Water Park and Other Hotel Fun

The girls' favorite part of our vacation was being at the hotel.  The hotel we stayed in was attached to an indoor water park.  What more could you ask for?  There were several big slides and play areas to occupy them.  Joseph wasn't really big enough to enjoy it, so he and I didn't spend too much time in the water, but the girls could have just spent three days there!

The hotel time also allowed for some mind-numbing television viewing.  It is hard to keep the kids happy and not getting into everything in the hotel, so we were much more lenient about the amount of TV the kids watched.  This translates into a happy boy.

Bear Country USA

Everyone loved going to Bear Country USA.  This is like a drive-through zoo.  There are animals in a large habitat with roads through it.  The animals are very accustomed to all the cars driving through and will walk right up to the vehicles.  There were a wide variety of large animals, including elk, bighorn sheep, bison and wolves.  But the largest exhibit was that of the bears.  There were many bears and they weren't shy at all.  Joseph was a little nervous when they came right up to the van, but he got used to it and enjoyed it along with the rest of us.  After driving through the animals, there was an area with the baby animals that we walked through.  Lots of fun!

Chuck Wagon Dinner

Wednesday evening we went to a chuck wagon dinner.  It was at a fun ranch outside of town.  There was an 'Old West' town set up, with pony rides, panning for gold and lassoing while you wait for dinner.  Then there was a shoot out where the kids all go look for the bad guy.  Dinner was traditional cowboy fare.  After dinner there was music for entertainment.  We enjoyed the evening.  Rebecca especially enjoyed this activity.

Dinosaur Park

We thought it would be good to let the kids run around and play that afternoon, so we went to the Dinosaur Park.  It wasn't quite what we were expecting, but it was an interesting area in Rapid City.  At the top of a hill, the city built a park with these huge cement dinosaurs.  The kids had a great time climbing all over them.

1880's Train Ride

On Wednesday we went on an 1880's train ride.  This was one of my favorite activities.  We rode on a train that had been built and used in the 1800's and were able to listen to a tour guide tell about the area we were riding through and the history of the area.  

Cosmos

After leaving Mt Rushmore, we went to a tourist attraction called "Cosmos Mystery Area".  The idea behind it is that there is a place there in the hills where there are three different vortex (not sure what the plural is there...) that cause people to appear shorter or taller and attract objects to them.  The kids thought it was amazing.  Jack and I thought it was amazing that they could build a whole tour around, um... gravity. 

Mount Rushmore

The week after school got out, we took advantage of no school for a whole week before Memorial Day (and thus fewer crowds) to visit Mount Rushmore and the surrounding sites.

The drive up was pretty miserable-- there was rain, hail, sleet and horrible wind.  We actually saw a semi that had been overturned by the high winds.  Luckily, the weather improved drastically for the days we were actually in Rapid City.  

Seeing Mt Rushmore was neat-- I had never been there before.  The kids enjoyed it for a few minutes, but were quickly ready to move on.  I was glad we managed to get in a tour group with a park ranger to explain about the carvings, the Presidents, and the man who took on the project.  Without it, I don't think the outing would have lasted very long.

We found out the people rappelling down George Washington's face were actually doing scans of the rock to test for stability.  Interesting.