As soon as school ended, we were ready to kick off summer break with a family vacation. Thanks to the free national parks pass for 4th graders, we let Staley pick a national park that she wanted to visit. Her choice?
The Badlands in South Dakota!
My road tripping enthusiasts didn't balk at the 13-14 hour trek out west. We filled our car time with all the usuals--toys, snacks, movies, and books on tape. Our books this trip included Mr. Popper's Penguins, Frindle (a favorite), The Penderwicks (another favorite), Matilda, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, part of Indian in the Cupboard (not a favorite), Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, and Magic Treehouse.
We made very few stops along the way (because my kids are hard core and can road trip like champs), but couldn't pass up a quick stop to see the World's Largest Popcorn Ball.
We spent our first night in Mitchell, SD. Home of the Corn Palace. Although the inside was closed by the time we got there, we were able to marvel at the decor and murals all made out of corn.
After hours of driving through Iowa countryside and counting Wall Drug signs, even a quick stop at the Corn Palace is exciting. (For the record, we counted well over 100 Wall Drug signs on our trip.)
A quick 3 hours the next day brought us to our first adventure: The Badlands!
The day started off cool and overcast, but became hot and sunny by the afternoon. We filled our day with scenic overlooks, short hikes, and lots of climbing.
We hiked our way through a variety of trails in the Badlands, with Notch Trail (1.3 miles roundtrip) and Door Trail (1 mile roundtrip) being the favorites.
The big ladder that you had to climb up/down was one of the highlights of Notch Trail.
The kids were all wary of the signs warning about rattlesnakes and the younger two swore they kept hearing rattling throughout our entire hike.
Door trail was another favorite, primarily because there was no "trail" but rather various colored stakes that you followed, allowing you to decide exactly which route you wanted to take. The kids all opted for any route that involved more climbing. Briggs kept saying, "I'm going to take the hard way."
We also did Window Trail, Fossil Trail, and Cliff Shelf trail, which were all more like short walking paths as opposed to hikes. However, the kids most enjoyed just climbing around on all the rock formations. They would have done that all day.
I was surprised by how much climbing and exploring my cautious little boy was doing.
Although we never saw any rattlesnakes, we did see a white squirrel, a bunch of prairie dogs (that kept barking at us and running into their holes when we walked into their "town"), a few curly horned sheep, and some bison.
Staley declared her Badlands choice a success! We enjoyed a great day in a beautiful place!! We also started checking off license plates for our trip while here and ended our trip with 47 states. We never did get Hawaii, South Carolina, or West Virginia.
Our fun day in the Badlands took a turn in the evening. We stopped at Wall Drug since we saw over 100 signs telling us to. The outside area was closed, the inside is just a huge souvenir shop, and the "restaurant" was a bunch of over-priced fast food. But at least Zach got his free glass of water. It then started to storm and the cabin we had reserved for the night was less than ideal. The floor was wet from the rain, it smelled funny (mold?), and the pull-out bed was broken. We waited out the storm, loaded the kids back in the van well after bedtime, and drove an hour to our rental in Rapid City instead of staying the night in the cabin. (Thank goodness we were able to get in to our Rapid City rental a night early.)
Our rental house for the rest of the week was a haven. Although it was ridiculously expensive and booked in a moment of weakness, we LOVED it. We loved it all--the steam shower, the heated floors in the bathrooms, high end everything, perfectly clean, beautifully decorated, and filled with anything we could possibly need to feel at home.
The kids favorite was the loft where they slept, which was full of books and games and puppets and even a little wooden doll-house bakery.
We started off our first day in the Black Hills of South Dakota with a trip to see the presidents.
We took the trail to the base of Mount Rushmore, visited the visitor's center, watched a movie about the making of monument, and took way too many pictures at every spot we saw.
It was chilly and windy so I was glad I had thrown our sweatshirts in the van at the last minute.
It was impressive and we all enjoyed our stop to see the presidents. The kids also enjoyed Daddy's on-going joke about how Rutherford B. Hayes was initially supposed to be on there too until some wayward dynamite accidentally took the 5 initial presidents down to 4.
We then made our way to Crazy Horse, which was more expensive and less impressive than our first mountain carving of the day. The kids enjoyed a Native American dance demonstration and some of the Native American artifacts, but definitely enjoyed Mount Rushmore more. Crazy Horse felt like much more of a commercialized tourist trap than Mount Rushmore.
Our plan after Crazy Horse was to eat our picnic lunch in a scenic spot in Custer State Park. The chilly temperatures and wind made it a bit unpleasant to sit outside for eating, so we instead found a spot to park and eat our lunch in the car instead.
We then drove the Wildlife Loop in Custer State Park where we met the very friendly donkeys as they stuck their heads INSIDE our open windows looking for food. My donkey ate a granola bar out of my hand while Zach's donkey just licked him since he didn't have any food available. When we rolled up the windows, they just licked the car door and windows instead.
We also saw bison, lots of prairie dogs, deer, pronghorns, and elk during our time in the park.
We came back to enjoy our evening in the backyard of the cottage with grilling, playing with the kid tents and yard games, and relaxing by the firepit.
It was a lovely way to end a lovely day!
Our next day was our warmest and nicest day of the trip, so we headed back to Custer State Park for some more exploration. We started off with a 5 mile roundtrip hike combining both the Cathedral Spires Trail and Little Devil's Tower trail.
