We rolled in Custer, SD one week prior to the town’s busiest weekend all year… the Buffalo Roundup.  More on the Buffalo Roundup in a later post.  Mom and Dad also flew in to meet us for our week here in Custer.  Woohoo!!

Day1:  Destination Jewel Cave.  The third longest cave in the US.

The boys did the long cave tour.  Approximately an hour and a half and over 700 steps.

 

 

The girls and mom and dad did the short 20 minute tour of the cave and spent some time outside sniffing Ponderosa Pines.  The ranger at the visitor’s center asked us to sniff a Ponderosa Pine and report back to him on what we thought it smelled like, vanilla or butterscotch.  Vanilla all the way at first but then there were a few that did have a hint of a butterscotch smell.  When the wind blew in the direction you were standing, the aroma in the air smelled like a baker’s kitchen.

We also learned about bats in the cave which are generally found at the caves natural opening miles away in Wyoming.  The kids completed the Jewel Cave Junior Ranger book and took the National Park oath which included listening to your parents and making your bed every morning.  There is no such thing as making your bed in our motorhome.  It is either turn your bed back into a table or move your blankets over because more blankets need to be piled there because the table is being put up.

Ranger talk on bats.

Pretending to be a caver.

Working toward earning a Junior Ranger badge.

I must mention that the weather couldn’t be more perfect.  Sunny and warm today and all week long.  Beats the several inches of snow Custer had just a couple weeks ago.

Oh and one more thing… Happy Birthday to me!!

After seeing approximately100 billboards for Wall Drug the only thing left to do was to see what this place was all about.  With billboards reading, “Come see the T-Rex”, “5 cent coffee”, “free ice water”, “homemade ice cream”, and a hundred other things we figured it was worth a “quick” look.  And a quote from their website said, “Free Admission to this 76,000 square foot wonderland of free attractions!”  We were curious.

Wall Drug is more like a department store.  It takes up about a block of the small town of Wall, SD.  It really is the only reason people stop in Wall.   The hundreds of billboards has been a great marketing tool that keep tourists curious and willing to make the stop.   I’m not sorry we went but it’s one of those places that I can’t seem to get my kids out of.  There was always more “stuff” to look at and just one more room we hadn’t explored yet.  Someone told me to give the kids $20 each and let them have at it in this place.  Keep in mind this was coming from a person with one adult child.  I said $5 sounds like a more appropriate amount to me.

The story of how it all began is a sweet one. This is how the story ends on their website,  “Free Ice Water. It brought us Husteads (Wall Drug owners) a long way and it taught me my greatest lesson, and that's that there's absolutely no place on God's earth that's Godforsaken. No matter where you live, you can succeed, because wherever you are, you can reach out to other people with something that they need!”  You can read their story here, http://www.walldrug.com/t-history.aspx.

We did all have 5 cent coffee (that tasted like water), a delicious homemade donut (none of that Dunkin’ Donuts crap), and of course a cup of ice water.  How could we not?

The list the kids made before we went to Wall Drug.

 

Coffee all around when it’s 5 cents.

Donuts!!

Shopping, ice water, and the history of Wall Drug

We waited 12 minutes.  Apparently the T-Rex wasn’t hungry today.

 

Aside from the donuts this is what I was most excited about.  If you know, me then you know my phobia of public restroom door handles.  This is a beautiful thing…. touch-free handle!

We didn’t leave empty handed.  Now that we are in the west, what better to purchase than a few cowboy/cowgirl hats, except for Korben who refused.

The kids had such a great time at this place, that is before we got kicked out.  Yes, we really got kicked out of the Prairie Homestead.  I’m going to try to make this short, even though I was quite upset when this went down.

This is an original sod house from 1909.  When we arrived the friendly woman at the counter advised us that the Prairie Homestead likes to try to give an authentic experience.  She then proceeded to show us where the dress up clothes were and that the kids could touch all the things in the house and feed the animals hay in the barn.

So we did just that for about 3 hours as the woman behind the counter watched us from the large window at the house we entered in.  After those 3 hours of play the woman came walking toward us.  I wasn’t thinking we were doing anything wrong until she began yelling at Freya.  Hold on a second… then she began yelling at me and telling other customers that we weren’t supposed to touch anything.  Then she asked us to  leave.  I was so confused; so I confronted her.  We had quite an argument but what it came down to for me was these 2 questions:

1. You told us to play with everything.  Were we not supposed to do that?

2. We have been here for 3 hours.  If we were doing something wrong why didn’t you come tell us right away?

Her response (over and over again) was, “I told you the kids could touch everything, not play with everything”

Is this woman for real?   I’m going to end the story here… our exchange of words is better left unsaid. 

The sod house can be seen from the parking lot.  Save your money and view it from there since you aren’t allowed to touch anything once you pay to get in.

Here are some pictures of the fun the kids had before we were kicked out.

 

There is something about this place that leaves me speechless…