Road Trip Day 9 - Rapid City, South Dakota

My phone died today. Like completely dead, shut off, wasn’t turning on at all! And my portable charger was dead too. And there was no USB port in the rental car that I picked up in Rapid City. This never happens to me! In the six months that I have had the new iPhone 11 I’ve never had my battery die. 

But I was just so excited to show you guys stuff today on Instagram and Facebook live. It’s been a super fun day! It began around 6am in the Walmart parking lot. From there we drove to a skate park in downtown Rapid City, found a large parking lot at a museum that was closed until Wednesday, and parked so Rob could work.

Last week he was on vacation, but today is his first day back to work. The kids got up gradually, Jenica first then Kenton, and I finally had to wake Tenley around 8:30 so we could get packed up and out of the RV for Robs 9am meeting. 

The kids played on the skate park for a bit. I love getting to these places early in the morning when no one is there, because by the signs of the garbage left behind and the graffetti, it’s probably not the best crowds that usually hang out here. While the kids played, I picked up trash since I happened to have garbage bags and gloves in the RV and I had always wanted to do the #cleanupchallenge

We went for a bike ride planning to be gone only one hour and ended up spending 2 1/2 hours exploring Memorial Park and The City of Presidents Walk and taking silly pictures with the statues. 

We also happened upon Art Alley, an alleyway completely covered in graffiti art. It was super cool!

The kids wouldn’t pose on this chair that was left in alley (obviously for photo shoots), so I decided to. Pretty cute, eh?

Memorial park had a little creek running through it and a few playgrounds including one with a fun game we have never seen before (maybe you saw it in my Insta story.) It was kind of like tenis but instead of a hitting a ball, you hit buttons that light up and make noise.

Rob had some Internet connectivity issues on his first day back to work, which was super annoying since he thought he got that all straightened out on our last trip, but alas another trip to the cell phone store was needed today. Hopefully that will take care of the issue. 

We miraculously found a car rental here this morning that would be ready by 1pm and sure enough we pulled in with just enough time to do the paperwork while they ran it through the car wash. And the last people who rented it left their Custer State Park pass in the windshield so that will save us $20 bucks or so. Yay! 

After we got the rental car, we headed to Bear Country USA, a drive-through wildlife park outside of Rapid City. 

We got to see reindeer, elk, black and brown bears, wolves, bighorn sheep… The best part though, the baby bear cubs at the end, were you can get out of your car and walk around. (I only got pictures of the babies with my big camera so I’ll have to add those photos later when I’m home). 

It was so fun. 

The animals were literally right next to our car a lot of times (there were many warnings about keeping your windows shut.) 

After that we continued towards our RV park in Custer, but when we passed Old MacDonald‘s Farm and Petting Zoo, we had to stop. 

The kids (and me - who am I kidding?) got to pet baby pygmy goats. They were so tiny and cute. The kids bottle-fed baby calves and Tenley and Kenton got to ride ponies Jenica has literally outgrown pony rides. They had a scale and when they weighed her she weighed too much to ride 😔

There were potbelly pigs, Texas Longhorns, donkeys, ducks, chickens, swans, goats and horses, and even some parrots and a peacock.

(Again, photos are on my big camera so I’ll have to add them later.)

One more stop for ice cream because the kids have been such troopers on our long day as tourists.The local Dairy Twist had some pretty amazing blizzard like treats, and they only accept cash, which I thought was pretty cool with everything going on in the world right now.

(Check out the guys hair style in the background 😳)

Unfortunately my phone completely died about 3 miles outside of the town of Custer and even though i tried to memorize the directions to the campground before it shut off, I turned left instead of right in the middle of town and got a little lost. A kind park ranger at Custer State Park helped get me turned around and back on track. 

When we got to the Buffalo Ridge RV resort, Rob was already there with Tumbleweed (the name the kids affectionately gave to our RV on the last trip.) 

This RV Resort is super cool. It has cabins, teepees all set up for “glamping”, and the RV spaces of course. There are two pools (one is adults only) and a hot tub, and an awesome playground. 

Rob took the kids to the pool while I cooked dinner. Then we all took advantage of the amazing bathrooms/showers they have here. After being on the road for two days it felt great to get clean.

Tenley helped to build a fire and we roasted marshmallows and star gazed for a bit before heading to bed.