Mammoth Size Fun

Yesterday, we decided to take a day trip to Hot Springs, SD. I think Steve took us there to make me appreciate Rapid City and to show me that there are worse places that we could be living. As much as the town of Hot Springs sucked, we had a really great time hanging out with Nathan.
It was lunch time when we arrived in Hot Springs. We stopped at a local restaurant to try to get a real feel for the town. Boy, was that a mistake. As we sat there at our table I saw too many of the locals and lost my appetite. Steve didn't understand why I wasn't eating my food. It looked good, but I just couldn't bring myself to eat it. I didn't want to tell Steve that I was grossed out by everything in sight because he gets mad at me for being like that so I just kept rearranging my food to look like I was eating. After Steve ate his food, he ate mine too, asking why I wasn't hungry. Then, as we were finishing up I told Steve to look at our waitresses teeth...or I guess I should say her lack of teeth. She didn't have any teeth across the front top or bottom. But the part that made it really gross was that her gums and what might be some remains of teeth were orange and yellow and brown. I'm getting sick writing about it so I'll call it quits here, although, I could go on and on. Let's just say I couldn't wait to get back to my high class town of Rapid City.

Yes, Nathan is in his pajamas at the restaurant. We kept his pajamas on him for the car ride thinking he would be more comfortable and fall asleep. After driving through the town, I decided that he was probably overdressed, even in his "night-nights," so we didn't even bother with getting him dressed before we went into Dale's Restaurant. In hindsight, I'm glad we did that because I was able to peel the grossness off of him before he got back in the car. I wish Steve and I would have been that lucky. 
After we ate at Dale's Restaurant, we went to The Mammoth Site. I was expecting this to suck, but it totally didn't suck at all. I was expecting a museum with a bunch of plastic bones replicating real mammoth bones. It wasn't, though. It was an excavation site with mammoth bones as well as other Ice Age fossils. This land was going to be used to build a neighborhood on, but as they began bulldozing they ran into all sorts of bones. It's pretty interesting. And to think that I offered to sit and wait in the car while Steve and Nathan checked it out. Steve wanted me to come in, so I did. He probably just wanted me to carry Nathan around, but I'm glad I went. I stole this information off the website to help describe what it is that we visited. 

"The majority of fossils found at the Mammoth Site are from the North American Columbian mammoth. Evidence of three woolly mammoths have also been discovered here, making this 'east meets west mammoth gathering' the first time both species have been found together. Fossils of other Ice Age animals have also been discovered: camel, llama, giant short-faced bear, wolf, coyote and prairie dog to name a few. Imprint fossils of bird feathers, complete fish skeletons, and thousands of mollusk shells have also been recovered from this now-dry 26,000 year old sinkhole."
As soon as we walked in the excavation site, Nathan saw pictures of mammoths on the walls and immediately said, "eh-phant." By the time our tour was over he knew those weren't elephants, they were, "mammofs." He was listening to our tour guide and repeating much of what she had to say. He would point down in the hole and say "mammof bones."
Mammoth skeleton.
Nathan tried his hand at paleontological digging. He uncovered several mammoth teeth in the sandbox.

Since South Dakota doesn't offer preschool before three years old, Steve and I have to find new and different types of learning experiences for Nathan.

After digging, we found a smashed penny machine. Uncle Joe has introduced us to smashed penny machines, so now we can't pass up a smashed penny.
For sale to the highest bidder...one Mammoth Site smashed penny. Uncle Joe?...PawPaw? $$$
After our mammoth fun, we went to Evan's Plunge. It's a spring fed pool with naturally warm water thought to cure illnesses. I think they say it cures illnesses because after you leave there you are no longer worried about your current illnesses, you have a whole list of new things you want to get checked out by your doctor. I can't believe I got in that water after seeing the local people. Luckily, we were only in the water for about 15 minutes before I just couldn't take it anymore. I think the last time this "water park" was updated, was when the mammoths were still wandering the earth.

We are seeing all there is to see in South Dakota and surrounding areas while we live here to make sure we never have to come back for any reason in the future. After all this fun, Nathan couldn't keep his eyes open. He passed out five minutes into our drive home.