Warning: Picture Heavy!

It was just a matter of time.

The warm weather finally arrived her in MN last week and I couldn't help myself. Thomas was scheduled to work all weekend, and facing a long weekend alone with the kids I......


packed the van and headed out to South Dakota with my five and Amanda's friend, Phedon.

We left on Friday...




and headed out into the exciting Minnesota countryside.


Alright, I admit it...the wind turbines were the most exciting thing for about 300 miles. At least it was educational!

The next most exciting thing was the clouds which the kids convinced themselves were tornados forming. Ahhhh, the joys of not taking a video player in the van!



Then, we finally hit South Dakota. Within minutes of crossing the boarder, I lost cell phone coverage. I was not able to use my cell phone to call home the entire time that we were in S. Dakota, which made me a little nervous. If the van had broken down, we would have had to sit tight for awhile until we could get help.

I suppose our adventure truly began though in Montrose, South Dakota. As we were driving by, we noticed the world's "largest" sculpture of a bull's head.


I know, I know....ooooooh, aaaaaaah! The exit sign indicated that the artist had an entire sculpture garden that we could visit and so we decided to make our first fun stop of the trip.

The sculpture garden was located on a farm adjacent to the highway and the entrance to the sculpture park was on a small, one-lane dirt road that wound around for about 2 miles. Though the winding road should have tipped me off, I was distracted by all of the beautiful sculptures of goldfish along the way. They were also made of iron (all of his sculptures were) and were then painted beautiful, bright colors. At every twist and turn it seemed like there was some new, cute sculpture to look at. We approached the sculpture garden and it was apparent that there was a lot to see. I parked and we eagerly jumped out of the van and headed to the tent to pay our admission. Kids under 12 were free, so I only had to pay for Andrew and I. Fair enough.

I asked the man whom we paid if he was the artist. He said that he was.
"How do you do these?"
"I don't know" he answered slowly...and then picked up a large piece of iron and waved it in the air while he talked strangely to me. Ultimately, he pointed to the very farthest point in the garden, which was the sculpture of the bull's head. He told me to be sure to walk all the way to the end and walk through the head.

I stepped away and noticed that Zoe was shaking....really shaking. The other kids had already walked over to the first sculpture.....A large yellow hand holding a purple butterfly. The sculpture was probably as tall as my 2 story house. It was amazing. I started walking towards it while the artist tried to tell me about a wooden horse he had sculpted that was "the world's largest sculpture". He wanted me to turn around and look at it, but I just continued to walk towards the kids. Later, I turned around to look and....there was NO horse sculpture. Then I looked more carefully at the hand holding the butterfly. It had a large piece of wood stabbed into the center of the hand and blood was dripping out.... Zoe was still shaking and saying "I scared me. I scared me."

Frantically, I started looking around. I noticed a really neat sculpture of a goldfish bowl...also massive in size. I thought it was incredible...until I noticed that the bowl was cracked and one of the goldfish was stuck in the crack. :huh:



Weird, but not freak-you-out weird...just strange.

That's when I looked up and realized that all of the sculptured bird's houses contained sculpted vultures. I admit it. My heart started pounding when I walked by the colorful sculpture of the jack-in-the-box (twice my size) and noticed his eyes were gauged out and blood was dripping down his face. No...actually, I flipped out.

The older kids had taken Aidan and Alex and headed down one end of the horse-shoe path. I was on the other side. As I looked around, I realized that the artist was also gone....nowhere to be found. I ran across a field to the kids....They were standing around a sculpture of some sort of a snake/dragon. "Take a picture, Mom". I told them that I would take the picture and that we were then leaving. "I have a terrible feeling, you guys....we have to go!"



At first, the kids didn't understand. They hadn't seen some of the weird things yet.

I turned and pointed at the next sculpture...a tarantula eating a girl:



A sledder crashing into the ground...his tongue covered in what looked like blood



That's when I noticed that the sculpture of the T-Rex. It was standing there handing you a bouquet of flowers, but when you twisted around to look at its head, it was viciously eating an animal.

Nearby was a sculpture of a woman with her arms, legs and head chopped off. Every single alarm went off in my head. I lost it.

"Holy Shit, you guys...holy shit..."

The artist was still nowhere to be seen and it was 7:45pm....15 minutes until the park closed. I handed Zoe to Amanda, directed the kids to run to the van and get in and to lock the doors if something happened to me. I gave Andrew the key to the van. "If something happens, get in the driver's seat and drive away...no matter what...just drive to the highway." He took the key and they all ran...with me taking up the rear.

I have a heavy camera and I wrapped the strap around my hand and tried to weaponize it.

I made it into the van, locked the doors and sped away.

Once I got over my nausea and fright, I realized that this was probably just some weird artist and not a crazy murderer who lured people in with cute sculptures to massacre them and bury them on his land....but I admit that this incident almost caused me to turn around.

