South Dakota bound- Day 3 (6/10)

 On Tuesday morning, we woke up in Sioux Falls and continued to head West after breakfast at the hotel.  Our first stop was Porter's Sculpture Park, about 30 minutes outside of Sioux Falls.  It's one of Time Magazine's Best 50 Roadside Attractions!   And it didn't disappoint.  Of course, the kids enjoyed the dog (Bambino, he's albino) and the golf carts best.  Hey, it's vacation.

 Bambino was pretty awesome, he jumped right in and wanted to tour with us.  He'll lick any sunscreen, lotion or perfume right off you.  (I guess Stella isn't the only weirdo!)

 He told us that bats like to roost in the right ear of the bull.  Suuuure.

 Emily checking out the insides of a frog.

 Happy because she's driving!

This was a neat stop!  Well worth the few bucks to see.  Kids are free.  We got back on the road and set the GPS for the Corn Palace.  About 45 minutes away.

 They were updating the front when we were there.  The Corn Palace is pretty lame, but you can't just not stop. It's an entire gymnasium full of gift shops inside.  The kids were in heaven.  Smashed pennies, snow globes, rabbit pelts, cheap toy cars, jack knives and t-shirts.  Of course, the boys got LUKE and LOGAN knives.

 A few minutes away, in Mitchell, is the Mitchell Prehistoric Indian Village.  A small museum with an active archeodome dig site.  It was pretty neat, but not a whole lot there.  They had a cool replica of a mud Indian lodge/hut thing.  The boys thought that was cool to run in and out of.

 You walk out of the museum, down a path, to the kids dig site.  A large sandbox with string grids.  Pick a square and start digging.  It was hot and they were getting frustrated not finding anything.  I got in there and starting digging around and came up with one.  I declared it Logan's so the others had to find their own.  I kept telling them they needed to dig further down.  Luke was digging and I saw a white thing come up so I told him to retrace his pile.  He found his white plastic arrowhead.  Emily found hers shortly after, so they were all happy.

 Turning in their plastic arrowheads for real ones.  Well, kind of real.  More than the plastic ones anyways :)

 We got back on the highway for an hour and stopped at the teepee rest area in Chamberlain.  The Missouri river and the rolling hills in Chamberlain sure are pretty.  I wanted to get a picture of the kids in the teepee, but this is when Emily found out about the time change and how it was another 2 hours to Wall, not 1 like the GPS told her.  She was pissed.  Back on the road.  We were hoping to catch a sunset in the Badlands, but there was stormy clouds and overcast coming in.  We checked into the Sunshine Inn (only 1-2 blocks to Wall Drug) in Wall and walked over to Wall Drug for an hour or so before they closed.  The kids were not impressed with my motel choice for the night.  We were only there to be close to the Badlands for the next day and it was half the price of a normal hotel.  I quote Luke... "This is so small it feels like the walls are closing in!"  Whatever kid.

 We had Wall Drug nearly to ourselves!  Most of the shops were still open and the kids checked out the roaring dinosaur.  Logan was scared of it, but it was fun to torture him a bit.  Big Sis gave him lots of loves and a shoulder to bury his head in when it went off every 12 minutes.

 Still nervous about the dinosaur...

We went across the street to a bar and grill place and ordered a pizza to take back to the room.  It took so long to get it that we ended up walking back in a pretty severe thunder/wind/lightning storm.  Emily (like me) doesn't do well in bad weather so she was a bit freaked out.  Luckily, the hard rain hadn't really started yet.   Wall Drug again and the Badlands tomorrow!