morning by deciding to take the scenic route. What was supposed to be a 15 minute drive quickly turned into... an hour and a half. 

Actually, just kidding, that's an inside family joke :) but it did indeed take us longer than 15 minutes. Also, the 'scenic route' led us right to a road closed sign... and let's just say it was legitimately closed.

We did eventually make it to the park and embarked on a trail leading to a waterfall to start the day. It was the perfect trail for us right then... the perfect length, it led to an actually destination, and it was pretty all along the way! Win-win-win :).  

Lunch break! 

After lunch, we tried out another short hike that led us to a stunning waterfall. 

Our God is an awesome God! 

We attempted to do a little wading in the stream that ran alongside the road since we have such fond memories of doing so in Tennessee. However, the temperature of the water pretty much took your breath away instantly... which made it hard to stay in for very long :)

Since the previous day had gotten really late, we decided to head back early to our house to have the afternoon and evening to relax!

Friday was already our last day of exploring SD. This day we traveled to Custer State Park. We enjoyed the wild life loop (although were slightly disappointed with the amount of animals we saw...), Needles Highway, and a little hiking. 

O give me a home, where the buffalo roam

where the deer and the antelope play.

where seldom is heard, a discouraging word, 

and the skies are not cloudy all day!

another beautiful lunch break! 

Needles Highway... worth the drive! 

 This was the tunnel that we were inches from not fitting through with our big white van :)

This was actually called the eye of the needle

After driving around the park for most of the day, we were ready to get out and do some hiking by later on in the afternoon! A lot of the trails we had done had ended up being fairly stroller friendly although we had always opted to put our sweet pea in the baby carrier. For the trail we chose on Friday, however, the description seemed like it would be stroller friendly as well and so we decided to try to stroller. However, the trail was not stroller friendly :)

so she was carried a lot of the way just like so :)

The trail was a beautiful lake with large boulders and stunning scenery altogether. 

Even though we had a long trip back to our house, we ended up convincing Dad to let us stay a few minutes longer than we were originally planning. We were so thankful that we had stayed the extra time when on our way home we came across a terrible hailstorm that had just come through. Car after car was along side the road with a shattered windshield and other things. We were so glad to get home to our vacation house all in one piece! 

Saturday morning we had time only for a quick breakfast before loading up and heading out. 

It was such a beautiful place to stay!! 

On the way home we stopped at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. It made for a good place to stop for a bathroom break, but we wouldn't necessarily say that it is a must see :). 

We ended up spending Saturday night and Sunday with some new friends in Iowa. Then after church it was time to hit the road again this time with home as our final destination. As always, it was good to home yet we could have stayed longer in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota! We are so thankful for another wonderful family vacation!