The Cathedral Spires trail was nice, scenic, and fun. The kids made up a game that they were playing along the trail that they were having a great time with, but we had to keep encouraging them to move along as they'd get so caught up in their imaginary world that they would just stop moving.
We also nicknamed each of the kids as a different animal during our hike (Briggs was a mountain goat, Adelie was a gazelle, and Staley was a pronghorn) and they would take turns leading the hike based upon what type of terrain we were traversing and which animal could handle it best.
The Little Devil's Tower portion of the hike was by far the favorite. It involved a lot of climbing up and over the rocks to get to the summit, which the kids LOVED.
We made it to the top! However, it was a bit windy at the summit, so we hiked a little ways back down before stopping for our obligatory halfway point hiking snack.
That hike was a highlight of the day, and of the trip, for everyone in the family.
We then made our way to Sylvan Lake for a picnic lunch.
We did the hike/walk around the lake, where the kids wanted to stop and climb on every single rock formation we came across.
After our hike, we rented a canoe and a kayak to explore the lake from the water.
We had a lot of fun racing each other (the girls and Zach were WAY faster than us) and exploring the lake.
After our fun on the water, we headed back to Rapid City, ate dinner on the outdoor patio at Murphy's Pub and Grill (yum!), and then visited Dinosaur Park, which is just a free park with 6 or 7 life size dinosaurs make out of concrete. (It was a top activity on Briggs' list.)
My goofy kids enjoyed running around, climbing on the dinosaurs (climbing was a big theme this trip), and asking for pictures to be taken.
To cap off our huge day, we drove back to see Mount Rushmore all lit up at night. It was a fully and fun day!
Our next day was cold and overcast. We slept in, had breakfast, and then checked out the presidential walk in downtown Rapid City. All 43 presidents (minus Biden and Trump) have statues on street corners throughout several city blocks downtown. We found all of them and completed a little scavenger hunt related to them as well. The kids were tickled when we found Rutherford B. Hayes, the missing Mount Rushmore president.
And, of course, Ronald Reagan was a favorite.
We had to rush to finish our presidential walk in time so that Briggs and Zach didn't miss their train ride on an old 1880's steam train.
They got to ride in this passenger car from Keystone to Hill City, which was about an hour long ride.
In Hill City, they then got to spend time checking out a train museum. Apparently these little model trains that went around the track were a big hit!
The train ride was a huge highlight of the trip for Briggs. Obviously.
While the boys rode the train and checked out the museum, the girls and I went to play mini golf. This was a first for them and they loved it!! It helped that the day was cold and we were just about the only ones there so we could take all the time we needed to complete each hole.
After we picked up the boys, we then went to the drive-through wildlife zoo called Bear Country.
We had lots of up close encounters (from the van) with wildlife like wolves, elk, reindeer, curly-horned sheep, bison, and, of course,...
bears! Lots and lots of bears.
There was a small walk-through section as well with smaller animals like foxes, porcupines, and our favorite...the baby bears.
We had hoped to check out Wind Cave National Park the following day for some hiking and a cave tour, but it would have involved a very early morning in order to ensure a cave tour spot AND it was cold and rainy. We were all tired from our big days, so we instead chose to have a quiet, cozy day at the cottage. The kids colored and drew and played. We played games and watched a family movie. We went to Independent Ale House for yummy pizza, packed up to leave the next morning, and got a good night's sleep.
We woke up, loaded up, and headed further west to check out Devil's Tower in Wyoming the next day.
We hiked the trail around the base of the tower, watched the rock climbers climbing, and stopped frequently so the kids could climb and explore on the rocks. It's their favorite.
We ate our picnic lunch at Devil's Tower and then headed back into South Dakota.
We drove the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Drive, checking out the waterfalls and scenic views.
We hiked the 2.2 mile round trip hike to Devil's Bathtub. This hike involved crossing the stream at least 7 or 8 times. If there's anything my kids like as much as climbing on a hike, it's a good water crossing.
There was also plenty of rock scrambling, getting wet, and...
...the bathtub at the end!
All 3 kids got in. Zach and I did not.
After our hike, we finished our scenic drive, found our rental apartment in Spearfish, got cleaned up, ate dinner at the Farmhouse restaurant (another winner), and then checked out the little fish hatchery in Spearfish before heading back for bed.
It was a fun way to end our last official night of vacation before heading back towards home.
We got up to start our trek back home the following morning, but had decided to make a stop back in Rapid City to check out the free Storybook Island park that was opening for the season that day.
We had found this adorably fun free park chock-full of storybook and nursery rhyme-themed characters and play areas while in Rapid City. The kids were very disappointed that it wasn't open yet, so we were excited to check it off our list on our way back home.
There was a little train that Briggs was super-excited to ride...twice.
And, of course, Adelie was super pumped to find Ariel hanging out in the park as well.
There were even a few princesses walking around the park while we were there.
After spending over an hour at the park, we hit the road. We drove back through the Badlands to see their beauty one last time, stopped in Iowa for one last night on the road, and then enjoyed being home again after our week of adventures.
Our trip wasn't perfect. We had complaining and whining and arguing. We had rain and cold weather and bad cabins and grumpy kids and tired parents. There was attitude and sass and tears. No trip is going to be picture perfect.
But amidst all the imperfection, we saw a beautiful part of the country. We did hard things and climbed and explored and learned and laughed and made lots of fun memories along the way. I love getting to plan trips to new and fun places that expand my kids' horizons. I can't wait to decide where we'll go next.
