Day 7 started out as usual: me heading to my morning class. This was an especially nerve wracking day as my final test was going to be released at 10:00 and I'd only have two hours to complete it before having to resubmit it to the system. There was a wrench in the plan as they could not print my document at the lodge but I made do anyway.
Scott and the kids were in charge of getting the car loaded so we could head out right at 10:00.
Our first stop was to Bear Country, U.S.A. in Rapid City. This is an easy and fun stop and it only took us about an hour to complete.
This bear was living his best life!
The kids had fun exploring the walk around area while I nervously submitted my paper but the cell signal provided and it all went without a hitch. We also had a really nice lunch in Rapid City, wood fired pizza and sandwiches.
Our next stop was to the badlands.
Girls (and mom) were not in the greatest mood and this was a very short stop. I would like to have hiked a bit more but it was warm and we were tired so we just got back into the car.
A bit later we made our final stop at Wall Drug. We were here about an hour or so, just looking around a bit.
The kids loved the backyard area, especially the fountains. I have some good video of Brynn getting totally soaked! The runner up for fun things was the dinosaur and the kids shop right next to the dinosaur (where we browsed for an entire 12 minutes to wait for the beast to go off again).
We ended our trip with an ice cream/donut break (no coffee for me, I didn't even have a nickel on me...sad) and a refill for our kids Dramamine. Wall Drug IS still a drug store, you know. :)
After this we began our long journey eas across the prairie. It takes a really long time to get from Wall to Sioux Falls, ugh. We stopped at a rest stop outside Chamberlin to have a picnic supper but by that point I was getting tired of hauling out all the food to have no one eat it. I really had a great time on the trip but I was getting worn out by this point. At least it was a quick and relatively painless stop so we could hit the road again. I started calling hotels in Sioux Falls to get a place for the night and we were having terrible luck. Everywhere was full. I randomly saw an opening on expedia and called the hotel right away and we got a room at the Dakotah Lodge. When we were checking in at 10:30 pm they told us they save those rooms for "Mr. Lucky" and release them at 7pm every night. We were indeed lucky and thankful! It was a nice hotel and perfect for us.
Tomorrow will be our last day in Sioux Falls and heading home!
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