Today we divided and conquered. For James and Jimi, it was fly fishing. We had to drop them off about an hour away from our hotel to meet their guide. They had so much fun and seemed to enjoy it. It sure was a cold morning for it too but they didn’t seem to mind.
I took the younger three to go to one of the gold mines. They were so excited from the beginning, they could not stop smiling. Along the way they got to collect rocks that were laying down in the mine, which all three love to do. More times than I can count they will come home with pockets full of rocks that I unknowingly put in the washing machine. It is amazing it still works!
Benny asked so many questions. I think if they had another group behind us they would have passed us. We had the tour to ourselves and the tour guide was amazing. He took his time to explain everything Benny wanted to know.
After the tour, we panned for gold and found a ton of flakes. We have done something similar before back in North Carolina at Reed’s Gold Mine, and maybe 1 of us found a flake of gold. This time, each of us had at least 10 flakes in our little bottles. What’s the spot price of gold these days?
We still had some time until we were going to meet up with James and Jimi so we took our time leaving. While in the parking lot Joey found a potato bug that became his new pet. I would not let him keep it so we compromised on letting him go on top of the van. While we were in the van trying to find things to do close by, we looked out the front window and saw Joey’s new pet crawling down onto the hood of the car.
After dealing with the cute little potato bug, we decided to drive around the downtown area of Deadwood to find an ice cream shop. We found one, pulled in, but it was closed! So we walked around for a bit where the kids found this little bench and thought it was perfect sized for Joey!
After a long tiring morning, we decided to go back to the hotel to rest. I had to drop something off at the front desk and Benny came with me. When we were at the front desk Benny asked very politely if they had a pool there. They answered no, but attached was a water park you can buy wristbands for to get into. We walked out side to get some thing from the car when a lady that worked there ran outside to catch us. She asked Benny if he really wanted to go the water park, and handed him a wristband. I was very touched by her kindness to Benny but with 3 others it would be hard to manage just bringing him, so I said thank you but he is 1 of 4. To my surprise, she gave us 3 more wristbands!! Benny was so excited to go tell his siblings about his amazing luck. Of course he did try to trick them before telling them they got to go too.
I wish I brought my phone with me to take pictures with, but I left it in the room. The kids left there saying it was their favorite part of the trip so far, which made Benny proud.