DAY 6 – July 4, 2012 – Rapid City and Wall Drug

Today we visited Rapid City, SD, and Wall, SD.  I had never heard of either before our trip planning began.  But South Dakota is kind of desolate, and these stops are fun places to enjoy on a pretty boring drive.

First we stopped in Rapid City, and headed straight to Dinosaur Park.  They have a cute gift shop which our kids loved going through.  Warhead bought himself an M-60 rubberband gun, which he is in love with.  The other kids bought some trinkets.  Then we headed to the actual park.  Our kids ages 11 and under loved it.  They climbed and played for a good 40 minutes.  They only left with the promise that we had another fun park to go to.

Now I will preface this by saying, I am SOOO glad we did Dinosaur Park first.  It is a really fun park, but it dwarfed in comparison to Storybook Island Park, and had we done it the other way around, I don’t think our kids would have thought Dinosaur Park was that great.

Storybook Park is hands down the best kids park I have ever seen…and we have had some favorite parks in California, that I thought were pretty spectacular.  The park is 8.5 acres with 100+ Fairytale Sets according to their brochure.  I tried to write down the names of the stories we found there, but my hand got tired writing, and some settings we couldn’t figure out the story, but even not knowing they were still so cool.

First we walked into the park coming under a bridge guarded by a troll with 3 goats waiting to cross the bridge.  I had forgotten about that story.  Then we came to a little shop/entrance with Rapunzel dangling her hair out the window and a prince statue climbing her hair.  Humpty Dumpty was on the side falling off the wall on the side of the building.  From there we saw fire engines the kids could climb in, a giant pumpkin they could play in, Peter Pans ship sitting in a pond the kids could play on…the three little pigs had their houses to play in, and the Winnie the Pooh forest was so well done.  Cinderella was there with her prince, and a castle you could climb up…the Wizard of Oz statues were skipping down the yellow brick road…Dr. Suess was sitting in a house reading one of his books, Jack and Jill were at the bottom of a hill from where the well was…and you could climb on Pete’s Dragon.  That is not all, but that’s all I will describe of this wonderful park playground.

But it didn’t stop there…for only $1.50 the kids could get on a train and get a ride around the park.  Fireball and Starburst loved that.  But the best deal, which I still can’t believe they do…for $1 (I think is Mon-Thurs) at 10am, 11am, and noon they have a play in an outdoor theater.  The quality of the play, was like one we would see at the local theatres in Boise.  The play lasted ½ an hour, and they actors were so animated and so great, our kids loved every second of it.  Our kids watched the “Ugly Duckling” for $1 each, and saw as good a play as we would ever see in Boise.  Afterwards they invited all the kids on the stage and they all danced together.  So for under $10, our kids 11 and under were entertained for 2 hours, and would have stayed longer if we let them.  I would list this as a DEFINATE stop if you have young children and are traveling anywhere near.

We left Rapid City to head to the famous Wall Drug.  The story goes that during the Depression a little drug store in Wall, SD wasn’t doing so hot.  They kept seeing cars drive right by their drugstore without ever stopping.  So they decided to hang signs all over the freeway offering free water…that’s it, which blows my mind.  That one simple marketing technique…signs…offering something probably everyone else had too…water. Made them big… I mean BIG!  It is such a tourist trap, but I am still glad we stopped to see what an unbelievable place this has become because of those signs.  I think the whole town is now Wall Drug.  Mr. S was laughing as we were walking to Wall Drug from our camp ground that probably all the houses we were passing were the employees of Wall Drug, because it looks large enough to employee the town.

They actually have printed maps to help you get around the Mall that was once a dying drug store.  Our kids loved looking, the food was expensive…so we split 3 malts just to say we tried them, and then wandered around.  Warhead bought himself an Army Ranger Pocket knife that is sooo cool.  As you can tell his name reflects his taste, he is amping up his weapon arsenal.  Then Spitz thought his knife was too cool, and had to walk back later that night to buy a Special Forces knife.  So those too are totally happy.  I didn’t mention that Bazooka bought a rubberband pistol at Wall Drug after he saw how cool Warheads M-60 rubberband gun was.  And I never mentioned that Spitz and Jawbreaker bought a real tomahawk in Custer.  And fireball bought a toy bow and arrow.  I’m feeling like our RV is turning into a roaming arsenal rack.  How I ever produced these boys still boggles my mind.

Summary of Day 6
Drove: 30 miles
Places we visited:  Dinosaur Park, Storybook Park, and Wall Drug
 

Favorite thing we did today:
Fireball: Dinosaur Park
Jawbreaker: Wall Drug Shopping
Starburst: Storybook Park
Bazooka:  Wall Drug Shopping
Warhead and Spitz: Wall Drug Shopping and Wall Drug Soft Serve Icecream