The rest of our journey...

When we left Mr. Rushmore, we headed to Wall, South Dakota. Apparently, Wall Drug Store just had to be seen. My Great Aunt Eunice (and she truly is great!) said we "have to stop there" so we did. This is a drug store that takes up an entire city block. Very interesting! We don't have any photos of it...but we first ate dinner there, and it was very busy. The food was good. Then, we took a look around. It was set up with many different "shops" within the store. There were toys, clothing, nick knacks, candy, etc. They also have something called the backyard that has some interesting things for the kids.

Dad agreed to watch my kids while I went into another shop with Mom (on our never-ending search for marbles!). There was a large, animatronic dinosaur that they all wanted to see. Well, after a few minutes, Logan and Hailey walked into the store, followed by my Dad. Corbin was nowhere to be seen! When I asked the kids and Dad where Corbin was, they said, "I don't know!" WHAT!!!! So out of the shop we ran, and Logan actually found Corbin before I did. He was not very far away, and I think an older lady was trying to find out what was wrong (he was crying). As he came up to me and latched onto my leg, and I in turn grabbed him up and held him tight, I got the story. He DID NOT like the dinosaur. As it roared and moved, he slowly backed away until he couldn't see my dad or his siblings. My Dad thought that Corbin was right with Logan and Hailey when they came into the shop. So, instead of telling Paw Paw he didn't like that and getting comforted, Corbin tried to get away from the scary thing! He just didn't realize that would be worse. Although, he was very insistent that we leave right away because "it does it every 12 minutes!", and he did not want to go through that again! So maybe he thought the dinosaur was worse...Not a fun experience for me. We decided to leave the drug store after that, and head to our camp ground. I am glad we stopped there though, because it was fun to see and experience something so different.

Corbin's birthday was June 17, and we were still on the road. So, we celebrated in Tea, South Dakota, which is very near Sioux Falls. He had requested that we go to Cracker Barrel for his 'birthday dinner' so that's what we did. He had pancakes! And then we all had dessert there, which was his request too. I had bought some microwavable mini-cakes (and they're pretty good, too) but he wanted a sundae...and of course what a birthday boy wants, a birthday boy gets! They like to play checkers there too. Here's Corbin waiting patiently for his turn...We opened gifts once we got back to the RV (at the RV Park) then into pajamas and to bed. He was one tired 5-year-old!

Here's a picture of what he looked like when he was born...The next day brought us into Iowa where some old friends live. So of course we had to go through Ames to see them. We were only there for a couple of hours, but the kids had a great time playing together. And I so enjoyed talking with my friend, her sister, and her sister's husband. We miss you guys!

Here is a photo of their crew, our crew and her sister's crew together. One of my friend's daughters is MIA...she's shy and did not want to participate in this activity! :)

The rest of our trip was fairly uneventful, though we did have to stay in a Wal-mart parking lot Wednesday night because the two camp grounds we tried were not available! Mom and I did get some shopping done, though. I think I slept the best that night out of all of them, believe it or not! I was afraid the generator and air conditioner, running simultaneously, would keep me awake. Nope! I missed out on the revving engines and squealing tires too, apparently...

We drove through the last bit of Indiana, and all of Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York the last day in an effort to get home. It was a long day, but I think we were all glad we didn't have to try to find anymore RV Parks for a while! And of course, the kids and I were so glad to finally be home to see Karl. Yeah!

We had a great trip, and we so enjoyed all of the sites and things we experienced. I would definitely recommend doing this if you ever get the chance. It was great! I hope you've enjoyed reading about our adventures, and seeing the states through our eyes!