We spent the next day in Custer State Park at Sylvan Lake, another place we had visited in 2006

Our group in 2021 trickled in during the day, but we eventually got most of them there.

Austin and I took a walk around the massive boulders as I tried to remember just where we had been when we had come before.  I didn't realize that in 2006 we had arrived on the opposite side of the lake.  Everything looked very similar but didn't feel exactly right.   

Only when we got to this point did I feel like we were at the right place.  The funny thing is, I think this halfway mark was as far as we had walked from the other side. 

I found this picture of me at the same place just on the opposite side of the stone.

The cousins had a fun time jumping off the rock into the lake

And the littles did exactly what my littles did before...played in the sand.

(2006  We weren't quite as prepared for the like as the bathing beauties above.)

Dad enjoyed resting while Mom and I helped the littles play.

15 years later the water was just as fun (colder than I remember...but I had only gone in to my ankles before.

Our biggest difference was that by the afternoon a rainstorm had swept in.  Suddenly large pellets of hail stated to fall from the sky.  We hid the best we could before giving up to the wiles of nature and we made a run for our cars.

The weather in South Dakota is finicky and by the next evening, Alaina was able to join Aaron and Matthew as they saw the Badlands as one should...from the sky.

Our first day in South Dakota we all trekked up to Mount Rushmore.  This was a trip that Robert and I originally took with Mom and Dad when the three bigs, were littles and we were still lived in Colorado.   Dad had loved South Dakota so much that he had planned this reunion to Celebrate Mom's 80th birthday.  

Here we were in 2006 on our way through the Black Mountains.

While we missed him ever so much on our return to South Dakota, we enjoyed the memory of him and the beauty of the land that he had also loved.

Without even thinking about it, we ended up stopping at every view point that we had gone before.  I only realized it after going back over my old pictures today.

Troy Scribner and two of his girls also made the trip for the reunion.  Uncle Steve and Aunt Mary were going to be going, but at the last minute, Steve had to go in for surgery.

The next day we all made it back to Mount Rushmore.

Here we are again in 2006

And here is the entire family in 2021

And with Troy's family.

We managed to get several family pictures underneath those stern faces...all except for Scott and Spencer's family and mine!  Regardless, here are the ones I did get.

Russ's Danny, Anna and Ben

Gina's Family

Craig's family

Here what I did get of our kids (and Jojo!)

Here is another blast from the past...Robert would have recreated this picture if he had known it was a challenge...but even he has to admit that he isn't as spry as he used to be.

Jim's family

Lora's family

alaina

Em, Jojo, Naomi and Jason

Cousins

Our walking buddies

We stayed in fun little cabins that had beds, tables and, best of all...AC.

Jim and Spence getting all the cousins to dance and exercise.

 

Mid July we started our three week trip to South Dakota, Utah and Colorado to attend both the Scribner and the Jones reunions.  

We started the first 24 hour trek to Mount Rushmore, with a packed car of excited kids.  Unfortunately we had to stay the first night in Kansas, which proved as spectacularly terrible as every single time we've ever crossed or stayed in that cursed state.  

The hotel lost our reservations, which was a terrible thing to find out at 2 in the morning.  The room we finally got was dirty and had suspicious splatters of dried red that could have just as easily been made from a cranberry juice box as a spray of blood.  

We didn't try too hard to figure it out.

Needless to say we skedaddled out of Kansas as fast as we could pack the car the next morning. 

We stopped for a relaxing break in Sioux Falls for a much needed stretch.  We found a beautiful park with a lovely river at Falls Park as well as an ice-cream shop that sold shockingly awful ice-cream.  (seriously, how does one screw that up?)  The boys didn't seem to mind, though, thankfully.