For the final night of the Box Maze, I arranged for all four of our kids to be at the grandparents for two nights in order to get them some quality grandparent time and for get us rested up after such a busy week. Samuel and Ezra went to the ranch and Noah and Evie went to my folks with enough time for Terry and I to eat dinner alone together Friday night. At Culvers. Where the kids would go. Ha! But we didn't have much time. Next we went to the church early to patch up the maze a little, ran kids through the maze, tore it apart, carried all the cardboard outside, cleaned up, and set up the sanctuary for church in two days. Terry and I got home from the Box Maze late, maybe 10:45pm, and we slept pretty hard. The next morning we were able to sleep in since we had no kids to worry about! Next we went to the Colonial House for a quality breakfast. I had begun a gluten free diet a week or two before due to this annoying heart burn/pressure issue I've been having (still am), but abandoned the diet for caramel rolls and all other gluten-full goodness for the weekend.
My dad had the good idea to send cameras along with Noah and Evie to give them something to do in Custer State Park. When I downloaded the pictures onto our laptop they put themselves in chronological order. So while we were eating breakfast, this picture of Bo was taken. Poor Bo is very elderly nowadays.
And sadly, just a couple weeks weeks after they took this photo of Dakota, he died!
Meanwhile at the ranch the littles were eating breakfast while watching TV.
Alice sent me this photo of Ezra later in the day and I couldn't get over how adorable he was. Why doesn't he ever look that angelic at home?
After breakfast Terry and I drove up Highway 16 and 244 on our way to a new hike. I love going by Mount Rushmore.
Right around the corner was a mountain goat in the road!
He don't even care.
After I took a ton of photos he finally meandered to the side of the road...
...where he ate some grass.
We drove on past Horsethief and nearly to Highway 385 but stopped pretty much right across from the Palmer Gulch KOA where we had camped in 2013 when Ezra was a baby to see Go Fish. Across the highway from there is a hike called Willow Creek. I thought we were going to get stuck in the foot of snow that hadn't been driven on, but thankfully the Envoy four wheel drive finally engaged and we were good. We parked at the Willow Creek campground and hiked out to that pit toilet hoping that just maybe it would be open. No such luck. We almost gave up hiking since that field was at least a foot deep in snow. Look at our footprints!
Thankfully the trail itself had been cross country skied by some brave soul and we were able to do the hike no problem, though Terry's jeans did get wet. We followed hike number 8 the entire time. You can see it on the top center portion of the map. It's a small loop compared to the whole wilderness.
We started on the right and came back on the left.
Terry was a trooper and walked in front of me so I could walk in his footprints. That means most of my photos have him in them though!
Here's the first bridge. We want to come back in the summer with the kids to see the creek and little waterfalls that were all frozen and hidden beneath the snow.
Here you can sort of see the ski tracks, or at least the general direction of the trail.
My first jubilant video. I was rather happy to be out under the sun and hiking.
Not far, maybe a half mile, was a hitching post area for your horse...or husband. ;)
Directly after the horse posts was a sign directing us to number eight trail or number nine. Thankfully we stayed on eight or else we would have hiked for like fifteen miles, all the way to Harney, ahem, Black Elk Peak (as we're not supposed to call it).
Just tons of beautiful snow everywhere from that storm Oliver only five or six days before.
I had to crawl under this fallen tree due to my camelback.
The entire first half of the hike climbs up and up until you're not sure where you are, but you're up high.
Another bridge at about the halfway point.
I was there!
Shortly after the high point the trees opened up.
This was a big long field that we climbed up and through.
Looking back.
Looking ahead.
Walking through that field...
...and up a little farther.
When we had gone a little further I looked back and could see Harney/Black Elk Peak, highest point east of the Rockies!
Just about when we were about to go down we found this cool rock. "Terry, stand on that rock." Selfie.
Terry on the rock. :)
Black Elk Peak behind him.
Zoom.
From there the trail descended back towards the highway.
We were up high and not as protected so the wind was really hitting us. This was the only time I started to get cold.
Meanwhile the kids were on the wildlife loop in Custer State Park, where we went for our staycation in 2016. My parents go there all the time.
See, Noah was there!
Back to our descending trail. Isn't that just gorgeous?!
The answer is, yes. Yes it is.
Keep following them signs.
There was some burning in the hills that day, probably brush piles.
Here's a much better picture of the skier's tracks.
Buffalo, buffalo.
Pronghorn.
Another buffalo right on the road!
"Terry, go stand on that rock too!"
I did not tell him to make a little snowman...
But that's what he did. Ha ha.
We saw about three deer. Here are the first two. They were a good 100 yards away but my awesome new camera captured them so well! Squee!
There were such cool granite rocks throughout the hike.
Tracks and rocks.
To our left or south were the Needles.
More buffalo from Noah and Evie.
Funny clumpy rocks. But I mean, seriously, how cool are they all covered in snow?!
"The road goes every on and on, down from the door where it began..."
Terry grabbed that stick to defend me from a mountain lion, should one appear. :D
We didn't see a mountain lion, but we did scare another deer. Frolic and jump, deer!
Such cool snow. I love hiking in the snow.
Finally climbing back down the hill to where we began. That's the pit toilet we started out at!
Made it.
Terry reading the map with Black Elk Peak behind him.
One more selfie :)
See? His pants got rather wet.
My Garmin watch didn't finally start GPS tracking until we were nearly a mile in. So even though the sign said it was a two mile loop, I think it was at least three.
The rest of that day was spent driving through Custer State Park and on into Rapid where we stopped for a coffee and peeked into Open Suitcase, a local store supporting impoverished Christians around the world. Then we went to see Black Panther, though Terry was crazy tired. The Box Maze caught up with him and all he wanted to do was go home and rest. We grabbed a giro on the way home, ate, and crashed.
The next morning we went to church like normal, except I was significantly less stressed out since I still had no kids. Jerry and Alice took the littles to church with them. My folks dropped Noah and Evie off at Parkview before going to their church.
Afterwards we all met up at Culvers for lunch where we had Noah join the adult table since the littles were driving him nuts. It was there I learned he put his French fries in order of size. :D And just like that our magical weekend was over. But it was great and we were so thankful for the break!
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