Other attractions

Jewel cave was pretty awesome. Even if it was freezing, launched a 2 1/2 hour quest to become Jr park rangers, and led us through tons of traffic on treacherous canyon roads. We were only able to do the shortest tour, much to M's eternal disappointment. She wanted to explore, of course. But the website's not kidding when it says they sell out daily! We luckily got the last tickets available for the day for anything!

Outside the "fancy" restaurant where we ate breakfast. My dad ordered an omelette. The waiter then asked, "how would you like your eggs?" Not joking. It was fine dining.

The house we stayed in was great though. Everybody slept decently, although if I was rating it online, I would mention that the scenic helicopter rides that take off in the next driveway up the road every 20 minutes from 8 - 8 are noisy enough to shake the house. It's cool the first time.

Ice cream's always good!

Storybook Island in Rapid City. Apparently it was all everyone had hoped it would be!

Bear Country USA

We had been told this was a "must see." I gotta say, them bears was BIG!! I gave my phone to J to take pictures of the wildlife. I'd say she did a pretty good job:

On the other hand, next time I think I'll retain the picture taking privileges.

Thanks to Uncle Rick, we did get a few non-selfie shots. We find buffalo, or bison, everywhere we go:

 There we go. That's much better:

Adrenaline junkies unite!

Dude LOVED the Alpine slide!! He was nothing like the girl who I heard tell her mom, "there was something wrong with my slide. It was slow or something." The mom responded, "the slide was just fine. The problem was you had a death grip on your break."

Because he wasn't tall enough to do the ropes course, he got to go a bunch of times. But surprisingly, the girls were! Mostly. More on that later. We honestly weren't sure it was going to work because M could barely walk with the weight of her gear. And she got distracted and missed most of the demo given by an underpaid teenager who didn't care one whit whether we knew how to stay safe 30 feet in the air or not. Thanks man. Throwing caution to the wind, we forged onward. Luckily J had listened. No honestly, there came a time when the other 3 of us didn't have a clue how to work something pretty vital to my life, and J told me how I was supposed to do it. The worrier pulls through!

It was SUCH a blast!!

It did take a little bit of getting used to but I was so incredibly proud of how the girls dealt with the challenge. They really rose to the occasion, screwed on their courage (whatever that means), and just went for it. The longer we went, the more confident they became, which was AWESOME for me to see. Really a neat experience as a mom to do this alongside them. It was a fantastic hour and a half, even if we had worn Uncle Rick out after the first hour :)

There were times, honestly, when the girls' smaller sizes made things easier on them. There were a few awkward situations for us older, bigger folk. But back to that too small issue as promised? With 3 obstacles to go at the very end of our 3rd and final course, M got completely stranded 15 feet from a tree in either direction. Poor thing. She just plumb couldn't reach and got in a position where she couldn't move forward or backwards and still reach. A quick rescue from an observant worker that had been stationed not too far away (there was an oddly limited number of them, by the way), and we finished with flare.

 

When asked later, this ropes course was their favorite thing of their trip. It was totally worth the money my dad spent on it! :) Thanks Bopa.

Road trip!

Driving anywhere for more than a few minutes with this gang can be a bit of a challenge, but thankfully Nana and Bopa decided to fly to Dickinson and help me drive down instead of meet us there.

I don't think I was the only one grateful for this. Here's our "quick" bathroom break (Ha! As if anything is "quick" with 5 kiddies!):

Ham:

Quick picture op at the "geographical center of the United States" in Belle Fourche, South Dakota. Still can't completely wrap my head around that one, but it's a cool, shiny plaque with flags from every state! And why is Dude off by himself? Because he "wanted to point to Texas" instead of to where we actually were. Naturally.

And yes, we were wearing coats in July. A freaky cold spell surprised us with 50 degree weather the whole trip. So weird! Thanks North (and South) Dakota for keeping us on our toes!