We had our longest stretch of drive towards our cabin in Nebraska yesterday. Plains as far as you could see until we started to get up towards the Northwest of Nebraska. We stopped along the way at the “car art” spot, Car Henge for fun.

Remember when the boys contributed to the “art” at Cadillac Ranch?

From here we were just an hour away from our destination, aiming to hike at a pretty spot on the other side of the town of Crawford – and it was a beautiful one. We partially hiked two loops and recognized we needed to acclimate (we’re almost a mile high) to fully do. Truly a beautiful spot. At the base of the hike there were rentable officers barracks (Fort Robinson) that looked like a nice spot to stay. 

Before we headed to our (remote) cabin, we visited the (only) grocery store within an hour, the Dollar General, an opportunity to talk about food deserts and how fortunate we are. 

We loved the stay in Red Adeline’s cabin. Perfect space for us and the boys got to see the underground retreat space should a tornado have come through. 

In the morning we made cinnamon rolls and chilled at the cabin until around 10a and headed to the town of Hot Springs, SD for lunch and spending the day in the area. Nice lunch at Whiskey River and walked through the interesting downtown area. The Hot Springs waterfall was a small little things across the main road from the restaurant. 

We spent time at an incredibly interesting Mammoth excavation site. The site was discovered during a development project and unearthed the most significant Mammoth fossil site. The area was a sink hole, surrounded by spearfish shale which created conditions where Mammothe could get into the water at the sink hole and were unable to get out. To date, 61 Mammoths have been excavated, 2 Wooly Mammoths and otherwise the larger Columbian Mammoths. Archaeologists were actively working and we met a recent graduate from UCF who is from Jacksonville!

To wrap our time, we went to a local swimming spot, Cascade Falls. 

Felt like we had all the grandparents with us today //

• We found a glass store called Chautauqua Artisans
• Cascade Falls was “warmer than Papa’s pool”
• The triple berry pie at lunch was v good but not nearly as good as Grammys, per Rawls