Saturday, January 10, 2009

Geography Lesson Part 2 - Rapid City

while in rapid city, we stopped to see mount rushmore...which looks exactly like it does in all the pictures that i've ever seen...


then i let the boys each pick 2 things to do...one picked stopping at a chocolate store and the "roo ranch"...

little boy #2 was lovesick...he adored his (sleeping) joey...

little boy #1 thought it was pretty cool too...

honestly, i wouldn't recommend the roo ranch...it was stinky, boring, & the employees were mostly apathetic...but for a fee (i think $10 per kid) each little boy got to hold a joey and to get their picture taken against a cheesy tourist background...but there were technical difficulties, resulting in little boy #1 being purple...which meant that they got to hold their critters for about 20 minutes, while the staff figured out that the printer needed a new toner cartridge...the boys didn't complain one bit... : )

the other kid picked the black hills museum of natural history...which was an interesting choice, since he's never liked science museums unless it was the hands-on type...but these were the researchers involved in the discovery of "sue" the t-rex which was the subject of a HUGE court battle...ultimately, sue went on display at the field museum in chicago & neither kid cared at all when i fawned over sue when we saw her in person...but they enjoyed hearing the story again, when we were in south dakota...i guess it was familiar to them this time, so it was okay...kids are weird sometimes...no pics of the museum, since none turned out...

that kid also picked reptile gardens...which was a combination zoo / carnival / disney-like theme park...it wasn't a true zoo, because most of the animals weren't in a natural setting...

for instance, these prairie dogs were as fat as sausages from all the peanuts...you could walk down some stairs and pop up in the bubble to get a close up of them...btw, prairie dogs are cute...but they apparently bite pretty hard...the bubble was a nice safety feature...

the sign actually encouraged gently scratching the tortoise's neck...

the animal shows were very educational & extremely funny, which is a hard line to balance...i would definitely recommend this place, but only if you do the shows...

all & all, the boys enjoyed themselves that day...

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