Our Family Trip 2015 : Reptile Gardens!

Our next stop that Wednesday afternoon was Reptile Gardens near Rapid City, South Dakota.  Don't let my smile fool you, I wasn't overly excited about being here, but all the flowers were very pretty!  Reptile habitats are not my happy place either, but... for the sake of seeing this world renown place and since my family had been so good about going to the wax museum with me, I agreed to go...

Okay, it wasn't that bad, it was a beautiful day to walk through the gardens filled with beautiful flowers...

Okay, it WAS that bad... I would never dream of letting my 4 year old touch a snake in real life, I mean a real live snake, I mean, uggg whatever... it happened, they all touched it...

And don't let all these happy family trip pictures fool you either.  We had our share of problems and squabbles and disturbances...

All four of our kids got themselves in trouble while we were at the Reptile Gardens that day...

Anyway, back the the flowers! It really wasn't all that bad...

eeeeek.....

nice....

interesting....

eeeek, it's one of the longest crocs in the world!...

I can't believe I'm actually posting this picture.  My blog has always been a positive place to share the things that make me feel happy and good.  This did not make me feel either happy or good.  In fact, the only thing I feel happiness about when I see this picture is that I don't live in the same place as these creatures do...

AND, I don't live in the same place as these creatures do either...

or these ones...

While we were there, we watched a crocodile wrestler.  Here we are waiting for the show, and my husband seems to want to pet one of them...

wrestler in action...

my children petting a baby crocodile...

it's name was "Fluffy"...

And then we went and petted the giant turtles.  These guys were over a hundred years old!

They weren't so bad at all...

Hello to you old fella...

And the flowers weren't bad at all either!

It really was a very interesting afternoon at the Reptile Gardens.  A "must see", even if you are a little squeamish, like me, about these types of things.  The amount of poisonous, venomous, and otherwise dangerous snakes, spiders, lizards, crocodiles, and other reptiles in this place was staggering!  I was very thankful for thick walls and windows!!!  No joke!

After we were done at the Gardens, we headed back to the RV park.  We threw together taco salad and my Aunt Connie stopped by to visit while we ate dinner.  It was so fun to see her for a little bit while we were there.  Then we headed to Gospel Meeting in a nearby town.  More special faces and memorable places on the trip... a highlight for sure!

After Gospel Meeting we hit the grocery store to stock up and then headed back the long way around so we could see the faces of Mount Rushmore lit up one last time!  It was another day to remember!