Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Wall Drug and Badlands

We forged on to Rapid City, SD the next day. We dropped off the camper at a campground and continued on to Wall, SD. Boy were we glad to have that camper off, the winds were INTENSE. We had to make a stop at Wall Drug to see what all the hoopla was about. There are about 100 million signs for "Wall Drug" between Rapid and Wall. Let me tell you....Wall Drug isn't all it's cracked up to be. But we were glad to be out of the car for a little while and inside a building to be out of the freezing wind.



The coolest thing there (which wasn't really that cool) was the big scary dinosaur. He would roar and open his mouth. Carter wouldn't get within 10 feet of the thing. In fact, the kid took off with lightening speed when the dinosaur came "alive". I only caught the very last few seconds of him running, but oh it was so funny.






Poor scared little boy. He was sobbing.


We got our pictures with the stage coach,

and the jackalope.

And then it was time to head to Badlands National Park. Hang on to your hats...have I mentioned the wind? Honestly it was so windy, we were too afraid to even let our kids take the walks to the edge of the canyon for fear of a big gust coming and blowing someone over the edge. (We read on the weather report that there were 50 mph gusts.)



So we viewed Badlands from the nice warm car. The colors were beautiful and we had a great time learning from Wikepedia (via Jarom's laptop) all about how the Badlands were once under water and there are fossils from turtles and other water creatures there. So interesting!

After a VERY full day of driving, it was time to go back to good ol' Sacajawea and settle in for the night. It's a good thing we were all so tired because otherwise no one would have slept a wink with that wind howling all night long.

7 comments:

Lee Ann said...

Holy cow! I hope yoiu actually get to see the big men and the wind doesn't blow you over before you get there.

I was 11 when we took this trip. I still have these little magnetic, kissing pigs I bought at the Wall drug:)

becky ward said...

darn wind! glad no one blew away. and poor carter...it always surprises me to see how easily spooked he is!

Grammy said...

Poor Carter....

Our Family said...

That's awesome! We got some good quality time in Wall when we drove to Boston in '04. We were on our way out from seeing Mt. Rushmore and kept seeing all the signs for Wall and wondering what it was. But we decided to just keep going. Well, our car broke down that evening as we were on the freeway and we were towed into...Wall!! And since it was a Saturday night, the car couldn't get fixed until Monday. So we ended up exploring Wall, anyway!!

Tonya said...

That is so funny, my computer died and so I am computerless. Waiting for the kindness of others to use their computer.

Lula! said...

I'm googling the Badlands now...fascinating stuff. It was once underwater? So interesting! This is like a total field trip for me.

p.s. Loved the Jackalope. I sat on a ram in Vegas last year. I'm big on posing like that. But bless Carter's heart...that dinosaur WAS scary.

LouandAngela said...

My boys thought the dinosaur was hilarious--or rather Carter running. Poor kid. I'm sorry it scared him so bad. I can see how scary it might be if you weren't expecting it.