Day 20- Our Trip home

This was not supposed to be my last post of the trip. In our minds, we were supposed to leave on Monday but that was just in our minds. The flight we realized in the morning (when trying to get Ari to pick us up) was actually on Sunday at 4pm. Well, that kinda killed our plans to hit the Space Museum and the Zoo. So we had to choose and everyone told us to pick the zoo so off we went. The zoo was the best zoo that I have seen. It has a gigantic in-door rain forest (the biggest in-door rainforest in the world) which is amazing. You really feel like you are walking through a rain forest. It has many levels and is very impressive. They have a similar thing for the desert and Monkey Jungle. We unfortunately did not have any more time to see the rest of the zoo, it was crazy packed and gigantic. I guess we will have to leave it for the next time we are in Omaha :). From the zoo it was a rush to the plane and return the car. I was nervous about the car, that they would make me buy it or something because it was really bad. I tried to clean it with all these cleaners that I bought but the only thing I ended up doing was destroying Debras skirt. When I got there though they could not find me having the car because due to the switch with the other car something got messed up. The lady filled out all these forms and told me someone will contact me in a few days. I am not sure where we stand with this but I hope that they will forget the whole thing (wishful thinking). The plane turned out to be a really tiny one which only holds 50 people. I usually hate these tiny jets because you feel squished and you can't bring on any carry-ons that are not a purse size but the jet moved really fast and we were home early. Everyone was excited to sleep in their beds for the first time in a long time and no one had to sleep on the floor. Today the boys are off to camp and Debra and I are just taking off (me to work on speechs and Debra to shop). Thanks you all for reading our posts (whoever is left reading it)...until the next Spivak family adventure.

Day 19- Shabbat in Omaha Nebraska

Shabbat was very nice in Omaha. The Rabbi is a friend of mine from YU (whose wife had a baby girl 8 days before) and we stayed at another friends home. The shul is new and beautiful. What I love most is something that I see in all these places that since they don't get that many people, the Rabbi thanks everyone personally who comes. So announcements take a long time but you get a personalized welcome.
We ate with the Rabbi Jonathan Gross, wife Miraim and baby and a really nice guy from the congregation. Miriam's sisters were there too to help out. Debra did the shopping and cooking on Friday for Shabbat and we had a good time. The boys finished their first book of the Mishna and that is Rosh Hashana. I am planning a siyum at our shul maybe this shabbat. Shabbat ended late and our activity was....reorganizing our stuff for the trip home.

Day 18- Mohoney State Park

It was a simple day on the vacation trail. We spent the whole day at the park. It is a great park, much better than any I have seen. It has this massive water park. It cost us as a water park would and Debra and I had to pay even without swimming but it was well worth it. The boys had a blast and Debra and I got some rest. We also had a nice round of mini golf before getting ready for shabbat. Right before Shabbat we decided to clean the car. The car looks like we owned it for 10 years. It is such a mess with magic marker all over the carpet (it does not come out) and picutres drawn into the leather by the kids door (also won't come out). I am nervous on what they are going to tell us at the rental place.

Day 17- The Corn Palace, Iowa and Omaha

Feeling hot...hot..hot..hot. Now unlike the Price family, I like hotter weather but this is not just hot, this is an oven. They are undergoing a crazy heatwave here and it is difficult to be out. Even in the car with the airconditioning blasting was a difficult ride. Anyway, our day started out with a trip to the pool. This is the advantage of staying by a chain hotel. The boys got breakfast and a pool out of it. I got some morning learning in and off we went to the Corn Palace. This place is quite remarkable. It is actually a building decorated out of corn and corn husks. It cost the city $130000 to decorate anew every year and the public school kids and teachers all participate in drawing up the designs. The building is used for special events and it puts a no name place of Mitchell SD on the map. The picture below is mostly made up of husks and corn.












From there we headed out to Sioux falls for lunch and to Omaha our final stop. Not too much happened along the way except for stops in Iowa to get that state in too. We went to a Walmart to try to find cleaners that will get off the writing on the leather of the car that the kids decided to decorate. So far no luck- if you got any suggestions we are open.

Day 16 - Mount Rushmore and Badlands

We are officially Jr. Rangers at 4 parks, The Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore and The Badlands.

We woke up on time today and followed the bikers off to Mt. Rushmore. It was much better than I remembered from the last trip. This was probably due to a great tour guide who taught us so much about not only the history of Mt. Rushmore but all about the 4 presidents on the mountain. He told us that Mt. Rushmore got it's name from a nudnick lawyer/prospector named Charles E. Rushmore who was driving everyone crazy by asking lots of questions about the area. One question he asked from a local resident was what was the name of that particular mountain. The mountain did not have a name but the person who he asked to shut him up told him that from now on he will call that mountain the Rushmore mountain and the name stuck. I guess it pays to be a nudnick. The boys actually really learned alot about all these places due to that Jr. Ranger program. Of course they drove us crazy to answer all the questions in these books (it takes a couple of hours to complete) but they got more out of it than normal.

