Wild West Trip II: Rapid City

Our second main stop on our trip was Rapid City, SD. We stayed two nights in a really cute rental between Rapid City and Mt. Rushmore. On our way over we stopped at Wall Drug (because you have to) and got the kids some donuts that were absolutely delicious. Then we hit up Walmart in Rapid City to resupply and headed to visit Mt. Rushmore.

First glimpse of Mt. Rushmore. Dave doesn't remember any of our previous trip so the boys were both excited to see it. 

We walked down to the Artist's Studio and listened to a great talk by a ranger about the creation of the monument. 

It was super hot out so we found a shady spot for a picnic lunch. This is Breezy Point. 

We had a little time to kill before our rental was ready so we drove down to Crazy Horse. I really love this whole complex, lots of really cool artifacts and the movie is fantastic. Plus we got to see hoop dancing while we were there!

We were all super tired by this point and our cabin was ready! We just hung out the rest of the night, ate some dinner and relaxed! The internet was great here and the kids took advantage of that knowing that was going to be rough moving forward. 

The next morning (Monday) we went to Custer State Park to check out the Needles Highway and Wildlife Loop.  

The Needles is just such a cool experience. The boys loved going through the tunnels and it wasn't busy at all so we were able to get out and walk around quite a bit. 

These mountain goats must have loved some kind of mineral in this tunnel because they just kept going back after cars went through. 

We hiked for a bit on the Cathedral Spires trail but didn't make it too far. 

We went on the Wildlife Loop but there wasn't much wildlife to be seen. Last time the donkeys were right by the road but we couldn't find them and there was a bunch of construction that caused some delays.

It was super hot by this time and we had wanted to visit Wind Cave but it was closed for the summer, so we decided to hit one of the city pools. But before that we went to the Pawnseum in Rapid City which was kinda neat, then to Bokujo for lunch. This was a neat little Triple D place owned by Justin Warner from Food Network Star fame. 

We took the boys to Horace Mann Pool-it was super nice and they loved it. Lots of good slides. 

After the pool we went to Armadillos for ice cream-so good!

We went back to the cabin, cooked up some burgers, and then got hit by a pretty big thunderstorm-lots of hail. But after there was a beautiful rainbow. 

Packed up early the next morning for our next destination: Yellowstone!