Labor Day Weekend - Part 2

After a busy day of sightseeing, we started all over again on Sunday for day 2. We started our day at Bear Country U.S.A. Bear Country is sort of like a drive through zoo. You take a three mile drive around the park with bears, mountain lions, big horn sheep, bison, and more surrounding you. The mountain lions were the only animals on the drive that were contained by a fenced in area. The other animals are free to walk around and many of them were hanging out in the road as we drove through. We were worried about our new van at one point. Another red van three cars up from us was scratched up from a small herd of big horn sheep. We luckily made it through unscathed. The only close encounter we had was with a small brown bear who rubbed his head on the front of the van. On the drive we noticed that other parents had taken their children out of carseats so they could see the animals during the drive, so we let Lily sit up front with us. We propped her up on a pillow in the middle so she could see. She had so much fun waving and blowing kisses to the animals through the window. At the end of the 3 mile drive there is a pedestrian section (sort of like a zoo) where you can see the baby animals up close.













After leaving Bear Country and grabbing quick lunch, we drove to Custer State Park. We couldn't really do any of the trails or hikes since Christina is starting to get uncomfortable in the pregnancy and Varun was injured from a softball game last week. So instead we took two of the scenic drives through the park and stopped a few times for pictures and to stretch out. Our favorite part was the Needles Highway drive. The highway is named for the high granite needles it winds around. There were some beautiful views along the drive.









Our last stop of the day was Crazy Horse Monument. We thought that this stop was well worth the extra few mile drive, especially once we found out that active duty military have free admission. The Crazy Horse Monument is far from complete, but once finished it will be the largest sculpture in the world. For comparison to Mount Rushmore, the four faces of will all fit inside of Crazy Horse's head.
In addition to the monument, there is a visitor's center, Native American museum, gift shop, and restaurant. In the center of all of these is a huge deck over looking the monument. When arrived shortly before a group of Sioux Indians were about to perform a dance show. We thought it would be fun to watch so we took Lily out of the stroller and sat about 5 rows back from the stage. Lily was dancing away during the show. At one point, the announcer asked for kid volunteers to come up and dance with a brother/sister pair from his reservation. Varun took Lily up there since she was having so much fun dancing in the audience. As the music started, Lily looked a little scared up there and didn't move. After about 30 seconds she started to dance and the audience started cheering and laughing. At the end of the song, the dancers and other kids left the stage and Lily stood in the middle smiling and clapping at the audience. We might have a little performer on our hands!







Lily on Stage