Mine Your Own Business

The Broken Boot Gold Mine is definitely a tourist business and not so much a mining business but it was charming and cheap so we were happy to take a tour there on our last day in Deadwood. Can you tell who is the most excited to be going into the mine? (HINT: It isn't David John)

Tobias was terrified of going in. He kept pointing and saying "Dark in there. Bad guys in there." and taking off his hardhat. We took him in anyway. He whimpered a little bit at first but he made it through the rest of the tour by repeating the mantra that I gave him, "No bad guys, no bad guys, no bad guys." It was cute and a little Sad.

Everyone got a bag as we went in so you could pick up rocks along the way. Our boys found some pretty cool ones and it made the tour really fun for them.

Of course, there were collapsed shafts and other dangerous areas which were exactly the places our crazy boys wanted to go. We had to pull children out of holes and off of barriers. We were constantly doing a headcount.

At one point, the tour guide turned all the lights off and lit a candle so we could really see what the working conditions were of the miners in the early 20th century. It's crazy that people were using sharp implements and explosives without being able to see much at all. Pretty sure OSHA wouldn't go for that these days.

A couple of other interesting things about the mine: It's called broken boot because they found parts of an old boot in one of the shafts that some poor soul left behind. It wasn't a very successful mine, in fact it made more money selling fool's gold than real gold. It was also the site of some horrible B movie called "Beast from Haunted Cave".

In case you can't read the poster it says: "Screaming young girls sucked into a labyrinth of horror by a blood-starved ghoul from hell." How would anyone resist seeing that?

We also got to pan for gold while we were there which was a lot harder than I imagined. It was too much for David John, he just built his own goldmine from the rocks he had picked up inside.

Gabriel and Elijah were really into it though and very patient. You had to shake the pan so that the gold would sink towards the bottom, then carefully pour off some water and lighter rocks then repeat.

After a long time and many repetitions the only things left in the pan were tiny gold flakes which we collected in small vials of water. The twins are stoked about being owners of real gold.

Elijah thought I should get some credit since I helped him and took this very artistic picture of me with our gold.

It wasn't fancy, but we had a golden time at the old Broken Boot Mine.

Rushmore

Rushmore is breathtaking.

 It is just incredible.

It was lost on our boys. Giant faces carved into the side of a mountain? Meh.

Marc really wanted a nice picture of the five of them with the presidents in the background. We tried.

 And tried.

 This is the best one we got. I don't think Abe approves.

Look, I'm sorry Abe but these boys were disappointed. I mean, we took them on the President's walk around the monument so they could see you guys from every angle and we stopped at the little exhibits that told us things we didn't know like the plan was originally for full body portraits and that George had to be blown up and recarved because the original spot was too soft and how they had to pump air all the way up the mountain to power the pneumatic drills and jackhammers.

It wasn't cool enough. They wanted to CLIMB Mount Rushmore. They wanted to inspect Tom's nostrils and confirm that Teddy really is wearing his glasses. They were super bummed. SO, we had to stop on our way back at a place where they could climb some big old rocks.

 I wish the pictures could convey what the dirt looks like in the black hills. It all sparkles because of the unique geology of the area.

The views were gorgeous and the boys really did climb way up there.

 It was a little nervewracking for me to follow them, and coming down was more like snowboarding on pine needles.

But, the climb satisfied our boys' primal desire to do dangerous things and we could even see the side of George's face so the boys now feel that they have conquered Mt. Rushmore, which makes it awesome.

You are welcome, Abe. I hope we won't have to make up for your deficiencies in the future but we're always happy to help instill a little presidential love.

