One of the last things we did in South Dakota was to visit Wind Caves National park. We did a guided cave tour, which was only about a mile, but we learned some pretty incredible things. It was discovered by two brothers hunting. They heard the rushing wind in a hill and when one brother went over to check it out, his hat flew off. Later, it was explored every day by a teenager of 16 named Alvin McDonald. He explored it every day for 4 years with a candle and rope to guide him back. Thankfully, we had stairs to go down, but Alvin dropped himself down 80 ft to start exploring. He discovered 5 miles of it and in his journal wrote that he feared he would never make it to the end of Wind Caves.  As of today, there are 150 + miles discovered and scientists believe they've only discovered 5-10% of it. You can see the unique box work especially in the picture: middle row, right.

We did a drive through of Wyoming to see our Nation's first national monument- Devil's Tower. As the sign says below, scientists agree that it is made of molten rock. How it came to be can only be guessed at. I have to say, driving through the West and seeing so many unique rock formations, angles of hills and rocks, caves, etc. really makes me wonder how God created the earth and how it changed after the flood. We've seen some cool geological features but they all are explained through theory of evolution and millions of years. No one takes into account of a world wide flood and its impact.

Did you know you can rock climb Devil's Tower? I believe the youngest to do it was only 5 or 6 and the oldest person was 90. We did a 1.3 mile hike around Devil's tower in the heat of a 100 degree day. We figured it was only a mile so we didn't bring water. That was a mistake. Thankfully, the Lord provided through some kind people when saw our kids red faces and offered one of their water bottles to us half way through our hike.  You can barely see, but there are some people on the ledge of the bottom right picture climbing.

What else has happened? Our canopy broke. I opened it up and we left for something. Came back and the wind broke the arms of our canopy. Some friendly neighbors helped us get ready to travel as Luke used twist ties and other things to try to secure it. However, it came unraveled as we traveled to our next destination. Thankfully we were only 20 min away from our campsite and some (again) very friendly neighbors saw our damage and helped us take the canopy completely off. Another provision from the Lord- most RV places don't just have arm replacements. Luke called one place that would be en route to our next campsite and they *happened* to have the arms we needed- only because they were the wrong size ordered for someone else. They even discounted it for us! Luke got the canopy on today- again, with the help of some lovely neighbors.

We are doing lots of PB and J on our travel days so if anyone has some good easy (cheaper) travel lunch ideas feel free to message me ;)