Rapid City Get Away

A trip I had this month ended up with a 30 hour layover in Rapid City. It is such a cool place to visit. I asked the kiddos who wanted an all expense vacation get away for 30 hours in the exotic hot spot of sweet South Dakota. Well I got 2 takers: Austin and Nicole. Casey had several social events, so she and Karen stayed home. I was flying the trip and we did not get into Rapid City until almost 2am. There were more delays than I care to remember! The kids were troopers though and got to sit in first class. They will do about anything if they can sit in first class and get a free banana and OJ. I made them get up early as we had a full day of sight seeing. It was a whirlwind tour.

Hey! Get up sleepy heads. You had 5 hours sleep, what's the deal?

Every-time we rent a car Austin begs for a cool car. We always have to get something large we can all fit in. This was the most important part of the trip for the boy. Well we got a Dodge Charger with a Hemi. Can you tell the excitement??

Our first stop was Bear Country. "Lions and tigers and bears oh my." It was very cool.

We saw bears everywhere and they can walk right up to your car and look in. Good thing I got the scratch and dent insurance.

A Snow Wolf

Why does the bear cross the road? I am not sure but it was cool to see.

They also had plenty of babies to look at and were very cute.

After Bear Country we drove on down to Mount Rushmore. Such an amazing place. All of the carving they did back in the 1930s without one loss of life. Dynamite, jack hammers and hanging off the cliff of the mountain. It's really amazing.

When you enter the area you first walk down a hall of flags. Each representing one of our great states. It was here where a lady bumped into the kids and said to Austin, "Oh I am sorry girls have a nice day". It was so funny. Maybe he needs a hair cut?

It was a beautiful day!

We tried so many times to get people to take a picture of all three of us. Most came out fuzzy or as one lady said. "I am not sure if it is OK I don't have my glasses on." When I looked at it we weren't even in the picture. I almost laughed out loud.

There was this cool area where you walked into a little tunnel space and looked up through a crack to see George Washington.

Hey! Who you lookin at?

Then on to Crazy Horse. He is a famous Indian Chief that would not surrender. The monument is so big that Mt Rushmore fits inside his face.

This is what it will look like when it is complete. It's a family project that has been in the works since the 1940s. It is funded completely through private donations.

Then on to Needles Highway. We drove through some very cool tunnels along the winding highway.

As we drove along I was wondering why it was called Needles Highway. Well we came around a corner to see exactly why. There is a path that is barely wide enough to drive through. It looked like there was no way you could drive through it. Kind of like a Needle. Oh, I get it!

We found plenty of hills to climb along the way.

And we had to conquer each of them!

Oh, did I mention there were buffalo! It is kind of weird because they roam free and can walk right up to your car. This one was ticked off and had just been running and kicking.

A whole herd moving on to greener pastures.

There were lots of babies too.

"Well Mr. Insurance man it was like this. A giant buffalo just came out of nowhere and rammed the car."

We had so much fun! I would definitely recommend seeing were the Buffalo roam. I might even break into song........