6/30/17 Friday Custer State Park

While it didn’t rain yesterday (for the first time), it did rain a bit during the night, but that was okay as we were snug in our tents.  The girls decided to go to the Badlands today so we headed out and got to a small ranger station first where we picked up a map and the girls picked up their Junior Ranger booklets.  After talking to the ranger, we decided to take the non-paved washboard road up on the ridge.  It was a good choice as we saw mountain goats, more buffalo,  tons of prairie dogs in many towns (some of them huge) and a female big horn sheep.  We stopped for pictures and let Ella and Zoe climb down onto one of the mesas.  They had a great time.  When we finally got to the paved road, we pulled off at a spot and went for a walk.  The girls got to climb again and that made their day.  We stopped for lunch at a cafe near the larger ranger station.  Zoe ordered a buffalo burger and enjoyed it.  Ella had a taste and declared it good also.  Ella order mac and cheese, but when it came, we thought she got the wrong order as it looked like chicken nuggets, but it was patties of mac and cheese with a coating and fried - very weird.  She said it was okay, but would rather have had regular mac and cheese.  We went next door to the ranger station and the girls earned another badge as well as got their passports stamped.  We headed back to camp and will eat dinner soon.  Tomorrow the girls have decided to go to Wind Cave.  We will have to straighten out the truck at some point tomorrow as we will be leaving here on Sunday and heading to visit with our friends Charlie and Barb in Wyoming.

6/29/17 Thursday Custer St. Park

As promised, the girls fed us delightful burgers with raw carrots.  After dinner, we started a fire and the girls walked to the playground just down the hill to play while I did the dishes and Dave tended the fire so the girls could have s'mores for dessert.  They invited a 13 year old boy from Texas to join us for s'mores and just as we were finishing, it started to rain again.  We cleaned up quickly and dashed to the restroom to brush our teeth and got into the tents to ride out the rain.  It didn't actually last all that long and I thought the girls would come over to our tent for story time, but apparently they were worn out with all of the activity today that they fell asleep.

It got cold in the night.  When Dave and I woke up, it was 49 degrees!  We went to take a shower and left the girls to sleep in.  They didn't get up until almost 7 so I told them how chilly it was and to put on long pants and a sweatshirt.  Zoe couldn't find her long pants so I looked through her duffle bag and didn't see them either.  We decided we would stop back in town after the wildlife loop, which is what they wanted to do first thing.  We saw a smaller herd of buffalo, but a larger group of burros.  We had a few apples left and someone had given the girls a bag of compressed hay pellets so the burros were very happy to see us.  The best part about seeing the buffalos today was that two of them were rolling in a dirt pile on their backs to get covered in dust so the flies would not bother them so much - it was a very funny sight!  We headed into town and picked up more wood for the campfire.  The youth group of the Lutheran Church just outside the park has firewood for a donation - very convenient and I'm sure they make quite a bit a money with all of the campers that come by.  We also stopped at a small all-purpose store and found a pair of pants for Zoe.  We then decided to go out to Jewel Cave, where the girls earned another Junior Ranger badge and got their National Parks Passport stamped.  Most of the longer tours were booked already so we opted for the discovery tour, which mainly explored a large chamber 275 feet underground.  The cave system is 189 miles long - third longest in the world.  We have just come back to camp and the girls are writing in their journals while I am blogging and Dave is working on carving a spoon.  The girls have been busy collecting license plates.  They now have 46 states, District of Columbia, and 4 provinces.  They are making pasta with meat sauce, salad, and rolls for dinner and if the evening showers will hold off, s'mores.

photos from 6/28/17

Forgot to mention that in the wind and rain last night, one of the tents near us blew across the road and ended up against some trees - I guess they forgot to stake it down!  Also when we stopped at the ranger station, we were chatting about the storm with the ranger and he said a ranger that lives east of here had hail stones the size of baseballs hit in his area - I'm glad it wasn't here!!!  The photos today are of the eye of the needle, a mule deer, a buffalo, a mom and baby, prairie dogs, the girls feeding the burros, a baby burro, feeding a chipmunk, the girls at Mount Rushmore, and being sworn in as Junior Rangers.

