Day 3 - Afternoon

Recap: in the morning hours, we went to StoryBook Island and then to Bear Country.  We had a late lunch and then started our afternoon activities.  The first on our list was the Big Thunder Gold Mine.  We had a tour of inside the mine and then a demonstration of the mining equipment that was used back in the day.  The tour and demo was probably about 45 minutes long, which was about 30 minutes too long for Ashley.  The rest of us found it fun and interesting but she was bored pretty quickly.  We also paid for a pan to try panning for gold.  This part could have been really fun and enjoyable but because of a few bad attitudes towards the end, it just became chaotic instead.  We did find a few flakes of gold though which we brought home!   We also bought a pan and some gold rough to try our luck here at home too. 

 

After the gold mine, it was later in the afternoon already which meant it was cooler outside and time to go Mt. Rushmore - the main reason for the whole trip.  Amazing.  I knew it would be and it didn't disappoint.  We all enjoyed it and luckily everyone was in a good mood for this part of the day.   

I'm so so so glad we got this picture!  Family pictures are hard to come by.

We left Mt. Rushmore alittle after 6:00pm and within minutes, they were out.  We went back to the hotel and ordered in pizza since I knew that they were pretty beat, and making them sit in a restaurant probably wouldn't have been a good idea.  An excellent day!