South Dakota Trip

This past weekend we finally made it on our trip to South Dakota. Our plan was to stop in Storybook Land in Aberdeen and then keep on to Auntie Shelly and Uncle Lester's house in Wolsey.

I had been wondering if Storybook Land was still selling these personalized rulers after all these years. I love this one and use it all the time. I thought I could really use another.

We had some extra time on Friday, so we stopped at The Flame for lunch. It was kind of an older supper club, I guess you would call it. I made the mistake of ordering the crab broil. That equated to a few clumps/shreds of imitation crab (I did know that it wouldn't be the real thing), mixed with lettuce into some kind of mixture which sat atop toasted English muffins with melted American cheese on top.

We couldn't readily find the original place I had wanted to go to, so it was all the more disappointing that The Flame kind of missed the mark for me. I think everyone else's meal was okay though.

After lunch we headed straight for Storybook Land and couldn't pass up a picture in front of the iconic entrance.

The girls wanted their pic taken next to these two.

The rides, gift shop and concessions weren't opened up yet, so we just walked around and took in everything else.

It started raining after a bit so we made a break for it and went to get ice cream while we waited out the rain shower. This place was so cute and fun and had the best ice cream! They had really fun "Tornado" flavors.

Once we got back after ice cream, it had really started to heat up outside.

We didn't realize what a good Dorothy Brynn would make until she was standing right next to her.

One sad little piggy!

We had to visit Dorothy's house, of course.

Clara was scared as we walked through the haunted forest.

Everyone had fun on this zipline thing though.

Dana and Brynn tried out this contraption.

At 4:00 the rides and such started opening up, so we got some tickets at the gift shop and Brynn and I started out on the train. 

Also, no more rulers to be found. :-( Also, my sister reminded me of the invisible ink that we always used to get from there too...and they didn't have that anymore either. Bust! That stuff was the BEST!

It was pretty quiet when we were there, so Clara rode the teacups solo.

Brynn loved this rollercoaster and rode it with me once, with Dad once and then at least once by herself. And by by herself, I mean she literally was the only one on the whole thing. Ha!

At 5:00 Thunder Road next door opened up, so we scooted over there for bumper boats and go karts. 

Dana would have kept going on the go karts, but everyone was pretty tired out, hot and hungry for dinner by that time.

Upon the recommendation of Tessa, we had planned to eat dinner at Thatzza Pizza, however their dining room was closed and there really weren't any places to eat outside. The rest of us thought Mexican sounded good, but Clara still had her heart set on pizza, so thankfully they sold it by the slice and we grabbed one for Clara for her to eat on our way to the Mexican restaurant.

Clara was still hungry after her pizza so joined in our Mexican food as well. It was good, but it was no match for our fav, Mango's, back in Fargo.

After dinner we made our way to Wolsey later that evening. In the morning, Shelly made us a delicious brunch. Brynn was helping by making toast.

Shelly had a set of these old dolls that she gave to the girls.

They're so fancy!

After brunch, they girls got to diggin' in Shelly's hope chest which was great-grandma Bert's. 

There so many fun gems in there, once of which was Shelly's old centennial dress that Grandma Darlene had made for her. It fit her so well and it was so cute.

We found some fun pics - Grandpa Don and Grandma Darlene dressed up for Halloween. :-)

That afternoon we drove to Huron to the lake they have there to try to cool off a bit.

The lake was apparently home to some very friendly ducks..well, it probably helped when the girls fed them caramel corn.

The lake also had some dead fish floating around and was emitting quite a foul smell. So, we packed up from the beach and headed up to the top of the hill for ice cream, snacks and mini golf. They're ice cream was really good, too, and they had some fun flavors like strawberry rhubarb. I think all the ice cream is made by SDSU.

Brynn had to help Clara out with her cone.

Shelly's poor scooter really got a workout from these two. 

We had such a fun time visiting Shelly and Lester. We made so many great memories in the short amount of time that we stayed. Thank you for having us! We can't wait to come back again soon.