Later, Andrew did nothing but laugh at me "Holy Shit, Holy Shit....drive the car away!"

The rest of our trip was....much less eventful !

We stayed overnight in Mitchell, SD and the kids went swimming while I drowned out my worries in a big glass of ice cold diet coke and watched from the sidelines.

For those of you who are curious as to what it is like to be in a hotel room with 6 kids, here you go:




I slept in the double bed with Aidan and Zoe. Good Times!

The next day, after a leisurely breakfast, we drove by the corn palace and a few other smaller sites and then headed towards our final goal: Mt. Rushmore!

With stopping for potty breaks every hour or more, we needed an extra hour to get there, but...we sure weren't disappointed.



As we entered the park, Aidan was feeling crabby...all of the driving finally caught up with him.




It was truly beautiful and we had a great time walking through the park. At the end of it all though, we were exhausted. On our way to the hotel, we came across a sign leading to a cave with tours every 20 minutes. It sounded really fascinating and so I decided to tempt the gods and try one last thing before checking into the hotel.

The tour got started at 5pm....the bewitching hour....Me....with 6 kids...2 of whom had not slept in the car and had missed naptime. You know where this is heading, don't you!


This is all that I managed to see of the cave


Zoe became incosolable after about 10 minutes of the 1 hour plus tour. She was crying and screaming and throwing herself to the floor. She started yelling at the tour guide "You stinky, you stinky!" I have NO idea why she was saying that, but I can tell you that I was mortified....and even more so when he stopped the tour and asked me to leave. He used one of the emergency phones and called the front desk and had us escorted back. The older kids were permitted to stay, and the tour guide offered to watch Aidan so that he could finish the tour. Phew...at least the kids got to see the cave!

Zoe sitting nicely while we waited for the escort.


And...having tantrums in the gift shop where I had to wait for an hour while she rolled on the floor, cried and then raced around trying to rip her sweatshirt off....oy.




I can laugh about it now!

We checked into the hotel for an evening of swimming and relaxing. The kids were all on their very best behavior. The older kids all helped out with the younger ones and really made things easier on me!

Andrew and Amanda swam with Zoe ...




Aidan tested out his skills...



And Alex goofed about with the rest of the kids in the pool!



Even better is that Andrew and Alex played together...for the first time in a loooooong time!



It was loud, it was chaotic....it was...great! Thomas would have been miserable with all of the mess and noise, so I suppose it was better that he was working. I missed having him there though and I wish that he could have shared in our fun.

We met several people at the hotel in the swimming pool...other moms and grandmas watching their grandchildren swim. The next morning at breakfast, the kids continued their unusual and completely appreciated good behavior. We all sat in the restaurant and they talked about reptiles and taught Aidan and Zoe about mammals. They said please and thank you, sat quietly and were kind and thoughtful. When the meal was over, they asked me what they could do to help before taking the younger ones to the room.

One of the grandmothers walked up to me and said: "You have truly wonderful children. They are so well-behaved. You are a good mom."

I felt great...until about 30 minutes later when we were getting into the van and Andrew accidentally bumped Amanda in the eye (resulting in piercing shrieks of "I hate you"), Alex spilled his clay and water mixture (don't ask) all over the back of the van and some got on Amanda's jeans (again with the shrieks of "I hate you!"). Then there was the intentional farting, teaching Zoe the name of the capital of some province in Canada that is Regina...but that the kids were pronouncing Ra-Jine-Ah. sigh. So they got Zoe screaming ah-gina, ah-gina and giggled until I gave up and put my headphones on and blasted Matchbox 20 to drown it all out.

Yup...Mom of the year here!

We headed out to what was probably my favorite part of the trip...the reptile gardens...That's where we got to see the giant tortoises....they were massive:




In the interest of not boring you to tears, I won't post all of the pictures of the kids with the Anacondas, poisonous spiders and various reptiles.

Here is Zoe though after looking at a giant alligator:


"I scared me, I scared me!"

These are some of my favorite pics from the trip:


Alex


Zoe


Andrew


Aidan


Amanda

Our final stop
a place called the cosmos....where there was a cabin built on a hill that supposedly defies gravity. In order to walk at all in the house, you had to lean forward, and...balls and water rolled uphill. (I'm sure it was a trick based on how crooked the house was built )



(after this pic, Zoe promptly fell and rolled backwards down the room!)



Alex was not falling...he was floating on the air...really. LOL.

(Actually, he was standing on the ledge leaning forward against the force of gravity...he did not fall! It looks like he's floating though!)

After all of that excitement, we had lunch and then started the long journey back to MN. We stopped in the Badlands on the way back to enjoy one last look at the beauty that S. Dakota had to offer.




On the way home, our trip was rated a "10 out of 10" by the kids. "How did you get to be such a wonderful mom. You are the best mom ever."

Can I have that in writing?[/quote]