Made a Splash in Rapid City

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Geo: 44.0812, -103.231

Weather: 90s hot and sunny
Location: Cody, WY to Rapid City, SD
Highlights: Kid Bliss
Lowlights: Long drive to RC
#of Swearwords:
People we met: .
Activities: WaTiki Water park in our hotel (surprise!)
Hotel: Fairfield Inn and Suites with WaTikiwater park
Helpful hint: Keep the water park a surprise. They were so excited.
Restaurants: Sliders (a nicer restaurant attached to the hotel andwater park

We took off a little early from Cody with a little stiffness in the legs. We had a good 7 hour drive ahead of us. I took the first leg of the drive. We had to drive through the Black Hills National Forest. Another amazing site to see. Another scary drive and the only difference was...I was driving. You drive up, up, up around winding roads, past rock slides and glided past unforgettable vistas. Helpful hint, while you are looking at the view and you hear a vibration under your tires, swerve back on the road away from the guard rail. As we were about to head back down the mountains, a light up sign announced how many trucks have run off the road in 2014 and to please down gear. Holy burning tires. At times I was only going 35 mph and my brakes were shaking from the gravitational pull. Flippin' scary. You feel like the tires will fail you. But, they didn't. I got my family safely through the mountains.

Paul picked up the last part of the drive. We made it into Rapid City around 4:00 PM. I had a little surprise for the kids. I booked Marriott with a water park attached. They didn't know until we pulled up and they could see the slides hooking in and out of the building. Happy kids as you can imagine. The waterpark was actually really nice (not like Chula Vista) and clean and not crowded. Maybe because it is mid-week in the summer. Tables were full but not where we couldn't find a spot. We let the kids frolic and play while we ordered dinner and celebrated happy hour with a couple Big Kid drinks. After we ate, Paul and I did some frolicking of our own. That doesn't sound good. We played in the water with the kids and rode the slides. We wanted to tire them out because we were going on a little adventure at the crack of dawn. Literally.

Our plan is to wake up at 4:45 AM to drive to Mount Rushmore at sunrise. This was suggested to us so we are going to give it a try. The kids are apprehensively on board. They were all snoozing by 930/10. We'll see what happens and that goes for all of us. Better be worth it.

Night. Anyone reading??

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