The Tangrens

Our hotel in Sheridan was much nicer than our one in St Anthony. It had a waterfall and a putting green in the hotel lobby for crying out loud!

The shower head was even high enough for us to get our head under without kneeling, which was a bonus. And of course they are quite tolerant of pajama clad crazy boys running through the halls. All morning the boys were begging to go to the pool and swim. We really wanted to get to Rapid City to see some of the sights before the fireworks at Mt Rushmore tonight. We needed to start making some serious headway toward Michigan the next day. So with promises to get in the pool sometime today we hit the breakfast buffet and got in the car.

The boys continue to travel quite well. Thanks in LARGE part to my oldest’s love of BOOKS. We’ve been reading a large portion of our hours in the car. Sure we’ve played road trip bingo but that really only works well with Hyrum at this point. Noah just ripped his stickers and put them where ever he wanted to put them. A big motivator for good behavior was the clothes pins.

If they didn’t whine ( I allowed for a bit of impatience ) the clothes pins stayed up and at the end of the day they got a prize. If they were crazy or whiney the clothes pin came down and they got nothing. Only one has missed the prize and it was a sad day yesterday. Hopefully it made an impression.

This little one traveled like a champ! The first day he slept for most of the day and it made me a little nervous that this was going to be how it would be and he wouldn’t sleep at night. Then I put up some things for him to look at and spent more time in back with the boys and he had a bit more interaction and he spent more time awake. Whenever we stopped I’d feed him and when he’d cry and he was full I’d just put a blanket over him or his canopy over him and he’d go to sleep. He was kinda like a parakeet like that. There was only one desperate time that called for desperate measures.

We got to the hotel and the first order of business was the pool. While I fed Elijah I looked online to see when the fireworks would be at Mt Rushmore. Come to find out that the fireworks were scheduled for the 3^rd of July and they’d been canceled due to high fire risk. BUMMER! We figured that was just more time to spend in the pool and took of to take a swim

Even Eli was going to take a dip. When we got to the pool we noticed everyone in the hot tub and the pool closed!

We sat poolside waiting and eventually a man came out and got a skimmer and pulled something out of the pool that just left an “L” in the word pool ( if you catch my drift) Come to find out it was going to be closed for 2 hours. Foiled again! Off to Mt Rushmore!!!

I’m so glad we went to Mt Rushmore on the 4^th of July even though they didn’t have fireworks . It was so inspirational! Right before we left I turned on the TV to keep the boys from jumping on the beds for a second and they were playing the scene from ‘John Adams’ where George Washington was being sworn in as president and he speaks the presidential oath in a quiet and reverent tone and after saying “so help me God” kissed the bible his hand was on. I got all teary. Then going to this stately and majestic National Monument…My heart was just swelling with pride and admiration for these incredible men with such vision and inspiration.

If you come to Mt Rushmore, absolutely walk the presidential trail. It’s quite shady and it gives you incredible views of the monument

We were lucky enough to hop in on a ranger tour. She was gave us information about all the presidents depicted on the mountain and why specifically they were chosen.

In a nutshell Washington was chosen because he was the first president and because he was instrumental in us gaining our freedom as a general. They mentioned that he had royal blood and could have been king in England perhaps and they asked him to be the king of America but he of course refused and said that the people needed to rule in America.

Lincoln was chosen for preserving the union and giving freedom to those who were not free with the emancipation act.

Jefferson was chosen because he had the vision of expansion. He said that he wanted Port Orleans and said they could spend 10 million but they wouldn’t sell it without the rest of the Louisiana Purchase but they wanted15million. They bought it because he wanted the port and they wouldn’t sell it without the rest. They thought he’d be upset but to their surprise he was thrilled. He had the vision of a nation that would stretch from sea to shining sea.

Roosevelt was not originally intended to be on the mountain. They had only planned to have the three but they had to put Jefferson on the other side of Washington but it was bad rock and they put him on the other side and adjusted the faces and found they had room for one more.

They chose Roosevelt because of development and preservation . He instituted the National forests some of which became National parks.

We did the whole presidential trail loop but the back half was much more strenuous than the front, be aware. We needed to run some energy out of these boys. Hyrum loved the “beam bridge” as he called it.

The boys ran up (and back down and then back up) the stone stairs that took us back up to the visitors center.

There came a point at Mt Rushmore that I began to think..."I wonder how many pictures I'm going to take of the same stone" It was just so awe inspiring that you just had to get this angle or this composition.

They were having a program in the evening with a military swearing in ceremony, a brass band concert then they would play the National Anthem and then they’d light the sculpture. We had planned to stay for it but after trying to corral the boys for so long e decided to bail and get something to eat then go back to the hotel to swim.

We went to a sit down Pizza Hut, which holds some nostalgia for us. First they don’t really have anymore sit down Pizza Huts in Utah and second we went to a Pizza Hut on our honeymoon and we’ve had Pizza Hut Pizza on anniversaries. Thus began our nostalgia tour because 10 years ago this month… we began the best journey we will ever take. Which lead to fabulous adventures beyond that.

We got back to the hotel around 9 but we were committed, we had to let these boys swim. We’d been on vacation for three days and had been in three hotels and they hadn’t been in the pool once. They were so excited. Hyrum was wearing his goggles and had gotten such a good suction on them that his face was turning rather purple and his eyes were bulging a little. He didn’t wear them again after we noticed that. Even Eli dipped his feet a bit but there weren’t any extra towels and I didn’t want to chill him.

The boys fell asleep rather fast again tonight of course it was near 11:00 again