Day 2 - South Dakota

On Friday morning we woke up, ate hotel breakfast and then hit the road towards Rapid City.  The speed limit on I-90 West is 75mph and the drive seemed to go really quick.  The scenery was beautiful which also made the drive that much more enjoyable.  The boys were very good in the car again.  We went a little less than 4 hours and stopped at 1880s town.  It was right off the highway exit and something neat to see and break up the drive.  We spent a little over an hour looking around the buildings and then ate at their diner.

Here are a few too many pictures of 1880s town (you can click on the picture to see it larger):

Oh, and we let the boys pick out some souvenirs at the gift shop.

After 1880s town we hit the road for another 30 minutes and drove through the Badlands.  We spent several hours going through the Badlands, taking lots of stops to climb, take pictures (and Happy Snaps as Russ called our quick stops), and to visit their information center.  The pictures don't even do the area justice but it was just absolutely beautiful and awe-inspiring.  Again, just an onslaught of pictures but they were too beautiful not to share:

I'm a sucker for these pictures of the kids walking with their grandparents.  They  really enjoyed spending this extra time with them.

We didn't do a good job of capturing photos of Russ at the Badlands.  He had the camera and the older boys and was off climbing mountains at each stop.  Usually I stayed behind with Ross climbing smaller mountains.

I'm more of a fan of pictures with the family in them rather than places but these pictures were really good too.  (Click on them if you want to see them larger):

 

That night we got into Rapid City, picked up our weekend rental car ($33 for a weekend rental so we did it to have extra wheels), and then went to dinner at Dakotah steakhouse.  The steakhouse was in our hotel parking lot so we thought we'd try it out.  It was a little fancy for our tastes, the chairs all had wheels on them (not good for three little boys), and none of us were thoroughly impressed with it.  Then it was time for bed after a long, busy day!