Joining the Idabros' Mancation

A few months ago, Ryan started telling me about the plans for this year's Idabros mancation.  Every year my brothers go on a little vacation while Kara is in California visiting the grandparents.  This year they were planning to go to Mt. Rushmore.   That's when I promptly invited James and myself on their mancation weekend.  Mt. Rushmore is on my bucket list, so it was a must!  We left Thursday after work and met Ryan and Deeds at a park-and-ride in South Weber.  We left Ryan's car there and all piled into Daryl Atticus.  Let the road trip begin!

We stopped in Casper, WY for the night and stayed at a hotel before heading off for our first destination...

Devil's Tower National Monument

This place was so rad!  It is the core of an ancient volcano.  The volcano has since eroded away and left the solidified core behind.

Can you see the rock climbers?

Our next stop on the road trip was Jewel Cave National Monument in Black Hills, SD.  My first time to South Dakota!  Woop woop!

This is a map of the cave...what the?  Don't ever be so huge!

Practicing crawling through caves.

Before it got too late and dark, we headed to our campsite in Custer State Park. Ryan did an awesome job picking out our campsite.  We were at Sylvan Lake Campground and it s so beautiful.  Before this trip I pictured all of South Dakota being a barren wasteland with no tree.  I was way off!

On the way to camp we stopped by Crazy Horse.  We decided to save $50 and not go into the park.  It's a work in progress to say the least.

Once camp was set up, we drove along the Needles Highway through Custer State Park.  It was truly amazing!

There's the needle eye that gave the Needles Highway its name.

Deeds' signature power squat.  You'll see a lot more of this.  And yes, this is a tunnel that we drove through.

Sasquatch pose!

 Then we went into Custer for dinner.  Deeds got wild boar.  It was pretty dang good!

Fun with after dinner mints...so special!

After dinner we went back to camp and made s'mores over the fire.  Camping makes me the happiest!
Saturday morning we got up and headed out on a hike around Sylvan Lake.

Hot chocolate!

Out on our hike

This lake was stunning!  We could have spent a whole day there easily.

After our hike around the lake, we hit the road for Badlands National Park.  This initially wasn't on our agenda, but we had heard from a few people that it was a must if you are in the area.  What's another few hundred miles in the car at this point?

Road trip nap...haha!  Love him!

We didn't really know what to expect, but the Badlands were awesome.  So random that this is just out in the middle of nowhere South Dakota!

Deeds can do these cool pictures on his phone.

We stopped a viewpoint for lunch.  James and I were in charge of food for this trip.  I must say that we did a really good job!

 

 

 

 Then we headed back toward Custer for the grand finale of our trip.  Up to this point we hadn't even seen a glimpse of the big guys in stone.  This was our first view...

So epic!

At a viewpoint on our way...

We spent the rest of the evening at Mount Rushmore.  It was about the size I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting there to be so much to do there.  It was awesome!

 

 We first walked along the President's Trail that goes right along the base of the mountain past a plaque for each president.  It was awesome to read why they were each chosen and how the sculptor felt about each one.

Good ol' GW.

Tommy J

Steady Teddy

And of course, Honest Abe!

 

 Then we went to the Sculptor's Studio where Gutzon Borglum created a miniature that was exactly twelve times smaller than the sculpture on the mountain.  He used this miniature to know the dimensions of sculpturing the real thing.  It was fascinating to learn how he did it.

It was originally supposed to be their full busts but when they got that low on the mountain, the rock wasn't right for sculpting.

 

 

A nice girl helped us re-create their faces.  Hahahha!

We spent quite some time in the museum learning all about Gutzon Borglum and the way they sculpted.

 

 

 

 

 

We ate dinner at the cafe there with a view!  The food was actually delicious and not crazily overpriced like we were expecting.

After dinner we headed to the amphitheater for the evening presentation.  There was a little video presentation and the park ranger gave an awesome speech.  After lighting up the mountain, the ranger had all the currently serving and veterans come down and they each said their name and what branch of the military they were in.  It was really awesome. There were probably close to 50 people.  It was so patriotic.  I love America!

 

 Then we headed back to camp.  It had rained a little that day, so everything at camp was soggy.  Not so fun!  We still made s'more though, and then called it a night.
Sunday morning we got camp all cleaned up, took showers, and hit the road for church.  We ended up at a branch in Lusk, WY.  We bumped the size of the congregation from 20 to 24.  It was crazy!  I've never been in a branch before.  The missionaries were blessing the sacrament and the speakers for the meeting. The dear youth speaker read two entire conference talks word for word and never looked up.  The second missionary didn't get a chance to speak.  What an experience!

Google StreetView of the branch building.

Our last stops were at Independence Rock and Martin's Cove.  Independence Rock was a marker for people traveling west.  Many people carved their names in the side as the passed through.

Martin's Cove was really great mostly due to the senior missionary who was our guide. Elder Young from Bluffdale, UT was a true gem.  I think he said "pretty much" at least 102 times in the short time he talked with us.  He also assumed that we knew everything about Martin's Cove because all the boys had served missions, so he didn't tell us a whole lot about the place.  We did learn about his fishing trip the weekend before though.  He was so awesome!

Deeds snagged a picture!

 

 Then we hit the road for South Weber to drop the Idabros off at their car.

We were in the car alot!

 We got back to South Weber around 8:30 on Sunday night.  James and I drove home and my brothers continued on another 5 hours to Boise.  It was quite the trip!  I think James and I determined we drove almost 1800 miles in 3 days.  I can't believe how much we got to see.  It was such a blast!  I love my brothers and my husband and camping and America!
On Monday James and I set everything up in his parents house to clean and air out.  We had to put everything away muddy and soggy.

The aftermath!

I would do it all over again in a heartbeat!  Hopefully we can go back some day with all the rest of the fam!