Oh What a Day!!

When I was younger, I was lucky enough to go on a traveling summer program called Teva Tours. We got on a bus and saw the country. We camped every night, we had amazing day trips mixed with a little learning, we learned to appreciate the beautiful wonders of God's creations.

Today was like a page out of my photo album from that experience. More like ten pages actually. 

We started out with a breakfast on our little waterfront deck and headed back out on the 90. We had originally decided to save the Badlands for our return drive in August but both kids were sleeping so we hopped on the scenic loop to enjoy the view. Benny woke up about two thirds of the way through and was in awe of everything he was seeing. It was adorable! Until he had made an urgent bathroom request with at least twenty minutes until the next restroom. Then it was a mad rush to get out of there!!

We headed to a town called Wall to see the famous Wall Drug -- the billboards began calling to us at least 200 miles back! It was cute and the kids really got a kick out of all the old timey stores. 

Next on our agenda was Bear Country USA. I had been psyching up both Benny and Shuky for this, I knew it would not disappoint. And it didn't. Benny willingly kept his video off and was just as excited as we were with all the animals. Especially the bears coming up to the car!

From there it was just a skip, hop, and jump over to Mt. Rushmore but we wanted to get to our hotel at a normal hour so we did a drive by on the presidential faces and mentally added it to the 'way back list'. 

I need to mention -- the weather was in the 80s and 90s all day. I am loving it! :)

We found a cute hotel with an indoor water park, got the kids right into their bathing suits and went down for some fun. And fun it was. For all of us!! Benny had his floaties and went down the big water slides with Shuky (each on their own slides, right next to each other) while Bella and I did the toddler slides at least thirty times. And the lazy river too. She was a shivering raisin when I wrapped her in the towel, but she was still yelling 'I REBBY FOR LELLOW!!!' {translation: I'm ready for the yellow slide}

The cherry on top was coming back up to our room and finding out I won a gift certificate to Florsheim Kids Shoes (hello snazzy shoes for Benny!!) from one of my go-to spots for Benny's styling, Boys Be Cool!!

Shuky has a car mount for his cell phone and took some cool footage of the day, creating some time lapse videos to share part of our experiences. I love these so I had to share!


Cloudy moments during a bathroom break


 Crossing the Missouri River to our hotel last night

Nice little stretch of highway on the I-90

Scenic route through Badlands National Park

Bear Country USA. When the car stops, we are busy being enamored by an amazing animal and snapping pictures with the real camera.

I had a bunch of pictures I wanted to post as well, but I am wayyy too tired. I will try to do a condensed picture post at the end of the road trip with all the pictures that did not make the regular posts. In the meantime, sleep beckons to me and I will not ignore it any longer!!