South Dakota 2024 - Part II

 

After checking out of the awful hotel that couldn't give us a working air conditioner on a 108 degree day, we enjoyed our first night at our new accommodations. We would absolutely stay there again. The beds were super comfy, the bungalo was far roomier than a hotel, the owner was very responsive, he'd left out a welcome basket of snacks and drinks for us, and the air conditioning worked great! We gave him a 10/10 review. 

We woke up to some super cute kids the next morning. I got up and went to a laundromat. Oscar had done some shopping the previous evening, so we were able to eat cereal and milk for breakfast again. I have to admit that after 9 nights in hotels that served breakfast, I was actually getting tired of having a large breakfast every morning. I'm used to just a bowl of cereal, and even though I could get cereal at a hotel breakfast, I'm unlikely to when waffles, bacon, and pastries are also available. 

Once the luandry was in the dryer, we went up to see the sculptures at Dinosaur park.

There's also a lovely view of Rapid City from the top of the hill.

We went into the gift shop for some air conditioning on a very hot day then met up with Amy and James at Storybook Island.

Storybook Island is a super cute park with play equipment all based around various well known fairy tales. On a different day that wasn't so hot, the kids could have played here all day.

Allison pretended to be the big bad wolf for some little kids who were pretending to be the three little pigs. Since I played the Big Bad Wolf in two performances of Little Red Riding Hood this past May, I teased her "hey! That's my part!"

After that we went to the Reptile Gardens. It's amazing, but we were a bit disappointed by the lack of air conditioning. It was largely outdoors, and the main indoor area was aerated with outdoor air. 

The kids love watching lizards and snakes, and there were a fair amount of active ones.

We went to see the Snake show then saw the prairie dogs.

I let the kids do their dinosaur virtual reality theater, even though it cost extra, largely because it was in an air conditioned building. 

You can get a season pass by posing with this picture. We're unlikely to use again this year but figured we'd get a picture anyway. There was also a 3D room the kids spent lots of time exploring before the alligator show. It had a trippy, twisty tunnel they couldn't get enough of. 

The Alligator show was super cool! He was getting one alligator ready to show us how you would pin one down if you needed do, but then another one randomly attacked another gator. He said "looks like we have a volunteer," and came around and got that one instead. I got the fight on video. You can see it biting another gator for no reason in the bottom right picture.

He then showed us how to get a gator to submit and prevent it from being able to defend itself.

Then he fed the gators some chicken. Only some get fed at each feeding. Apparently they can go a long time between feedings and don't all need to eat at the same time. 

We then went over to the Avian section to see some fun birds.

We also toured this tropical area and the little Japanese Garden.

The pictures don't do justice to how massive this Australian crocodile is. I wouldn't want to be anywhere near the water that this guy is swimming in!

And we saw some giant tortoises! I thought we'd only be able to touch the shell, but they told us they like neck rubs!

I got lots of cute photos with Allie and the tortoises!

We then checked out the gift shop before heading to dinner at a nearby restaurant. We enjoyed our food, but it took a long time, and since the doors kept getting opened, there were a bunch of flies.

Here's a cute selfie with Amy at dinner! Rachel from Iowa had texted to ask how the rest of our trip was going, so I sent her this picture. 

Unfortunately we didn't see much wildlife on the wildlife loop road at Custer State Park. I guess this wasn't the best time of day for it.

We did get to see Mt Rushmore at night though. I hadn't realized they'd be doing a military ceremony, so it was all dark when we first arrived. We stuck around about 15 minutes before they lit it up. 

The next morning Oscar ran a race, then we all went to church when at an 11:00am ward. They invited us to their potluck, which worked out perfectly. There were no restaurants anywhere between there and where we were going to the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, so it was nice to get some food in us without needing to drive 10 minutes out of our way back to the main part of Rapid City. The ward members were really kind to us and gave us some good tips for future trips.  

After church we rode the buffalo mountain coaster. We'd seen it on our way to the Reptile Gardens the previous day, then later learned it was just down the road from the church building. It was fun! It's like a mix between a seated zip line and a coaster combined with a shooter game that gives you points for hitting targets. We got lucky since lightning came in very soon after our ride and shut it down not long after we'd finished.

Amy and James were staying in Hot Springs, so we met up with them at the Mammoth site. It was discovered accidentally by a company trying to level the hill and build homes on the property. You can learn more about it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egS-foB_jJA

It was a prehistoric sinkhole that trapped dozens of mammoths trying to get down to fresh water. Their fossils are extremely well preserved. 

It's too bad we didn't get there in time for the Jr paleontologist program. We'll have to do that next time!

We then explored the gift shop and the kids played in the play areas before getting food and ice cream with Amy and James. We said our goodbyes to them then started our drive into Nebraska. 

There was a lovely sunset as we neared our hotel. They gave us two king sized beds, which was nice after nothing but queens. They also had a good breakfast, and it was very comfortable. It used to be a Days Inn but had been bought out and was under new management. They seemed very customer service oriented. I would stay there again.

The next morning we finished our remaining few hours of drive time and came home to a very sweet cat who was very happy to see us!