DAY 5 (Wednesday) - We got an early start. By the time we were bored of driving, you know, like two hours in or so, it was time to stop at Trader Joes. Which no one was as excited about as I was. Oh, well. We got some yummy snacks and some food too. Our next stop, a couple hours later was at Kanesville Tabernacle. It was kind of hard to find and doesn't look like a church site at all, but it turns out that is because it wasn't rebuilt by the church, but by people interested in Mormon Trail history and they gave it to the church recent-ish. The kids were not interested at all, but they enjoyed pushing buttons on the map to see where all the church had settlements. I was surprised to learn how big Kanesville was, how important it was to the church (the Tabernacle is where they sustained Brigham Young as the next prophet - the built the tabernacle specifically for that), and how permanent the settlement was for 10 years or so - they even had a paper or two! We drove over to Winter Quarters. Noah had fallen asleep at this point, so we ate sandwiches and then finally had to wake him up so we could go on a tour. It was awful! You can't just go through the museum, which is a shame because it is actually nicely done with nice little things for kids to do at each part. But the sisters kept asking questions like "How do see the light of Jesus in your life?". Seriously, that was their first question. The boys were not interested at all and started making snarky answers and it just didn't go well. We probably should have skipped it. The boys did like a few parts - they liked trying to pull the handcart like ox, but were pulling it too fast and almost hit the wall. They liked climbing on the ship and imagining what it was like to be on the ship. Then, we went to see the cemetery, but the boys were pretty much done at this point and I didn't like taking upset boys around a cemetery that was attached to temple grounds, so Katsu mostly wandered around. Thankful that that was our last church history site, but I wonder if we would have been better off just ending it with Nauvoo.
We got to the Sioux Fall hotel and were just ready to relax, get some food, and get in the pool, but there was some sort of mix-up with reservations - they had like 3 sets for us. Katsu got that figured out, we had some food, and then the boys went to the pool. The pool was amazing and the whole reason we booked the hotel. It had a huge couple stories high water slide and then a whole little kid section with 5 little slides all around a big pirate ship plus 2 hot tubs and a pool with a basketball hoop. The boys were in heaven. They played for a good 3 hours until past 9 when we finally convinced them they had to go to bed.
DAY 6 (Thursday) - We woke up, had some breakfast in our room, and waited until 9 am on the dot and headed to the pool when it opened. It was like a clock went off and all the children descended to the pool. We played a couple more hours. Noah was sad he was too little to do the big slide, but I think we all had fun. Seth was upset because he wanted to do the arcade, but it was closed in the morning. We finally found one machine, one of those claw ones, downstairs by the pool that was working, so Seth played one round of that and got nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not enough to learn that arcades aren't worth it, though, as he whined about wanting to go for the rest of the trip.
We drove to the nearby Sioux falls and it was worth it - there is a huge amount of waterfalls and you can walk all around. We stayed about 20 minutes, climbed around and took some pictures and then were off to the car to drive across South Dakota to the Badlands. The trip looks not too long on paper, but it takes a long time in truth. We stopped half way at a Taco Bell for lunch - our first time eating out this trip!
We finally got to the Minuteman Missile Site. It was HOT when we stepped out and pretty crowded. We weren't planning on doing a tour, so we just looked at the exhibits and learned about missiles (it was pretty interesting) while Andrew, Logan and Noah worked on Jr. Ranger badges. It was a nice little stop. Then, we went on the other side of the highway to the Badlands national park, stopping for some gas before we went in.
WOW! The badlands were just beautiful. There is no way to give them justice in words, but this was probably our most favorite stop on the trip just for the sheer beauty. It is amazing how the ground erodes and makes something so beautiful. It looks so strong and sturdy, but when you actually climb on the formations, it is so difficult because the ground is so loose and just crumbles away.
We stopped at every lookout this day and also stopped to do some trails. Andrew was terrified of rattlesnakes and running out of water and so did not want to hike. Plus, Noah was like in footie pajamas which were obviously too hot since it was like high 90s until late in the evening. And we didn't bring water because it was a short stop, but we really should have because we all got kind of dehydrated. So, we went to the door trail. Right as we got there, we saw some longhorn sheep, which was cool. We loved the door trail. There is a boardwalk for the first bit and then the path ends and you are just walking among the tops of the buttes looking for the next yellow posts. It is kind of scary when you look back at where you came because you are high up and it looks like you could just fall down. In truth, except for the very last bit, it is easy to find a safe way without any big drop off between the posts. After post #4, Andrew refused to go any further. I took the rest of the boys all the way almost to the end, but then I was nervous about carrying Noah. At that point, Katsu decided to hike up to us. I wanted to go back to Andrew, but then all the boys wanted to go to the end, so we quickly went back and went all the way to the end, took pictures, and then I ran back to be with Andrew. We were all super hot by then and way dehydrated (learned our lesson about water), but it was so beautiful.
We didn't stop for any hikes after that because we were all hot & thirsty, so we checked into our hotel we were staying at - a cabin right in the park. It was really nice, with a futon bed and two really big beds, a nice log cabin and very cool inside. Everything was new and very eco-friendly. We ate our dinner and then went back to the Visitors Center to get the junior ranger booklets for the 3 willing boys (not Seth). Then, we went backtracking to the Cliff Shelf trail. I really liked the trail - it was very different than the one we had gone on before - it was in a place that gets more water, and so there was quite a lot of brush and you were going along on this boardwalk kind of up along a cliff, which gave you some very nice views. We kind of went the wrong way and ended up hiking it backwards, but it was still beautiful. Then, we went a little further and did the window trail. This was really just walking a ways over to a few "windows" that had been naturally carved through the badlands so you got some nice views. All the kids and some adults in the area were scrambling along the formations. Logan went but then was crying his head off because he didn't get to climb as high as he wanted. Then, Seth went and hiked some and then Katsu took Logan to hike more then Andrew was crying because he had wanted to hike it, too (although I am pretty sure he said he was too tired), but he said he was just watching our stuff and that was the problem. And then Seth was crying because he wanted to climb the notch trail, but there was not time, it was too long, and I was worried about Seth being scared of heights on that one. So, basically everyone was crying so it was time to head back to the cabin.
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