Day 3 RAINED OUT!

Day 3

RAINED OUT !

Wednesday morning was a RAIN OUT for Rushmore. The rain was too heavy and the fog was too dense to get a good look at Mt. Rushmore. We headed into Keystone to hit all the indoor museums and attractions while we waited for the weather to clear. 

The Presidents Wax Museum
We started at The Presidents Wax Museum where we learned about all of the presidents and their journey to office. It was very educational and a little creepy.  The kids enjoyed it and Charlie listened to all of the audio for each president. I can’t say his momma did the same, but I enjoyed seeing JFK and 911 exhibits. I then decided we needed a button collection of our site seeing and state visits as well as random postcard mailings. Our family has decided to purchase a postcard from every event we experience and select someone to mail it to. WATCH YOUR MAIL!!

George W. Bush at Ground Zero 9/11

JFK in office with son 

Lyndon Johnson being sworn in as President immediately following the assassination of JFK with Jackie Kennedy standing in her blood soaked clothes. 

ENO'S Pizza 

We grabbed some lunch at ENO’S Pizza at the Keystone Mall, which was an outside souvenir spot and eatery.  They have a large map on the wall at ENO’S where we got to place a pin where we live. We put the first pin on their map for Morris, IL. VERY EXCITING! People came all the way from Italy and Brazil.

Need I say more...

Josh and Carmen Dropping a Pin on hometown Morris, IL as ENO'S Pizza Patron.

The Rushmore Cave
Then we headed to the Rushmore Cave. The Cave was pretty AWESOME! I was pleasantly surprised how well everyone did with the drop in temp and hour long tour trapped in a cave with strangers. The gift shop had some pretty impressive souvenirs. Josh found a beautiful marble chessboard he and Chandler had to have.  After the tour, Chandler, Colin, Josh and Charlie went down a duel zip line ride.  Those who know me know heights just aren’t my thing.  We participated in a 7D Video Game on a big screen with movable chairs.  We were all scared as the Zombies were jumping out at us and we had to shoot them with our guns. Chandler got first place, which isn’t surprising but Josh swears his own gun was off target.

Rushmore Cave

Momma Bear Showing Baby Bear the many colors of the cave

Cave Tour

Worlds Largest Cave Column

Colin, Carmen, Chandler, Charlie- they currently still like each other.

Rushmore Zip Line Colin and Chandler

Don't worry MOM, we got this!

Zombie Chaser 7D Video Game

Charlie totally freaked out by killer Zombies

Everyone had a Blast at Rushmore Cave

Bear Country USA
Exhausted from walking, we drove out to Bear Country USA where you take a paid, 45 minute drive through protected wildlife. We saw some beautiful creatures up close and personal.  The Bears love to mingle with people. They have no problem walking up to your car to say hello. It must be mating season… explain that to your little people.  At the end of the drive you pull up to a small zoo where there are smaller protected animals and babies.  It was a great time by all.

Bear Country USA

Rocky Mountain Goat

Bear coming over to us to say hello. I'll admit I was a little nervous.

Nap time.... on the side of the road?

I'm so bored. 

Baby Bears have the most fun. They were very entertaining. 

They aren't free to roam Bear Country just yet. 

AWE! Red Fox

Goof Ball Charlie

The Reptile Gardens 
We moved on just down the road to Reptile Gardens. It was getting late in the evening but we made it there just in time to catch the last 2 shows of the night. We watched a snake show which Josh was less than thrilled to attend. EEEKKKK! The gator show was pretty cool though. The man running the show sat on a gator and showed us how to handle one in the wild. I think he really enjoys his job. We took our time going through their large dome where they housed many snakes and other amazing reptiles. The frogs got my attention. They are a lot less intimidating but were fascinating.

Snake handler Chandler.

 Josh was shaking in his khaki's.

Croc handler Chandler.

I think he loves his job. 

Chandler taped up a baby crocs mouth so the audience could pet him. 

The boys getting up close and personal with prairie dogs. 

Colin standing next to very large tortoise. One of them is 109 years old. 

They were GINORMOUS!

Ummmm. Big Fat Bull Frog 

 The Reptile Museum South Dakota

2014 Guinness World Records Largest Reptile Zoo

The weather never did let up but the day wasn’t a wash. We had a blast! I’M A HAPPY CAMPER!!