From there we went to storybook land. If our kids were 2 years younger it would have been a great place. It is a giant free park that has rides and activities from all the famous kids story book. It was empty and really neat clean and taken care of well. If it was in NY, every Jew would practically live there until their kids would be old enough to marry. Our kids got board after a while so off we went to the badlands and to see Prairie dogs.

I should mention our brief detour to the famous Wall Drug store. It is amazing what some free ice water and good advertising does to build up a store and a city. This store goes on for blocks at a time and packed. They get over a million people per year according to this article. For us it was just Eli getting wet while running through the sprinklers and some video games and crying for not buying sillybands. http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2216

The badlands were very interesting but incredibly hot. We stayed pretty much in the visitor center after driving around for a while and watched the movie (there is a movie in all these places) and filled out the books with the kids. It is a beautiful park and we saw lots of Prairie dogs. From there we headed off away from the bikers to our current location, a stop over in Mitchell SD (at a normally priced nice motel of $75 instead of the $200 per night for a mom and pop shop that we were spending to answer Doda's question) until we head to our final trip location in Omaha, Nebraska.

Day 15- The invasion of the bikers

Do you know anyone who owns a motorcycle? If so they are probably with us right now because I think every person who owns a bike or wants to own a bike is here at the 70th Annual Sturgis Bike Rally (sturgis.com). Before I get into that let me start off our day.

Our day began with a trip to an animal rescue called the Spirit of the Hills Wildlife Center. We got there a 1/2 hr late for the last tour of the day and the place was locked but they were running late and saw 6 admissions fees so we were in. It is a pretty incredible place and worth the trip. They keep animals that were abused by various animal shows or owned illegally by crazy pet owners. They had every kind of crazy exotic animal living there and the place was huge. They had a king lion that was tremendous, which was taken from a ladies apt as she kept it under her twins beds. One day the lion decided to be a lion and threaten to eat the kids. They had everything camels, bears, tons of lions and tigers, mountain cats, buffalo, wolves etc. The cool part were these animals were basically people friendly so you can really get within feet of them (although they were in cages) but that is the closest we will get next to a massive lion right next to us (hopefully).
Next we headed out to see a real gold mine. The problem is there was a massive infestation of bikers. I have never seen so many bikers in my life. To say there were 10,000 just in the area where we went (the Las Vegas of South Dakota) is not an exaggeration. Many of the roads are closed to bikers only. Every place you look is selling a Sturgis tee shirt or doo rag. In fact, everyone looks pretty much the same. We went into the store to get the kids doo rags and shirts but the lines were too long. You cant even drive without fear of hitting a biker. The boys asked what goes on at this rally and were told exactly what I expected, lots of drinking, drugs music and riding. After striking out with the bikers and Debra feeling sick we headed off to Custer to stay for the night and I took the boys so Debra can rest.

To buy some time before our night laser show, I took the boys to the National Museum of Woodworking. This place I remember from the last trip and is the coolest museum. It is really small but you see the life work of this doctor who spent his life creating a world from blocks. It was great and worth seeing.

From there we went to the Crazy Horse mountain cutout. It is the same as Mount Rushmore but of an Indian named Crazy Horse and not at all finished or even really done much at all. In 60 years they have a face where there is supposed to be a massive statue. They figure the horses face will be done in another 50 years. The whole family is working on it. Anyway, this in my opinion is not worth going to except for the 20 minute laser show at 915 pm. Debra feels it is not nice that I am writing this so she says it is worth it even though it is not.

Custer too is filled with bikers, so we are paying a fortune for a hotel once again but I have an idea to help fund these crazy hotel prices. Every hotel we go to gives us these little bars of soap and bottles of shampoo which we just take with us. Maybe if we sell them at the end we can recoup some $$$.

Day 14- Cody

Cody was a lot less western than I remember it from our last trip. Maybe my mind is blending other places but I remember a lot more shooting and guns. Our day started out pretty parve after the normal davening, fighting and complaining about the food, we headed out to the Buffalo Bill Dam. This dam is important to the farmers and the ability to water the farmland around Cody area. It was an impressive structure.
On the way back we decided to go horseback riding. I asked around if there was any other place besides the very expensive place that we kept passing. There were but they were not just show up when you want so we bit the bullet and went. Throughout the trip, I could not stop thinking of the book black beauty and the anger of horses to go on certain trails while being worked to death. We were thinking about getting the 2 hour trail instead of the 1 hour since it was only $10 difference but we stuck with the 1 hour one and our tushes are very thankful. It was a real riding experience. I can't believe they let this one go on. The trail pretty much straight up onto a rocky mountain. There were no straight paths but climbing rocks up with a horse. It was scary at times and you can see the horses did not want to do it and we were kicking them to keep moving. Eli and Yehuda were complete naturals at it.Eli started out being led by the guide because of his age but took off on his own and ran ahead of most of us. He really got the horse under control and moved it by himself. Debra and I were happy when it was over even though it was fun.
After lunch it was off to the Buffalo Bill Cody Museum. It was a great place with so much to see. They actually have video of the original wild west show. We saw a show of actors playing Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill and a shooting show. There was a lot more to see but we had to hit the road for the next 6 hour car ride.