The Mammoth Site

It's VACATION time!! It was a very long couple weeks leading up to this vacation, so I was more then ready to get this vacation underway.

The nice thing about traveling to South Dakota was there was no traffic and there wasn't many other cars around either. Just a lot of cows, horses, and pronghorns, but gosh, it was nice to just look at nature and not just cars. The down side is, there isn't anywhere to stop. So, along the way, we came across a small picnic area on the side of the road and we had a picnic lunch. 

It wasn't the greatest place to stop, but the scenery was beautiful and the kids loved that they could have a picnic. 

When I was searching for things for us to do other then just go to Mount Rushmore, I came across The Mammoth Site. After reading about it, I knew it would be a perfect pit stop for us, as it was still a couple more hours to get to our destination.

I am so glad we made this pit stop. It was so interesting to see all the mammoths that they have uncovered. As of right now, they have uncovered 61 mammoths, 58 Colombian and 3 Wolly. 

The skeletons of the mammoths were found when they started clearing land to make apartment buildings in 1974. After uncovering 4 to 6 mammoths, they decided to stop clearing the land for buildings and it then became the Mammoth Site. 

The mammoths had fallen into a sinkhole where they later died, for the fact that they were unable to get themselves back out. In this sinkhole is where these mammoths still lay, in the very spot that they were found. 

McKenna taking pictures with her phone
(my old phone that no longer works, but she always has it in her purse to pretend to use)

What a crazy thing that happened to all these mammoths, but so awesome that all these people take the time to carefully care for all the remains of these amazing creatures!