6/28/17 Wednesday Custer State Park

Not surprisingly, we woke up early this morning.  The temperature this morning was 54 so the sleeping bag sure did feel nice.  While I was in the shower, Dave started the water for hot chocolate.  We had banana bread (brought from home) for breakfast, washed dishes and then went for a ride on the Wildlife Loop in the park.  It was a very successful hunt for new animals,  we saw buffalo (a herd of about 200) including little cute babies, white tail deer, mule deer, pronghorns, red tail chipmunk, red squirrels, a turtle, burros with a couple of soft babies, prairie dogs, a turkey.  We stopped when we got to the herd of buffalo and now the girls know what they sound like ("a low extended growl") and smell like ("poo").  We also stopped when we saw the burros.  We fed them apples that we had picked up at the store.  We patted the babies - they were very cute!  We stopped at the ranger station and the girls were enthralled with the stuffed porcupine.  When we finished the loop, we went up to The Needles - beautiful views and the girls got a chance to scramble up the rocks.  We saw the red tail chipmunks here and the girls fed them right out of their hands (we had some nuts with us).  We came back to camp for lunch and then Dave went for a nap while the girls and I went to Mount Rushmore.  Zoe gave her report on the monument before we got there and we picked up our National Parks passport and a Junior Ranger workbook, which they completed while we walked around the park.  The ranger checked their completed books and swore them in as Junior Rangers and gave them a badge.  We came back to camp and the girls have just gotten out of the shower.  The girls are cooking burgers tonight and they promised they will be the best we have ever tasted.  Sorry about being late with yesterday's blog, but with all the rain, I just didn't feel like getting out the computer and besides it took me a while today to figure out how to get on the hotspot, but now we are in business!  Next I will try to down load some pictures, but I will put them in a separate blog post.

6/27/17 Custer State Park

Happy Birthday, Alex!  It is hard to believe that he is 17.  We got started after breakfast to drive across SD from Sioux City to just below Rapid City.  It was a beautiful day and the traffic was light.  We finished Brian's Winter and listened to some 60's music.  We stopped for lunch in Rapid City and had a nice conversation with a truck driver.  The girls were amazed as he walked in to order with a gallon sized reusable mug!  The girls finally got to see the difference between the East and the West - the land got drier and the trees became scarce.  They also spotted their first mesa.  We finally got into camp about 2 PM and set up our tents, etc.  We went into Custer to get gas and go grocery shopping, but when we came out of the grocery store, the sky was darkening and it surely looked as if it was going to rain.  We decided that we would stop at Subway for a take-out dinner so that if the storm hit, we would not have to cook in the rain.  As we were finishing up our order, the storm hit.  It was a wind driven rain and looked as if it were raining sideways!  The temperature dropped from 92 to 58!  We finally decided to dash to the truck and we got drenched!!!  We got back to camp and elected to sit in the truck to eat - we also kept it running so we could blast ourselves with the heater in an attempt to dry our clothes.  Eventually, the rain stopped and we were able to get out of the truck.  Our screened vestibule was wet so the rugs got wet - not a major deal, but the end of the girls' sleeping bags got damp, but not too badly.   We cleaned up a bit around camp, wrote in journals and read a chapter of Caddie Woodlawn and despite the fact that it was a bit early, we all climbed into bed.  We did lose another hour so our bodies have not adjusted yet.

6/26/17 Illinois to South Dakota

Happy Birthday to Nathaniel and Happy Anniversary to us - or as our friend, Pat would say:  Just Married + 52 years!  What a difference a day makes!  We had absolutely no traffic today.  In fact, several times during the trip, I could see no cars either in front or in back of us and that is saying something when you are driving through flat prairie lands and can see for a great distance!  BTW, we found out what the traffic mess was in Chicago.  At breakfast, we heard that there was a huge PRIDE parade in downtown with over a million people lining the parade route to watch.  Obviously, we came through as they were all trying to get home from whence they came.  Just our luck!  The kids were again excited to have three meals in three different states:  breakfast in Illinois, lunch in Minnesota, and we will go for dinner in a bit here in South Dakota.  We had a lovely lunch at Del's Cafe - a small town place with great food.  Ella ordered ribs and her eyes got huge when she saw the portion - two racks!  She was able to finish one rack with help from Grandpa, but sadly could eat no more even though she declared them very yummy.  Zoe took a taste and they decided that next time, they would order one meal and share it.  The girl's had another great day in the car:  started to listen to Brian's Winter, watched a movie called Jem about a small town girl who made it big with her singing on the Internet, played the alphabet game and looked at license plates.  They now have 33 states and 3 provinces.  We drove by several huge wind farms today - they seem like such a sensible solution to green energy.  The girls were very excited when we drove through the Wisconsin Dells as we passed many water parks and of course, the girls wanted to stop, but the outside temperature at the time was a chilly 59 degrees.  The girls are swimming in the pool now while Dave is lifeguarding and I am doing the laundry - not that it needs to be done yet, but it will save us a trip to the laundromat while we are camping.  BTW, the favorite license plate of the day was SAMWICH.

