We packed up and we were off for our big adventure to Colorado! Our first stop was Hill City South Dakota where we stayed just a few minutes from Mt Rushmore. We planned to stay the night and tour the landmark in the morning before hitting the road again for the remaining 7 hours to Colorado Springs. We woke up to a really hot day. In fact, by the time we parked at Mt Rushmore, the thermometer was reading 102. We unloaded and headed in....
We loved looking at all the flags and finding Wisconsin and Minnesota.
We got to the viewing deck and it was HOT HOT HOT. Blazing sun and lots of car travel made for some not-so-happy Eiselts. They will remain nameless. I had plans to walk the kids through the memorial filling out the Junior Ranger worksheet (which was more like a PhD in Mt Rushmore science), getting a perfect family photo in front of the memorial, and coming away with happy memories of our first national monument visit. Well...things didn't really go as planned, but it was still a good day. We ended up with a couple partial family photos:
And then we gave the kids some snacks in hopes of boosting the blood sugar so we could continue with our tour....
We took a look through the big binoculars (about $5 for 30 seconds) and then the hot sun got to us again. It was 11am and John and I decided we better figure something out. So, the restaurant had just opened and we took the kids for an early (and $70!) lunch.
The kids' favorite was this exhibit where they could make the dynamite explode!
We snapped a few more photos before heading out...
Bennett pointing to Mt Rushomre :)
All in all it was a great morning! It was perfect because based on this tour, I adjusted my expectations for the rest of our trip...realizing we have not reached the age where tours, museums and historical landmarks are going to hold our attention for long. We were off for the next leg of our journey!
*prices in this post may be inflated due to PTSD
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