How Many Times Can You Listen to the Sophia the First CD on a Road Trip Through South Dakota?

The answer to that question? Probably 65 times all the way through. Before our road trip I went to the library and got a whole bunch of books on CD and new musics CDs. We listened to a few, but for 80% of the trip we listened the the soundtrack from Sophia the First.  I'm pretty sure I now know every single word. 

Besides listening to Sophia the First six billion, I mean 65 times in the car, we had just about the best Memorial Day weekend ever. Friday afternoon we packed everything up int the car, and started to drive to South Dakota. 

 Every time we have driven through Wyoming to get to Salt Lake I have complained about how horrible Wyoming is. Well, I take it all back. We had the most BEAUTIFUL drive!

 So, I don't usually share this with people because it's pretty embarrassing, but I'll let you in on a little secret: I hate to drive. I hate, hate, hate it. Especially on the freeway. Well, I faced my fears and drove almost 500 miles of our trip between coming and going. I was pretty impressed with myself. 

The kids were great travel companions. There was very little complaining and as long as Sophia the First was blasting, they were as happy as could be!

About 7:00 we rolled into Hill City, South Dakota. We checked into our hotel and headed to the cutest little restaurant, Desperado. It was in one of the original buildings from when Hill City was a gold mining town. Everyone there was so nice (the owner came over and chatted with James for a while) and the food was really good. 

The kids' favorite part was the wooden horse and cowboy hat. 

The next morning we headed (excuse the pun) to Mount Rushmore. James had stayed up late the night before and woken up early, and decided to take a nap on the drive over (it was only 9:00). When we got there he was pretty grumpy.

He perked up quick once he saw we had arrived at 'the heads'. Christian tried to convince him it was actually called Mt. Rushmore, not 'the heads', but James refused to believe him.

 We went on a beautiful hike around 'the heads'.

The hike had lots of stairs. The kids got fed up with all the steps and decided it would be easier to go down on their bottoms. This lasted about 10 minutes. Then Kate figured out it was a pretty lame idea after all.

While we were at Mt. Rushmore, the kids earned a Jr. Ranger badge. Kate took it very seriously!

We completed our trip to Mt. Rushmore with an ice cream stop in the lodge.

 Our next stop was an Alpine Slide. We rode the ski lift up.

And took the slide down. James went with Christian and kept saying, "FASTER DADDY!" Kate went with me and kept saying, "SLOWER MOMMY!"

Kate's 2 favorite parts of the whole trip were this playground and a playground at a rest stop in Wyoming. She's still talking about both of them!

This was one of my favorite stops.

We also stopped by the Crazy Horse Memorial. It was pretty impressive! I was excited to see the progress it's going to make in the next couple of years until Christian told me it looks about the same it did when he went 15 years ago.

There was a place where you could get a rock that has been blasted from the mountain. The kids were so excited we got to bring one home.

Our final stop for the day was a the teddy bear 'museum'. I've got to admit, this place was a little bit creepy. It was SO PACKED with teddy bears! Even the ceilings.

Did I mention how very, very, very beautiful South Dakota is? REALLY BEAUTIFUL!

The next day we started to drive back to Wyoming. We stopped at 'Bear Country'. We drove around and saw all sorts of wild life.

James really liked all the animals.

We also went to the South Dakota Air and Space museum. We got to see a minuteman missile.

We also got to go on a tour of the air force base right next to the museum. We had to hand in our drivers licenses and get clearance before we entered for the tour. We had some time to kill, so James and I took pictures on my phone. This is my favorite.

My favorite part of the tour was when we got to go down into a missile silo.

After the tour of the air force base, we spent some more time in the museum. James took a nice long ride in this plane.

So did Christian.

Next we went to Devil's Tower in Wyoming. It was SO FUN! The kids got another Jr. Ranger packet. James was super excited when he found the recycle can that was on his bingo game.

There were lots of rocks to climb around Devil's Tower.

At the end of the hike, Kate made us sit down on a bench, then she climbed up on this rock and started shouting, "Ok everyone, I'm supposed to find a deer, but I haven't seen it. Can everyone help me find a deer?" She's such a goof.

After lots of hard work, the kids got another Jr. Ranger badge.

Our last day of the trip was pretty low key. We spent the morning swimming. Then we came back to the hotel room and the kids spent about an hour coloring in their new coloring books.We checked out around noon, and then started the drive back home.

Our final touristy stop was the Jackelope.

We had a fantastic weekend! I would love to go back to South Dakota any time. However, I'd probably pick a different CD to listen to next time.