6/25/17 New York to Illinois

What a long, long day!  We had a fairly uneventful drive in the morning, but when we hit Indiana after lunch, we hit mile after mile of narrowed highway due to construction - not that they were working on a Sunday, but the Jersey barriers were up.  We were running low on gas and the next service area was closed.  We drove on and when we were extremely low, we finally spotted an exit.  Even though the signs did not indicate that there was gas at this exit, we got off anyway.  Our thinking was that if we had to call AAA for gas, I would rather wait on a country road than on the side of the highway in the middle of gridlock.  We got off and turned toward the nearest town which fortunately was only 4 miles away.  We made it to the gas station and when we filled up, we noticed that we took 20.5 gallons - the truck has a 21 gallon tank!  Yikes!  That was way closer than we have come since we were in college and we were dirt poor.  We took a different route from the gas station and wound up skirting around I-90, but we still ran into construction and traffic.  What a mess!  Then the biggie!!!  Chicago, on a Sunday no less, was bumper to bumper!  We wended our way across the city, past the White Sox stadium and Sears tower, and slowly and painfully came out on the other side.  Dave has sworn that he will NEVER drive through Chicago again.  When we came through in 1985 with our kids, it was 2 in the morning and we were the only car on the road loaded with trucks.  We are in Elgin for the night and hopefully tomorrow we will be going in the opposite direction of the majority of the traffic!  We opted to walk to a restaurant about a half mile from the hotel - it felt good to stretch our legs.  The girls were great - many alphabet games, finished Hatchet, and another movie: Ella Enchanted, along with checking out license plates.  The most exciting thing for them seemed to be that we had breakfast in NY, lunch in OH, and dinner in IL!  Unfortunately, we got in too late for them to go to the pool, but hopefully tomorrow we will get to our destination earlier.  The girls have just finished writing in their journals and it is time for me to read another chapter of Caddie Woodlawn, so I will stop here.

6/24/17 Mystic to Belmont to West Seneca

We packed up our few remaining items, took out the garbage and got on the road at 6:25 AM.  Zoe was  not super happy to be woken up at 5:45 so she snoozed at bit in the car on the way up to Belmont, MA to pick up Ella.  We greeted everyone, including the dogs, and got a quick lesson from Nick on the new (to us) smart phone that they arranged for us.  (Thank you Laura and Nick!). I'm sure that if I forgot anything, Ella can give me a tutorial - kids are so tech savvy today!  We hopped on I-90 and headed west.  We listened to some of our first book on CD - Hachet - a story of a 13 year old boy who is lost in the Canadian wilderness.  We then played the alphabet game and Zoe won.  We stopped in New York for lunch and the girls watched a movie - Strange Magic, which Ella declared a little too dramatic.  They are allowed to watch one movie a day on the way out and back to the West, but other than that, there are no electronics allowed on the trip with the computer being the exception so I can blog.  As we passed the exit for Keuka Lake, we all waved and blew kisses to our friend Pat.  We did the same at the Rochester exit in case she is visiting with her son Matt.  We drove west to Buffalo - the girls wanted to detour to Niagara Falls, but that will have to be another trip - and then turned south.  Just as we got to the airport exit, the phone we had been using as our GPS died.  Apparently, the connection to the car had come loose and we hadn't noticed.  We had drained the power down without realizing it and horrors, we didn't know which exit to take for our hotel for the night.  I pulled to the side of the road and programmed the address into the old GPS and we were on our way again.  Although we are going to be camping once we get out west, it is a royal pain to set up and take down the gear for just one night, hence the hotels until we get to South Dakota.   The phone is now charging in the room while I am watching the girls in the pool.  We had no use for the barf bucket today which with these two girls is a miracle so I would call our first day a rousing success!  Having some trouble getting pix up so will publish this and try to add photos later.

The girls had a great time in the pool and hot tub and since there are no restaurants within walking distance we decided to order in for the evening.  The girls have written in their journals and I read the first chapter of Caddie Woodlawn - our book for the trip.  We will head to Chicago tomorrow morning.