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| CP Messy Fest before hitting the road. Eating dirt cups. |
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| Throwing Cheetos at a Doodles covered in shaving cream... |
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| Not much choice for dinner so we ended up at a McDonalds with a playland |
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| 60 foot tall green giant |
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| Music park at the Green Giant statue |
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| Little Sprout. |
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| Cruising through the flatness. |
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| First Wall Drug sign sighting. |
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| Crossing into South Dakota |
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| Playing in the hotel pool in Mitchell, SD |
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| Didn't we feel silly using Google maps to find the corn palace. |
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| Carnage from the drive the night before. It sounded like rain hitting the windshield. |
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| Corny. |
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| The one, the only... Corn Palace!!! |
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| Basketball court-size corn gift shop |
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| Exploring the Corn Palace gift shop. The first of many, many gift shops. So many gift shops. |
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| Lunch stop at Al's Oasis, just across the Missouri River. We passed on the SALAD BAR!! |
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| Mini corn dogs and coloring at Al's |
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| Pet T-Rex |
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| The Badlands! |
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| Climbing the rocks was fun for a while, until everyone got hot and/or fell down. |
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| Checking out the fossil exhibits. |
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| Visiting a prairie dog town. |
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| Bighorn with a fancy collar |
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| First Buffalo sighting just outside of the park |
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| And on to Wall Drug... First Badlands, then Wall Drug. |
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| Sampling the free 'ice water'... It's not great. |
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| Doodles either liked the water or playing with the tap... |
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| Nathan didn't want to get too close to the T-Rex |
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| Gift shop. |
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| Snake oil guy. |
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| Ice cream break. |
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| Playing pool at our hotel in Rapid City. |
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| Pizza outside the hotel. |
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| Chillin' |
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| Hotel breakfast. |
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| Playing in the hotel |
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| On to Dinosaur Park in Rapid City |
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| Hey look! This place has a gift shop! |
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| Storybook Island |
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| Arrrr. It be Captain Doodles |
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| Repurposed McDonalds hamburger playland thingie |
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| Doodles trying to steal Smokey's shovel |
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| Somehow we broke the rules and did not exit through the gift shop. |
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| Lunch at Que Pasa |
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| We may have eaten at Que Pasa partially based on these signs |
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| Toy Store! |
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| The Journey Museum in Rapid City |
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| Digging up dino bones |
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| Training for a future in chemistry |
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| Wild Bill |
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| Side saddle saddle |
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| Running away from the T-Rex |
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| Running away from the allosaurus |
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| Slide in the hotel pool |
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| We had the pool to ourselves all afternoon |
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| Eating dinner at the much over-hyped Firehouse Brewery |
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| Reptile Gardens |
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| The alligator show |
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| Prairie dogs |
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| Obsidian... |
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| Exit through the gift shop. |
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| Doodles trying out various stuffies to see which one will look best on his shoulder when he starts making YouTube videos of him playing Minecraft. You can't make this stuff up. |
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| Mt. Rushmore |
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| We got to listen to a few Lakota songs and learn a little bit about the tribal history |
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| The "cave" |
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| Keystone. The place we swore we'd never visit the last time we were there.... (sans kids) |
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| Ready to eat lunch at Halley's West outside until it started to downpour |
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| Panning for gems and gold at Big Thunder |
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| Panning for gold. We thought it would be getting a bag of dirt with some fake gold in it, but it turned out we learned out to pan for real gold flakes. It was also harder than it looked. |
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| Heading into Custer State Park to our campsite at Game Lodge. |
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| S'mores. |
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| Climbing up the big hill across the stream from our campsite |
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| The Custer Wildlife Loop. Pronghorns. |
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| Burros |
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| Buffalo |
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| Right before a ranger truck came through with the siren on that lead to a rather exciting stampede. |
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| Strolling around Custer |
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| Lunch at the Begging Burro |
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| Ice Cream break |
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| Jewel Cave. We got tickets for a 20 minute tour, but I didn't have any closed-toed shoes, which were required for the tour. We drove back to Custer and bought new shoes. Turned out it was a tour of one room of the cave and there was absolutely no reason I couldn't have worn sandals. The kids did find the whole thing hilarious though. Price of tickets to tour the cave: $15. Buying shoes in a tourist town: $$$. Memory of "Daddy's cave shoes": priceless. |
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| Checking out one of the 'jewels' of Jewel Cave |
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| The space you have to be able to climb through for one of the more advanced tours. |
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| Needles Highway in Custer State Park |
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| This is the "one foot trail" |
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| Sylvan Lake |
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| Digging up 'treasure' |
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| We waited it out through a little rain... |
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| Then it hailed a little. |
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| Half our sleeping bags got soaked and the screen house was in the stream when we got back. It poured while we got packed up and made dinner. |
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| Dinner in a thunderstorm. At least mud river that was running through the screenhouse dried up. |
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| View of Rushmore on the way to a hotel after giving up on our last night of camping. |
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| Grabbing some coffee and playing some foosball. |
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| Mini-golf! |
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| Bear Country. Bigger than a black bear, not quite as big as a brown bear. |
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| Arctic wolf causing a traffic jam at Bear Country |
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| Bighorn Sheep |
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| Lots of bears. |
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| Second to last gift shop of the trip. |
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| Next level rubber band gun. |
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| Lunch at Colonial House in Rapid City |
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| Back on the road. |
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| 1880 Town. Where you go back in time to a land that still had pay phones. |
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| Trying to get a pin into Cross Plains |
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| Props from "Dances with Wolves" |
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| Kevin Costner's make-up chair |
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| 1880 school eye poker. |
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| Sioux City Sarsaparillas at the saloon. |
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| Some early settlers traveled by.... camel......??? |
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| This guy did not so much as blink the whole time. |
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| Getting some wiggles out at our dinner stop |
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| Crossing the Mississippi back to Wisconsin |
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