Day 4: The Great American Road Trip

We decided last night to sleep in a bit today, unfortunately my body still thinks we are on EST so at 5:15 I was wide awake.  Not many options when you are wide awake in a room full of sleeping people.  Everyone else enjoyed their sleep and woke up rested and ready for a fun day of exploring the Black Hills.  The theme for today was animals.  We started our day at Bear Country USA and I HIGHLY recommend this place if you ever venture out west.  It is a tourist site but not cheesy and the boys all 5 of them loved it.  It is basically a drive through zoo featuring animals of North America, literally walk up to your car!

From there we headed to the Black Hills Ranger Station to get the boy's passports stamped and pins for their road trip lanyard.  The boys learned all about Smokey Bear.

 

Lunch was at this great place in Rapid City called Philly Teds where we all had cheesesteak for lunch

Next stop was Mt. Rushmore once again to visit the museum and get the boy's passports stamped.  Each of them proudly completed the Jr. Ranger Program  and were sworn in.  A was saying all day, "I will protect the mountains."  So stinking cute.  

Did you know they built this for less than 1 million?

Silly shots are the best!

To be honest with you our next stop was my least favorite.  We went to see Crazy Horse.  The establishment was very nice but it left too many holes in why so little as been accomplished and I really walked away feeling like the Native American people just passed off this quest to a sculptor and his family rather than really helping build it.  I admit it will be impressive, someday.

You can see the sculpted head through the arm hole.

Finally we headed back to our hotel Mt. Rushmore Express Hotel and Family Suites which I have to tell you is nice!  I admit that I am somewhat of a hotel snob so booking hotels for 7 under $130 a night was a tough thing but so far we have done alright.  Most of our hotels even have continental breakfast for free as well.  

Anyways on our route back we took The Needles Highway through Custer's State Park.  It was magestic and we even continued with our animal theme.  We fed chipmunks Pringles when they flocked to our car to look at a view.  Saw several deer and even a buffalo just chillin' eatin' grass.

How cute is this?

Tomorrow is another big day on the road as we head to Yellowstone National Park!