Deadwood

Did I mention that while in South Dakota we were staying in a little town called Deadwood? That's where Marc's conference was. A lot of people like Deadwood. I'm sure it is cool, but on this trip I was not impressed. There is a trolley system which sounded like a great idea and the boys were excited to ride the trolley and see the town. Unfortunately, the trolley was running extremely late.... like an hour late. This is what happened while we were sitting on the curb waiting:

We got some looks, but they weren't fighting or destroying property so I was all for it. After 45 minutes of waiting, we gave up. The rock wall was finished as was our patience. I tried to talk the boys into letting me drive them somewhere like the historic graveyard where the likes of Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane are buried. The answer was "no". They had their little hearts set on the trolley and then Elijah said, "Are you crazy? A cemetery? Where there are dead people? I am NOT going in there." Maybe they've watched a little too much Scooby Doo, which is what we ended up doing until Marc finished his meetings so we could go to Rushmore. I was so frustrated. You are dead to me Deadwood. But at least you have nice rocks.

Reptile Gardens

When I first heard of reptile gardens, I pictured giant topiaries in the shapes of snakes and lizards with crocodiles roaming free among the hedges. Thankfully, the real reptile gardens are much safer than my imagination and still pretty cool. Frankly, the most dangerous part of the experience was the fact that I was there solo with all five of my crazies. As a result, we had a great time punctuated by some really not-great times.

We started our day with a snake show which the boys thought was pretty cool. I mean, who doesn't love seeing poisonous snakes trying to bite their handler? Also, some of the statistics were mindblowingly awesome. There is a snake in Australia, called the Inland Taipan so venomous that its bite could kill 100 people. This is the stuff of every little boy's fondest dreams.

After the show, we went to the little playground to run off some energy and take advantage of the fact that the park wasn't very busy yet. The playground had a massive sand area, an obstacle course and big reptiles to climb on. During the twenty minutes or so that we played there, there was a fist-fight between two of the boys over some playground equipment, a throwing sand incident, a poopy diaper and then one of my little guys racked himself on a railing while I was changing said poopy diaper. His screams drew a lot of attention from bypassers. Luckily, a very kind grandfather who was there with his grandson offered to help me out so I could take care of both the diaper situation and helping the injured party to recover while my other boys stayed at the playground. Sir, you are a gentleman and a scholar.

This snake tried to devour several of my children, starting with Elijah. Get out of there Bug!

This boy loves to dig. 

Dang it, now it has David John. At first he posed with a big smile, but then decided he wanted a more realistic looking being-eaten-by-a-snake picture.

Help! Benjamin says he's being eaten by a docile giant tortoise!

The snake tried to eat Benjamin, but Elijah jumped on his head and gave it the old one-two.

Do not try this without the added protection of a diaper. Just ask Benjamin.

Aaaagh! That crocodile is eating Benjamin and Gabriel!

Now Benjamin's being eaten by a T-rex! We really need to have a family lesson on what to do when being chased or consumed by a large animal. It seems to happen a lot.

Tobias has tamed the vicious docile giant tortoise.

Gabriel loves to climb. There was a fight over who could climb this tree first, but luckily I stopped it before there were any serious injuries.

The next stop on our Reptile Gardens adventure was a little miniature western town which included some activities most of which cost extra money. I guess we know which area to avoid in the future. It did have some cute picture taking areas.

The one extra activity I did pay for was something called "3-D Safari Adventure". I thought this would be a 3-D imax experience or something but it was not. It was a small walk-through area with black lights and neon paint and a few stone animals. There were 3-D glasses you could choose to wear which did make the plants and animals seem like they were jumping out at you. It was kind of cool, but not $2 cool in my opinion, until the very end. To get out of the 3-D safari you have to walk across a steel walkway surrounded by spinning psychedelic walls. Of course, this makes the walkway feel like it's tilting at an alarming angle. Even though I knew it was an illusion I couldn't walk straight. This was a problem because I had Tobias on my hip. He wouldn't walk because he was terrified of the entire experience and had been screaming "Scary! No! Dark!" since we first stepped foot in the black lights. Since I was holding him, I couldn't hold onto the railings with both hands and my center of gravity was also off and I felt like I was going to drop him because of the tilting illusion. As a result, I ended up leaning against the railing so that my arm which was around Tobias was grinding against the metal as I drunkenly stumbled across the catwalk. I gave myself an awesome friction burn and terrified Tobias even more. He couldn't figure out why Mommy wasn't walking straight. The other four boys, on the other hand, couldn't get enough of this thing. $2 gets you a stamp on your hand and then you can go through as many times as you want. They ran through over and over again. I let Tobias have a little ride on the coin merry-go-round to make up for his traumatizing experience and to give him something to do while we waited for all of his brothers to finish their "safari adventure".

