So far so great!

Our first official stop (Saturday) was in Mitchell, SD. We ate at Ruby Tuesdays and checked out the Corn Palace. The kids stamped a quarter and loved the corn themed decor. After driving through some pretty heavy rain (enough to make us pull over), we stopped in the Badlands and were greeted by mostly sunny skies and great temps. The kids were excited to stretch their legs and climb on the hills and trails of the Badlands. At the Visitor's Center, we were lucky enough to chat with a real life astro physicist! She had a special telescope that allowed us to safely look at the sun. It looked like a red ball with black splotches and wispy "hairs" waving around the edges. Very neat. She explained the surface to the kids and was very friendly.

About halfway to Rapid City, we started tracking how many license plates we could find from different states. As of Saturday night, we were at 32 states including Alaska!  We hit the jackpot today at Mount Rushmore and even found North Carolina, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. Our current count is 42! We arrived in Rapid City and stopped at a diner that served all day breakfast.... kids love breakfast for supper. We checked into the Grand Gateway hotel and let the kids burn off hours of pent up energy from the long car ride in the pool! As you can see from their posts below, they had a blast.

Up early today (Sunday), we went to Bear Country first. How cool was that?!  I'll let the kids post photos and updates from our visit there. There were lots of baby cubs that were quite active. Next stop was Mount Rushmore. What a magnificent tribute to America! We watched the movie, checked out the bookstore and visited the Wisconsin flag and pillar. It was PERFECT weather... beautiful blue skies and temps in the mid 70s.

Reptile Garden will go down as a favorite I'm sure... gators and lizards and snakes... OH MY! A highlight was the tortoises that you could hang out with and pet. The kids especially liked one young tortoise that was only 108 years old. We watched them graze and walk... or lumber around. Every possible kind of snake was there... I'll post some photos of the favorites. We watched the bird show (very funny) and the alligator show. The guy actually taught the crowd how to wrestle an alligator. We went to Dinosaur Park... the cement dinosaurs were so-so, but the view of South Dakota was really awesome.

We walked downtown and ate dinner at the Firehouse Brewery. We let Travis pick the dinner spot since it is Father's Day after all. :)  Full, tired and happy... we're back pool side where Bob and Susanna are playing with other kids (see kids posts to find out who Bob and Susanna are). Thanks for checking the blog. I'm sure the kids will post some photos and updates of the day later tonight! xoxo

Mount Rushmore

Here are the kids... see them in the bottom of the picture. Amphitheater at Mount Rushmore.  Beautiful day!

Mount rushmore

Selfie! We took a selfie at mount rushmore!

Corn Palace

In an english accent, we are at the palace of corn but really it's called the Corn Palace. We, my dad and I were thinking about burning the place down and seeing how big the popcorn was. fortunately he didn't get too desperate for popcorn so we had a fun time. Also we got cool pressed coins!!!

Swimming

Payton and I were doing some cool tricks down the slide of gateway, when we thought of an idea. We thought of changing our names and giving it out to people. Paytons name was bob, my name susana, sue for short and we had fake fights that people thought were really fighting! We had a fun time and before we left,  we heard a person say "bye bob"!

Family Selfie at Badlands

What a fun day!

Statues

On our way to Yellowstone National Park we have seen many statues one looks like poop (he he he). Also we saw the other one that looks like a gazelle on the road it was awesome.
-- payton

More badlands,

We saw some mountan goats!  We visited the visiters senter we saw some cool stuff but, evechully we had to leave.

Badlands

We saw the badlands and it was not that bad, it was actaully very fun!

So excited to see the Badlands

We have more to post from the Corn Palace,  but couldn't resist this one.

When the wind blows..

2MW turbine cost $3-4 million each! They are as far as the eye can see here. Near Sioux Falls.

Sign

Just saw a billboard. .. ONLY 355 miles to Wall Drug.

Lightening

OMG! We just saw lightening really close to our truck! It was so clear!

Home Alone

Up at 4:30 am. We left the house at 5:45 a.m. with the Yukon all loaded up. The first movie of choice was Home Alone. Lots of laughter from the backseat as the bad guys get their butt kicked by McCauley. Molly's quote, "These actors must be paid a lot to make this movie!"