Day 25 - Olathe, KS to Fayetteville, AR

The last day of our trip we headed to the Kansas City Zoo before trekking back to Arkansas. Overall we were slightly disappointed with the experience, but it definitely had it's high points, not the least of which was this section of the zoo where the kangaroos were not fenced in and viewers could pass freely along the path right next to them.

The elephants were pretty cool, but the best part was the show that the trainers had them put on. The trainers spent a good 10-15 minutes talking the elephants through some tricks and telling the viewers about elephants in general.

Also very cool were the cheetahs that seemed to look right at us as we passed by them.

It was a bitter sweet feeling coming back into Arkansas. We had a great time on our trip, but we were definitely ready to be back home in small-town Arkansas.

Once we got back into the Natural State, we headed down to see Katy's sister before leaving the next morning for a wedding. Overall I don't think the trip could have possibly been any better than it was. There were a few forgettable moments, but I know we wouldn't trade the experiences for anything.

Day 24 - Sioux Falls, SD to Olathe, KS

And the winner of best "Welcome to Our State" sign is........Minnesota! We were only in Minnesota for a few miles, but they had this grandiose sign at the first rest area we saw and we just had to get a picture with it. The thing was, we had to trek through some longish grass and shrubs to get right up to it and we wound up with our worst mosquito bites of the entire trip.

This was pretty much all we saw while in Iowa...yeah...so...that's all we've got to say about Iowa.

We were driving through Omaha at the time the College World Series was going on. I really wanted to drive by Rosenblatt Stadium, not only because we were there during the Series, but also because it was the last College World Series to be played at this famous venue. There were about 17,487,389 people around the stadium...and there was construction...and the zoo was next door, so traffic was slightly hectic to say the least.

The first time it felt like we were getting close to home was when we passed into Missouri.

Day 23 - Wall, SD to Sioux Falls, SD

Day 23 started out with a trip to the famous Wall Drug to look around at the miles and miles of shelving and advertisement they had. It was literally like a shopping mall built out of two-by-fours. There were stores in every category on the complex from kids sections to jewelry to restaurants and designer clothing.

After leaving Wall, we headed across the vast prairie that is South Dakota and made it to De Smet, SD, otherwise known as "The Little Town on the Prairie" from the Laura Ingalls Wilder book series. Katy and I are both fans of the books and decided we had to check it out.

From De Smet, we headed out of town to the Ingalls homestead itself, where we were able to go through a self-guided tour throughout the area using the number system seen here. There was an area that showed a mock sod house and a wood shanty, a rope making station, and an old fashioned well and pump.

In the barn, the keepers of the homestead had a barn cat and some kittens that Katy and I played with for a little while. Not seen here is a solid dark grey kitten that was a rebel and climbed all over the hay bales while the other kittens fed.

The last stop on the tour was a model school house from the 1880s complete with desks and other items from the time period. All the tour participants were able to go in the school and get a "lesson" from the time period and make an "autograph book" as seen in the book series.

Day 22 - Buffalo, WY to Wall, SD

It's been a while since the end of our honeymoon trip (a long while), and we still have't put up pictures from the last 4 days of our trip. Well today is the day! We wanted to update our blog because we are heading on a Spring Break trip to Mammoth Cave, KY next week.

In the morning we headed for South Dakota. The weather was absolutely beautiful by the time we made it to the SD line.

We wanted to stop at the Jewel Cave National Monument, but we did not have the time and we were already going to the Wind Cave later that day.

About 1:30 we arrived at Wind Cave National Park and headed out on the Fairgrounds tour, which was about an hour and a half long.

Wind Cave does not look like the vast majority of other caves in that it has very few large caverns, and mostly small passageways and small rooms. The major feature of the cave was the "boxwork" in the ceilings. You can read more about it here.

We had the America the Beautiful Pass for this trip and therefore we got into all the National Parks for our one time fee. Mount Rushmore tried to get around this by having a $10 "parking fee," so we drove down the road, pulled off and took our pictures without ever having to enter the park.

We saw the beginnings of the Crazy Horse Monument, which will be gigantic when it is done.

Here is the first Wall Drug sign we saw...it was about 40 miles outside of town and there were around 2 per mile until we got into town.