Lovin Rapid City Day Three!!

This may officially go down as the longest post ever. I couldn't choose which pictures to use. Amazingly enough, this is only a few of the pictures we took that day. So sorry for the ;length.
We started the morning at Sitting Bull Crystal Caverns. It's a cave full of some really cool crystals.

The family inside the cave

It was quit the experience for all of us. Somehow when planning our vacation I missed the part where it states that you have to walk down ladder like stairs. Good thing it was only the equivalent of a 10 story building. (you can't hear, but that was so my sarcastic voice) I am sure that I mentioned that I am terrified of heights. Big time.
So going down the the wet ladder like stairs was a little nerve racking to say the least. Oh did I mention that your feet only fit side ways. I finally turned around and went backwards. That way my feet fit on the stairs and I couldn't see below me. It was so much better that way. I think all of us with the exception of Randy and Grandpa were a little scared. Here is a picture of the stairs. I don't think that it even kind of reflects the steepness of the stairs.
This is like 1/10 of the stair case that we went down. Oh, did I mention we had to go up them to get out of the cave. Adrenaline is an amazing thing.Randy, Ryen, and I cleared all 10 stories in just a few minutes. My legs were shaking the entire time. It wasn't until I was on solid ground that they started to hurt. I was a little sore the next day, but I made it out of the cave.
Grandma and Grandpa inside the cave. This was the only narrow part of the cave. This is a picture of a wall inside the cave. The sparkles are crystals. The picture doesn't really show you how pretty it was.
This is the roof of the cave. I couldn't believe how big some of the crystals were.
The family in the flood room. They call this the flood room because they didn't even know it existed until there was a flood. It was pretty cool room.

Just a few feet from this cave was another really small cave (about 100 feet or so). It was the winter home of Sitting Bull, so we took flashlights and went and took a look.
This is the front of Sitting Bull's cave. Don't we look so happy to be back on solid ground?

photo by Ryen

This is the back wall of the cave. It is so gorgeous. Amazingly, it still looks like that after tons of winters being filled with smoke from the fires.
Randy and Ali were really brave and got down on their hands and knees and climbed into the smallest part of the cave. Oh PS... they got super dirty--check out Randy's knees.
After we left the caves we decided to hike along the trail back to the parking lot. It is like a 1/4 mile hike or so. The girls seemed to like hiking. Ryen wasn't too crazy about the bugs, but liked the climbing.
Ali loved it all. She could have played on that trail all day.

We decided that we would go back to Keystone and have lunch. We got lunch and some serious rain and hail.
This is the rain.Here comes the hail. We weathered the storm and did all of the sight seeing anyway. We even crossed the street for some taffy. Yummy.

It was off to the Badlands from there. Luckily, the weather decided to cooperate and we were able to wander around. The badlands were really cool. Having grown up in Utah and spending a good portion of my summers in Arizona, I thought that the badlands were lacking color. Randy loved it, which tells me we need to take a trip to Sedona, Arizona.
The family getting wind blown on a cliff. I was freaking out and couldn't wait to get the kids back on the ground.

Picture taken by Ryen

This is one of the mountains that had a lot of color.

Some of the wildlife just walking around. June is a great time to go because there were babies everywhere. Had to add this because it is a great picture taken by Ryen.
We made one more stop that day at Wall's Drug. It is a huge drugstore with tons to do and see. We had some of the best french fries ever there. I only took a few pictures, but I think this is long enough.