"I'm thinking about forgiving you for taking me through that torture chamber."

We went to two more shows, one with birds and one with alligators. The bird show was loved by all. They had the coolest vulture ever with bright patterns on the back of his bald head and a parrot that sounded so human it was hard to believe that voice was coming out of a beak. The gator show was also cool, but I think I was pressing my luck by trying to see two shows back to back. Despite me plying the boys with granola bars and crackers and water they started fighting a lot and then David John stood up on the bench to see better and refused to sit down screaming, "But I can't see!" over and over. Not my proudest moment as a mom, but we made it through. The handler did not get bitten, but we got to see gators snapping up large pieces of chicken and we got a tutorial on how to safely get on the back of an alligator. I'm hoping that we never visit the everglades because I worry that my boys would actually try those skills. After the show, everyone got to pet a baby alligator except Tobias who was really beginning to wonder what kind of a mother I was.
The boys were STILL hungry despite the snacks so I gave in and bought them lunch at the Green Parrot Cafe. Public Service Announcement: Do NOT eat at the Green Parrot Cafe. It will cost you a lot of green, what they serve is merely parroting real food and it is as slow as a leisurely cafe in France. Once we had thrown away more than $50 worth of food the boys felt ready to do some more exploring. Some of them were brave enough to touch this snake outside of the giant glass dome.

The glass dome itself and the surrounding exhibits were super cool. There was an 18 foot alligator named Maniac, some fascinating fossils and then a large open area with birds and reptiles and gorgeous tropical flowers.

We look remarkably happy! Way to go us. Good attitude boys.

It was like a giant I-Spy game and the boys were totally into it. They wanted me to take a picture of every little critter they spotted. So, I will post some of those pictures and then you can see if you can spot the animals. Don't cheat and look at the answers ahead of time! (Okay, honestly it's pretty easy but the boys love I spy games.)

Hint: What you are looking for is not a rock.

Good Job! You found the two baby newts? I think they are newts.

Hint: What you are looking for is staring you in the face.

Way to go! You spotted the bearded lizard.

Hint: Look on the sunny side.

Wow! You located the green lizardy thingy.

Hint: You'll have to branch out to find this guy.

Bazing! You spied the Boa Constrictor.

Hint: I can't make heads or tails of this one.

Yes! There are two skinks. Right? Skinks? Skanks? Skunks?

Hint: Now you see it, now you don't.

Did you find it? No? That's because there were no critters in that picture, just pretty flowers. Sorry if I misled you. I hope you didn't spend hours staring at that. You know what you could spend hours staring at though? Giant Tortoises. They are pretty cool. You can just walk right up to them and pet them at the Reptile Gardens. 

One of those guys is 109 years old. I know they don't look like they're doing much, but they did walk around and eat grass and try to climb on each other. Silly tortoises. The boys LOVED them, but the poor park employees were constantly worried that one of my boys was going to get stepped on because they were getting so up close and personal. The tortoises didn't seem to mind.
After the tortoises we were ready to go back to the hotel, but Tobias needed yet another diaper change. The lovely worker at the 3-D Safari Adventure let my boys go through again while I went to change Tobias. Unfortunately, while I was gone one of them accidentally put their foot through a light fixture inside the Safari. Something about a dare to climb the stone crocodile? Oh dear. It seems we can't visit a place without leaving a lasting impression.