Ockey Family Adventures: South Dakota Day 4

George Washington was one of our favorite Presidents.

Today had much less driving, but it was still a big day. We started off in down town Rapid City checking out the City of Presidents. We walked around ten blocks and every corner had a statue of a United States President. We took pictures of all of them, and we posed with a lot of our favorites. It was a nice walk, and it wasn’t too hot in the morning. We also bought presidential sodas and though Dad liked the strawberry and the grape, nobody liked the rootbeer much.

Lincoln was posed seated by his son.

Woodrow Wilson was pretty popular.

Truman was posed with the Dewey Defeats Truman newspaper.

Clinton is one of Dad's favorites.

Everyone loved Roosevelt and his fireside chats.

But no one really liked the sodas.

Kennedy is the boys favorite president.

We got done with the Presidents around 11 am. Our next stop was Reptile Gardens. Glen had been to this place a long time ago and really wanted to go back. We enjoyed looking at the different animals. We started out with the huge turtles. There were three, and the oldest was 111 years old! The boys were able to touch the ancient turtles, which was really fun. There was a prairie dog town, too, and we watched the prairie dogs running and digging. We also enjoyed three shows. The first was an alligator wrestling show. In this show, we were shown an alligator feeding, and we learned a lot about how to wrestle an alligator. We also learned the difference between gators, crocs, and caimans. The next show was a bird show, and it was pretty unimpressive. We’ve seen so many better bird shows. The last show was a snake show, and it was really cool. We saw half a dozen snakes including several venomous ones. The boys most enjoyed the prairie rattlesnake that kept striking at the plexiglass barrier they were sitting behind. There was also a big dome in Reptile Gardens. They had all kinds of reptiles and amphibians. We walked through a rainforest section and saw colorful lizards, more colorful birds, and a few snakes. We spent much of the day at Reptile Gardens.

We enjoyed Reptile Gardens and fulfilled Glen's dream of making it back there.

There were dozens of turtles.

And three ancient tortoises.

The snake show was really interesting.

The crocodile show was a lot like the one we saw in Florida last Spring.

It's amazing they don't have more accidents with these big boys.

The boys got to touch a baby crocodile.

Dax donated a dollar to the bird show.

The guy at the snake show was in more danger than the crocodile guy.

He didn't take the cobra out of that box.

The rattlesnake was on the stage, though, and it was angry!

It was fun to be with the Alders.

They made Natalie stand back from the snake, so we got a picture of a lot of wall.

Seth has always been in love with crocodiles.

They had some fun house mirrors that the boys enjoyed.

The adults had a good time with them, too.

We had another animal stop, too, at a place called Bear Country. This was sort of a drive-through zoo. We saw pretty much everything in the forest there. We drove through enclosures for mountain goats, bighorn sheep, deer, elk, caribou, buffalo, and Dahl sheep. The only thing missing from the ungulates was moose. There were hundreds of bears. We also saw cougars, lynx, and bobcats in smaller enclosures. On the walking tour there were badgers, porcupines, skunks, raccoons, martins, foxes, and groundhogs. Laurie and Glen splurged and let the boys feed the bears. The baby bears were not interested in anything except the blackberries and raspberries. The boys loved it! It was a great afternoon, even though it was the hottest day of the trip so far.

The elk was right next to the road.

We couldn't believe the number of bears at Bear World.

It was the hottest day of the trip.

The cubs ran at everything thrown, but they were very picky!

The cubs liked their trainer.

The boys had so much fun on this trip!

We continued south until we came to Mount Rushmore. This was one of the big highlights of the trip. The boys enjoyed doing the Junior Ranger program. Then we hiked the Presidential Trail, which takes you right up underneath the faces of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln. It was interesting to see the faces from a different angle. Then we tried Thomas Jefferson’s own icecream recipe, which was the first one ever published in the United States. It was a really nice, rich vanilla. We bought a few souvenirs, too. It was a long day, but there was much more doing and much less driving, so that was nice. Tonight we are staying at Custer State Park. We got here too late to do much, but we did cook hotdogs and s’mores around the firepit. We also saw dozens of white-tailed deer on our way into this state park. The boys were especially excited to see two little baby Blue Jays right near our camping spot.