Wyoming and seeing Devil’s Tower was fun. The kids
have never seen Close Encounters so
they sort of didn’t get it. I feel
like I’ve failed as a nerdy parent. South Dakota was more beautiful than I
expected. (My apologies to its residents.) It was a busy, busy time, however,
and the state isn’t conveniently laid out to see everything in a whirlwind
trip, but geology is like that sometimes.
Starting at Rapid City, we caught Reptile Gardens just after opening.
Yes, you heard that right, Reptile Gardens – they combine reptiles and gardens –
and they do a lovely job of it. Oddly, we spent more in the gift shop there
than the national parks combined (they had jackalopes).
What’s a jackalope? A taxidermist
trick putting deer antlers (should be antelope/pronghorn but they almost always
use deer) on a hare (which westerners usually call a jack rabbit). I was astounded to find some tourists from
Idaho looking at them and not immediately know what they were. Someone from the
east coast, sure, maybe not, but how can you grow up in the west and not know?
It’s like not knowing about Big Foot.
We arrived at Reptile Gardens in
time for the snake show, so we went, and saw the cutest little prairie
rattlesnake ever! He was rattling his tail at the guy doing the show,
posturing, edging away then back toward him, striking even though he was out of
range – just full of attitude.
They had some really rare specimens,
so that was fun, then it was off to Mount
Rushmore and the crowds. Wow, the crowds. You notice the crowds more in the
traffic than walking around because the area is made to handle a lot of people.
We parked, walked forever trying not to get in people’s photos, snapped a few
pictures, noticed someone was standing on Jefferson’s head, hit the gift shop,
and left. We offered a helicopter tour to the kids and both declined, I was
stunned by that. There is something wrong with my teenagers.
Upon leaving, The Girl realized she
forgot her MP3 player in the car so she forgot to play the theme song to Team America (Thankfully! That would
have been totally inappropriate and that she even thought of it proves she’s
mine) so she was grumpy for nearly an hour. Hubby and I considered the Crazy Horse
memorial, then opted against it in the interest of time and not setting off The
Girl on another rant about something else she couldn’t change about her
imperfect world. We opted to keep her happy, so all of us could stay happy.
The Badlands were a must, but the
official entrance was out of the way. I was already told about Wall Drug and
decided I didn’t need the headache, so it was easy to cross that off the list
of things I ‘had to see.’ The Badlands was more difficult. I did my homework
though. A map of the area showed the Badlands extended to a little road by Red
Shirt. We didn’t have to drive far down that little road before we got a
beautiful view.
The Boy looked at the rough terrain,
made note that he still had a data signal on his phone, and returned to his
games. The Girl was more impressed with the geology, and all the dinosaur bones
that lay still undiscovered there. She grabbed her camera and went crazy. An
hour later we had to drag her away or we wouldn’t make it to Hot Springs in
time. The Girl had an appointment at the Mammoth
Museum to do … something archeology-like. They have classes. She was with a
group of Girl Scouts from Ohio and a few other tourists and they uncovered
bones buried by the museum and put plaster on them. She was partnered with a seven-year-old, but she
had fun.
Google Maps directed us to our
hotel via a graveyard access road and hospital parking lot, that was pleasant. Maps
is usually really good, but it’d been a long day and Hubby wasn’t really in the
mood for that nonsense. Once stuck on a washed-out dirt access road behind the cemetery,
I ignored their suggested route (which didn’t exist because the road didn’t exist anymore) and
figured it out on my own, navigating for Hubby like people used to do before
GPS told them to turn into rivers and such. Good times.
It poured most of the night and my
phone kept telling me about flood warnings in this county and that area – which
meant nothing to me. Tell me a city name
or leave me alone! Worse, it’d been telling me there were flood warnings
all day, and we traveled nearly the height of South Dakota while
seeing only a few fluffy clouds. No rain. My phone is psychic. It was trying to
prepare me for the torrential, tropical monsoon style downpour we’d get that
night. I actually took the time to look up county lines on a tiny map of South
Dakota, wondering if the car or hotel was going to get washed away before I
found an answer, and what I could do about whatever information I found.
It was wasted time. The car didn’t
float away, neither did the hotel (which admittedly seemed a ridiculous concern
the next morning). The sidewalk was cleaner, and there was a lawn chair ten
feet up in the tree across the street.
The trip home was largely
uneventful. It rained more (hard), we drove, we had complaints from the back
seat about it being boring, we hit several birds, we narrowly missed a turtle,
etc. Hubby pulled over for the turtle. I hopped out, ran back, picked up Mr.
Turtle, and moved him. Turtles shouldn’t cross the road, it’s absurd.
Upon arriving home, Jingles was
waiting for us with many snuggles. She bed-hopped for a couple of nights to
make sure everyone felt loved, then disappeared again for a few days. Normal. Glad
to get vacations out of the way.
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