South Dakota

Can you guess where we went on vacation last week? Yep! Mt. Rushmore! If you want to go see cool history, meet friendly people, and have an affordable and family friendly good time, Rapid City, South Dakota is the trip for you!

As you can see we took a lot of photos (actually about 80 but these are a good sampling). I didn't get them in order so I'll just highlight as they go down the side here.

The first was taken atop Iron Mountain --The monument is off in the distance. It was spectacular!

The house is where Laura Ingalls Wilder's sister, Carrie, taught school for years, and the green field with the rolls of hay--well, that is pretty much the view as you drive anywhere in on the plains there. Just green, clean and lovely. So much land!

Next, I saw this in a store and thought good Ole Abe had it jsut right! Read it --you may just agree!

The kids had a blast at the Dakota's largest indoor waterpark, Watiki!

The Badlands! Created by a volcano. So cool--and it just suddenly appears in the middle of all those rolling green hills. Unbelievable! Actually, this place was bad for me--about 10 minutes after this picture was taken, I began heaving. We had to leave, and I continued to be sick for the next week. Ugh!

Walls' was fun. It is famous because it offered free ice water during the Great Depression to those traveling from the dust bowl out to california looking for jobs. The history in there is quite interesting.

Okay. See this giant bowl? Well, my crazy kids went down it over and over and over until Lauren got dizzy. Niko loved it and aasked me (begged actually) to go with him. Being the cool mom I am (and a bit of a pushover) I consented. There is a big sign at the top that says, "Do not go down backwards." Niko turned to me and said, "I have two words for you mom: Be SCARED!"

No problem there--I was terrified!! And as luck would have it, we got turned around in the bowl and shot out of the tunnel BACKWARDS!! The picture just beyond is the four of our feet as we toppled out of the slide doing a backwards somersault--and I smacked my head on the bottom of the pool! Ugh!

Next is a sign we never see in California but we saw everywhere there! A little unsettling.

The next few pics are from the tour we took of Big Thunderhead Mine. This tour guide lived his entire life in the tiny town of Keystone and was without a doubt the most entertaining host ever! We learned they mined by candlelight and it took decades to chip away and dynamite even 100 feet of tunnel through the granite!

My kids loved this day! I sat back on the bus and felt so peaceful with the rain drops coming down as we coasted through the enchanting Black Hills National Forest--and my kids, they have such a great time together when nobody is looking!

Our timing was perfect up at the monument--we climbed over 250 steps to the base of the big heads, snapped photos, read the history, and it was a gorgeous day throughout. Just as we were boarding our bus to leave it began to sprinkle--and as you can see here, the other side of the mountain had hail! EVery time we stopped though, the clouds would part and we got to see everything without effort. We went go-kart racing (dad loves this whenever we can!) and then we went to Deadwood too (Lauren said, "Unless you like alcohol, gambling and smoking you won't like Deadwood for very long. The history was interesting but this place isn't for us."

Mt. Rushmore was more accessible than I thought, more awesome in person, and somehow a bit smaller than I imagined. All in all, we learned a lot, and had fun too! Two thumbs up!