Long, Long Weekend

We spent Saturday the 28th staying at a motel, swimming at their waterpark and celebrating KL's 1st Birthday. Working from home has made it hard for me to get anywhere and I was TIRED of my house and being in it. Kimber was extremely kind and used her air miles and rented us the room, this way we only had to pay for the wrist bands, which were kind of expensive. I had fun being a kid again and riding on the big waterslides they have. I was abit apprehensive on some of them (must be my age showing - I'm a chicken - bak-bak-bak). They also had a lazy river that was fun to float on tubes with the kids. (KL didn't have as much fun with the spraying water). Then on Sunday we went to The Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary. I bought the pass to go in May or June after K had bugged us about going there and it expired on Oct. 31st.(I had to use it, I got a discounted price but was still nearly $40) We had a ton of fun, but it completely wore us out.

All three kids really liked to see the horses. I thought it was pretty cool. Mostly the history of the land.

The current owner purchased it from the two original homesteaders who were brothers in law. One road was part of the old Pony Express trail with the "mail-box" still there (I included a pict). They also have a Sun Dance site for the Lakota people. In early spring they fast and dance for four days (I included a pict of the tree and circle). They use a cottonwood tree because it has a star in the center, not rings. Everything they use symbolizes something, heavens, earth, people, etc. The dances were outlawed for awhile after the Wounded Knee Massacre, and sometime in the 70's were allowed to start again. They were allowed to come back to the original dance site after the land was purchased for this sanctuary.

There have been many movies and commercials shot on the 11,000 acres. Other roads were once the cattle trail from Texas when they were bringing the cattle to sell in Chicago and one other place.

Some of the horses blood lines are 100's of years old. They keep these separated to keep the blood lines pure. They are really friendly. Some of them were trying to get in the bus with us. (didn't seem so wild, but did spook very easily.)