South Dakota 2007 Day 3

If this is your first time here to read about the trip you'll have to scroll down to the bottom and read up or click the link on the right under "previous posts". There are too many things to say to cram it all into one post so I'm doing this in sections. That said, I'll pick up at the start of day three....

Monday, June 11th: Before I get into Monday I should mention that while we were out shopping on Sunday night, we found a mechanic in Hill City "just in case" for our truck. We also called American Express about getting a cash advance. As always, we didn't budget correctly for this trip and we were quickly running low on funds. We hadn't done anything yet but fill up our gas tank and eat and we were closing in our last $100. Very few places take AMEX out where we were. AMEX issued me an emergency PIN code that could be used for a one time withdrawal. While I had the lady on the phone, I asked about ATM locations. There was one right at Mt Rushmore in the Visitor's Center. Perfect!

So Monday morning rolls around. We eat, we shower, and we get ready to hit the road. Our first stop is the Visitor's Center at Mt Rushmore to get that cash advance. Bill is leary about the truck and wants to see how it is running today without the camper on it. We shove off, pay to get into Mt Rushmore (it's a one time $8 fee for a year-long pass) and head for the Visitor's Center. Just our luck, the ATM is out for maintenance. Son of a...... We load back into truck and start toward Rapid City. We don't look around the memorial because our pass lets us back in any time for the rest of the year. I should take this moment to mention that neither Hill City where we are staying, nor Keystone, the town between us and Rapid City, offers us a cellphone signal. I attempt to call AMEX twice and get dropped both times. I am about to lose it by this time because not only are we roaming and losing calls, but each time I call I am being routed through Security/Fraud Protection before they will let me speak to a representative that can tell me where a freaking ATM is. You see, on Saturday, while we were driving, we attempted to pay for gas in western MN and were declined. They wanted to verify that we had our card and were indeed trying to use it. Each time I called them after that they had to verify the same information. Have I mentioned that Security/Fraud Protection is outsourced overseas? On my third call to them we finally learn where an ATM is and make our withdrawal. Now we have to head BACK the way we came to go to Bear Country USA and Old Mac Donald's Farm. I would also like to share, at this time, that every time we mentioned we were going somewhere, Billy would let off with a very loud "But I don't WANT to go to ______!!!!!". Actually, he would repeat this every few minutes until we were inside the attraction and participating in its features. Bear Country was "too scary" and the "bears are gonna EAT ME!!".

Bear Country was actually very cool. You drive through the park and there are sections where different wild animals are roaming around. They have moose, reindeer (that don't fly, much to our kids' dismay), buffalo, arctic wolves, timber wolves, black bears, grizzly bears, some sort of mountain sheep, and mountain goats. At the end of the trail you can park and visit the "baby center" where there are exhibits with baby wildlife. Here are some photos:
At the top is an arctic wolf and a non-flying reindeer. Below is a buffalo with a white buffalo baby (Cool!), a ram and 4 of the 5 of us in front of the waterfall.

Finally, some baby bears in a tree and some fox kits.


We hit the gift shop at this place with gusto and then had some lunch. The last thing we saw were those baby bears climbing the tree. Billy was being a pill the whole time we were walking around, yelling "It's too scary!" or "I hate this!" very loudly. The last straw was him throwing his empty water bottle into the baby bear habitat. Although he found this wickedly amusing - it would send him into giggles for the next week whenever he remembered it - Bill and I were beyond pissed and had had enough. It was 95 degrees outside, we were still somewhat aggravated with american express, and Billy was driving us nuts. In the backs of our minds we were worried about the truck, too.

I'd like to say that Bear Country was our only destination that day, but we were tourists on a mission and hit Old Mac Donald's Farm after lunch. Old Mac Donald offered pig races, pony rides, and opportunities to feed baby animals. What's not to like? Off we went. As luck would have it, you enter OMF through the gift shop. We were able to fend off the clawing beasts that were eager to get something - ANYTHING - in every gift shop we walked into and headed into the park. We were minutes away from the pig races - cool! Apparently the people that run the pig races have twisted senses of humor. Check out the names of the pigs (Hamlet, Nota Hot Dog, Sausagewea, Jimmie Dean, and Justa Wiener). My personal favorite, Sausagewea, won the race =). After the pig races we hurried over to the pony rides. They were due to go on break in 15 minutes so we wanted to make sure we didn't miss them. Caty and Alex both took rides.

I was ready to leave after this, but there was still lots to do. We fed the goats, sheep, koi, and everything else with a feeder hanging on the pen. We went into the hatchery and watched baby chicks poke their way out of eggs and held days old chicks in our hands. Finally, we were just in time for the calf feedings. Each of the kids got to feed a calf from a bottle. Unfortunately, genius here was wiped and didn't think to take pictures of this stuff.

After the farm we hightailed it back to the campground. Upon arrival, Bill looked under the truck and it was continuing to leak oil from the rear axle. We had nowhere else to go that day so we let it sit, changed into our swimsuits, and hit the pool. It was crowded as hell, but it felt great. Caty and I tip-toed off to the candy store and the ice cream shop and had a cool treat. We regrouped at camp, cooked out, and had a campfire. During the fire the winds started to pick up. We thought a storm front was moving in. We collapsed the camp chairs and put them under the camper, made sure our plastic clothes bins were tightly shut and under the wings, and headed to bed. OH.MY.GOD. You know that scene in Forrest Gump where Lt Dan says "So where's your God now?" and Forrest narrates "Just then, God showed up". The winds blew and gusted that night with a fury I've never witnessed before. I don't know if being in the camper just multiplied the effect or what but holy shit!! The sustained winds had to be about 30 mph. Our campground is surrounded by mountains so in the distance, you would hear this roar start and it would build....and build.....and build....and you'd be laying there, bracing yourself for what was about to come, and then WHOOSH!!!!! A 60 mph gust would slam into the side of the camper, blowing the "windows" in on one side and out on the other and shaking the thing so hard I, at least, was worried it would tip. At some point, Bill heard the poles from the roof of the screen room hitting the ground. He went out and collapsed the screen room to prevent it from getting torn to shreds and blowing away. The winds were like this all.night.long. The skies were crystal clear, too. We'd get up and look out the windows, expecting to see storm clouds, and instead could see every start in the universe. I remember at one point getting up and looking out and thinking "My god, it is still dark. How much longer is this going to last??". Morning couldn't come soon enough. At some point we dozed off - each managing about 2 hours of sleep that night. Alex ended up sleeping with Bill in a wing and I was on the single bed. The next morning the weather had changed - it was in the low 60s when we got up. I was just happy to have survived the night in that flipping camper (or non-flipping I guess I should say).