Fun, Inexpensive Family Vacations

[ashtonwa]

Originally Posted by digitalworld

Do you happen to remember the name of the cabins or at least the city you stayed in? How many days do you need for SD? I've looked into it a bit, but I'm really not sure.

I just remembered! Rafter J Bar Ranch. It was a beautiful place! We were there for 6 days. Three in my family had rvs and the rest stayed down in the cabins there. It has a store, large pool, huge grassy areas to play baseball, soccer, whatever, trails for bikes, playgrounds. We went up to rapid city one day and some of the family went to bear country, we went to the reptile world there. They have this free place that has all of the nursery rhymes represented with things the kids can climb on, swing, play on. SO FUN! We went to custer state park and the kids fed the wild donkeys (they would stick their entire head in your car!), got surrounded by bison, saw elk, etc. The road in that park is incredible (the needles part is Wow!--so skinny only one car at a time can fit so you take turns with one car coming from one way, the next from the other). There are caves to tour, crazy horse, we saw rushmore twice because they have a nighttime show where they light them up. Really neat. And the pass you buy for there is good for a week or something. BTW, if you want souveniers there, the best place is the store at Rushmore. The ones on the streets just don't have the selection and we kicked ourselves that we didn't get some there. Anyway, a really fun trip and the weather was gorgeous (80-83 the whole time).

[digitalworld]

Originally Posted by ashtonwa

I just remembered! Rafter J Bar Ranch. It was a beautiful place! We were there for 6 days. Three in my family had rvs and the rest stayed down in the cabins there. It has a store, large pool, huge grassy areas to play baseball, soccer, whatever, trails for bikes, playgrounds. We went up to rapid city one day and some of the family went to bear country, we went to the reptile world there. They have this free place that has all of the nursery rhymes represented with things the kids can climb on, swing, play on. SO FUN! We went to custer state park and the kids fed the wild donkeys (they would stick their entire head in your car!), got surrounded by bison, saw elk, etc. The road in that park is incredible (the needles part is Wow!--so skinny only one car at a time can fit so you take turns with one car coming from one way, the next from the other). There are caves to tour, crazy horse, we saw rushmore twice because they have a nighttime show where they light them up. Really neat. And the pass you buy for there is good for a week or something. BTW, if you want souveniers there, the best place is the store at Rushmore. The ones on the streets just don't have the selection and we kicked ourselves that we didn't get some there. Anyway, a really fun trip and the weather was gorgeous (80-83 the whole time).

thanks! Mt. Rushmore is one trip my father took us on when I was a child. I remember going to the Story Book Island park too. I think it's the only thing I remember, LOL. I really can't remember what else we did, and he didn't really remember either when I asked him about it.