Vacation--South Dakota

The summer is over half done and I am just getting to updating our blog. Mercy how time is flying by.

I am going to try to walk you quickly through our summer journey. We started in June by traveling to South Dakota on our first family trip. This was a ton of fun. The trip began with a visit to the Corn Palace, a place Dad and Mom visited when they were newly married, with no children, and road-tripping with Grandpa and Grandma Vaughn.





The outside of the building is covered in corn and other naturally grown products.


Our next stop was the Badlands. What a magnificent display of God's handiwork! It was very windy and the steep drop offs made me a little nervous.





The kids got a bang out of the the wind with their Super Man impressions.


These two wanted to get out further than I was comfortable with and enjoyed freaking me out.



Here we are at Wall Drug, in South Dakota, a place for dinning, shopping, playing on statues like this, a covered wagon, horses, etc. This was a nice break while traveling across the barren state of South Dakota.


Sitting inside the tepee, doing, well, we are not sure.



This was the cabin we stated in between Rapid City and Hill City. As you can see the cabin is new and almost finished. It was very nice inside. There was a loft, a small kitchen, and beds for 8.


Reptile Garden was our first stop. Here we are having lunch after the crocodile show.


The kids getting to pet a small crocodile after the show. Elizabeth had some reservations.


The indoor animals were wonderful and of huge proportions as you can see.


Next was Bear Country where we drove around (with our windows up, you will see why....) and saw bears, elk, mountain goats, etc. This fella was right in the middle of the road blocking traffic. He was right beside my window when I took this.


Here comes the reason why we keep our windows up!


Heading in to see Mount Rushmore for the evening ceremony. This was very moving.





The next tourist stop was Rushmore Water Slides, a highlight for our aquatic family. Love this expressing. Picture is a little blurry but so worth it.














Heading down to Nebraska we slipped through Chadron and found this to be one of those, "you know you are redneck when....." things. Only here do they pull a mower behind a car to take care of the grounds of a hotel where .............


they decorate the premises with a chicken made from a gas tank and other misc. parts. Hillarious!