Rain, Rain Go Away

6/10/15

Day 3

Mom and Dad woke us up bright and early, and right from the start I was having a Negative Nancy kind of morning. First off, it was raining, a lot, it was ranging so much I did not want to leave my bed let alone get out of the RV. Then, my mom said that I was in charge of making  pancakes for breakfast, and if any of you have ever tasted my cooking you would ask my mom the same question I did, "ARE YOU CRAZY? DO YOU WANT ALL OF US TO HAVE FOOD POISONING?" I guess the answer was yes because she made me cook anyway. I guess they didn't turn out awful, but they didn't really turn out great either. After that I had to shower and get ready, again if you know me, you know that it does not take me five minutes like the rest of my family. Since I was the last one to start getting ready I was the last one ready, and I was extremely rushed. My hair would not lay right and it was frizzy in the new South Dakota weather. I was not happy, and I guess mother nature wasn't very happy either because she just would not stop crying! We decided to do as much of the inside/underground stuff as possible that day due to the rain.

 We started at the Presidential Wax Museum, it was interesting, educational, and quite creepy. Dad, Charlie, and I were the only ones that listened to the entire audio for each and every president and event in the museum, I think my favorites were probably JFK and the Abraham Lincoln displays. After browsing the gift shop and picking a few souvenirs, we headed next door to look into the Rushmore Tramway Adventures Park to do if the sun decided to come out at some point during our visit. I was pretty hesitant at first because the very first step in signing up was signing a waiver, so naturally I yelled, "DAD NEVER SIGN THE WAIVER! YOU CAN'T TRUST THE WAIVERS!" Everyone laughed at me, but I'm still not sure why because to me if you have to sign a waiver to do something, it is obviously not safe enough for you to be doing. We went up to the window and talked to an employee about coming back to do it. Still concerned I blurted out, "Has anyone died on this thing?" The employee didn't really like the question, but it turns out that no one has died there yet! The old guy next to me laughed, nudged me and said, "Hey, someone had to ask." 

After the park we went to the Rushmore cave and no, this cave does not go inside or under Mt. Rushmore. We took a tour of the cave learning about the different rocks and minerals that make up the cave, the cave's history, formation, and discovery, as well as stalagmites and stalactites that are inside of it. We got our souvenirs and then Dad and the boys went on the Rushmore Cave Eagle Zipline. After the zipline, we went into a 7D zombie video game. It was so cool! If you do not get motion sickness easily and enjoy 3D, then you should definitely try a 7D video game. Chandler got 1st place, some random guy the played with us got second, and I got 3rd. Now I know that y'all are probably thinking "Well third isn't that great," but I beat my dad, by a lot, that's what really matters here. 

Bear Country U.S.A. was out next stop, or I guess drive would be a better word. We drove through a kind of nature park filled with South Dakota wild life. We saw different types of deer, goats, sheep, wolves, buffalo, mountain lions, bears, ect. The bears were a little too friendly with each other, must be mating season! We also got to see the babies of some of these animals. My favorite were the bear cubs. Four of them tried to climb a tree at the same time, that tree was so skinny I thought it would fall over! Only one of the cubs made it to the top, the others got bored, as children do, and jumped out of the tree to wrestle. 

Our final stop of the day was at the reptile garden, that was probably my favorite stop of the day. We got to see snakes, alligators, crocodiles, turtles, frogs, and birds. We watched a snake show where we got to see one of the snakes' caretakers handle different types of snakes and educate us about where each was from, if they were poisonous, and how they killed their prey. Some of the poisonous snakes were a little feisty and lunged at the caretaker. He even showed us a King Cobra, but that one had to stay in a glass case because it is too dangerous to handle them. The best part of the show was seeing how freaked out by snakes my dad is. He kept jumping and getting those 'I'm really creeped out' shivers, all while going "Ah! Gross! I hate snakes!" Dad finally came around and pet a non poisonous snake with us later, but only after confirming with the lady holding the snake that she had his head and that she would not let go of his head. Then we also got watch an alligator/crocodile show. It was the same guy that did the snake show ( his name was Chandler by the way). We got to see him wrestle a crocodile as he taught us how to do it too. He was a really funny guy, too bad the crock gobbled him up... Just kidding! But I did think that one of them would because as he was wrestling one, a different crocodile kept creeping up behind him. He was really out numbered too, there were probably over 20 crocks and gators in the enclosure. At the end he brought out a baby crock with its mouth taped shut for us to pet. 

Back to KOA we went, completely exhausted and ready for dinner and bedtime, but of course we had to watch the movie RV before hitting the hay!

-Carmen