We began this morning at the Ford dealership in Rapid City and were told they would charge $850-$900 to repair the air, so we headed back to O'Reilly where Nathan intended to buy the parts and fix it himself, but upon further inspection he decided that it was not actually the compressor but rather the clutch attached to it that is causing the problem. And this clutch is not activated unless the defrost or AC is on, so Nathan decided as long as we leave these settings off we should be fine. So we headed on to visit with Mr. Herman, a friend we made last year in Rapid City. He owns and runs a tour bus company and and has a love for tinkering with antique buildings and machinery. He purchased buildings from the Dances with Wolves set and uses them for gift shops and museums, makes ropes with the kids, has his own penny press, and makes pressed tin plates. He reminds me in many ways of my grandfather. He has all kinds of little projects going around his property. We didn't stay long because we knew he was busy.
Next we headed for a place called Reptile Gardens that was on Taylor's wish list of places to see. It was here that I earned another badge on my "mom of 3 boys" banner. We spent about an hour and a half walking around visiting with all kinds of critters. Our first stop was a visit with giant tortoises what were 120 & 150 years old. They walked right over and let us pet them. Next we played with the prairie dogs. (Not sure why they were at the REPTILE Garden, but much more my style!) Then it was on to the reptile dome where we viewed many different snakes, lizards, spiders and frogs. Before leaving we were privilieged enough to see a live snake show!! We entered a small building and sat around a fellow who proceeded to pull out about 6-7 different snakes. He ixplained how they attack and kill prey and even had them strike towards his shoes, all with the boys sitting about 4 feet from the action and behind a 1' plexiglass partition. They were soaking it all up. For safety reasons, the kids had to move back an extra foot when the fella pulled out the cobra!
After leaving here we headed to Crazy Horse. Sadly, the clouds had rolled in and it was a little difficult to see. We stayed several hours trying to outwait the clouds and then the snow with no luck, so we will be staying in Keystone for the night in hopes that it will clear off a bit tomorrow. We drove by Mt. Rushmore and could not even see it for the clouds. Temps. are in the mid 30's and the snow is coming down. We are enjoying the beautiful natural scenery though and hoping for clearer skies tomorrow.
Keystone right now is a virtual ghost town - just like Branson in the off season. We found a hotel, parked and decided to hike several blocks to a local Mexican restaurant in the snow. We wanted to see if we could be snowmen by the time we got back to the hotel!! :-D
No comments:
Post a Comment