Wall Drug, Badlands, Corn Palace and the longest drive ever. DAY FOUR

This is it, folks. The LAST post about our trip to South Dakota. I know you are probably as exhausted as we were from this trip. But truly, you have to make these trips count and that means seeing and doing as much as you possibly can and that is exactly what we did.

So early Saturday morning, we all packed up our stuff and said goodbye to cabin KK3 from the Crazy Horse Custer Camground.

And hit the road. We decided last minute to cancel our hotel that we had planned in Mitchell and we decided to be total road warriors and not only fill our day being total tourists, but to drive all of the way home as well.

So we got going and our first stop was Wall Drug. Olivia was absolutely determined to see what Wall Drug was because she was getting annoyed at all of the signs. So we stopped.

Jackson saw the sign for the six foot jack rabbit and he honest to god thought it was a real rabbit. A bit disappointed that it was not real, but got excited when he realized you could sit on it. Until he realized that said jackrabbit was really hot from the sun so he promptly burned the inside of his thighs and quickly declared that it was the dumbest jackrabbit ever.

Matt found a new lady friend and managed to get himself his free Wall Drug bumper sticker. I got a box of six donuts which I ate in the car and regret not one moment of my gluttony, those donuts are fucking delicious. The kids each got their promised cowboy hat and Jackson got a cork gun (which is really annoying to hear in the car) and Olivia got a beaded coin purse. All was right in the world and we got back in the car again.

This time our destination was the Badlands Scenic Byway. Which we did backwards apparently but it was the same distance as going the highway so we didn't lose any time, but saw really amazing scenery.

Jackson, declaring that it's my fault he left his binoculars at home, made a show of using his pretend ones.

And the Badlands was actually pretty damn cool. I'm a bit of a geology nerd and I wish I could have stared a little longer, and certainly had more time to climb around on the rocks.

Olivia thought it was pretty neat and Jackson wanted to know if you would die if you fell off. I said yes because that's what he really wanted to hear.

You can't tell by this, but Jackson's face is sheer terror. He was convinced Matt would drop him and he'd fall and then die because I had just got done telling him that yes, you would die if you fell off the cliff.

 And you have to squint and look on the top of the car, but you can see they are using a wire hanger as an antennae. When you're sleep deprived and dehydrated because you can't remember to get a damn water out of the cooler, which is buried under stuff, that kind of thing is hilarious and highly amusing on the highway.

Our next stop was the Corn Palace. Now, I had googled extensively to find out what exactly is in the damn Corn Palace. Why is this a thing? Everyone told me it was stupid and not worth the stop but I had this fear if I didn't stop and we were literally right there, everyone would then say I should have stopped.

So we stopped.

And it was really fucking stupid. Seriously. Don't stop at the Corn Palace. In fact, this is literally the only thing going for Mitchell, South Dakota and it's dumb. We weren't even the only ones to say that. While in line for the bathroom, everyone was like, "This is the stupidest thing ever. What a waste of gas." And really, it kind of was.

I mean, they make murals out of corn. You can pretty much just google that and have the full Corn Palace experience. There are like, crafts inside of what looks like an arena, but that's it. Nothing else. They have their on site made caramel corn balls which was actually super gross. But the prepackaged caramel corn cobs were pretty good. The kids thought it was really dumb as well.

So then we got back in the car and hauled ass. We ended up stopping around 7 at night for gas and dinner in Worthington, MN. We ate at a Pizza Ranch and it was maybe one of the worst restaurant experiences I've ever had. I thought it was strange we were the only white, English speaking people in the middle of farm country, Minnesota. Jackson though the surprise was that I took them to Mexico. And yes, he blurted that right out and it was mortifying. It ended up being a weird chicken and pizza buffet, which is kind of a random combination, but they had literally no food. For $31 we got: one slice of ham pizza, a biscuit, a weird piece of chicken, some wilted lettuce and a whole bunch of croutons. We waited 45 minutes and I was getting so tired I told Matt let's just go because we have to get back on the road. It was 8:00 p.m. by the time we got back on the road and we still had six hours of driving left to do.

Needless to say, we rolled into our driveway at 2 in the morning, Sunday. I honestly don't know how either of us stayed awake because it was tough. I know for a good two hours we sang every Aerosmith song I could get on my phone via the cloud or whatever. When we finally got home the kids had been sleeping for hours so they are stumbling into the house like tiny drunk humans. Jackson was basically sleep walking and trying to take his underwear off. I'm still not sure what that was about. But we got them into bed and left everything in the car. We both crashed in the clothes we were wearing.

And of course do you think the kids would sleep past 7am?

No.

No they did not.

Overall? Epic vacation. It was so great that there has already been discussions of next year's road trip and Matt is trying to convince me that financing a camper is a good idea.

We'll see about that.

Winding Roads, Wildlife, Dinosaurs and Stories- DAY THREE

See? I'm back! More adventures were to be had on day three. Probably our most ambitious day as far as being a tourist in South Dakota, for sure.

This was going to be the day we did the Buffalo Jeep Safari tour and the Cowboy Dinner. Other than that, we had kind of planned on seeing whatever we could fit in until 3:30, which is when we had to be at the State Game Lodge. So on the recommendations of basically everyone, we set out to do all three of the scenic byways.

First up was Needles Highway. I'll be honest, I let Matt drive because we were told right at the entrance of Custer State Park that it's kind of difficult if you've never driven switchbacks. I hadn't so I let Matt take over because he's drive out in Nevada and the mountainous terrain there, so I figured we'd be good. And thank god because later on I was so grateful to not be driving.

There were quite a few tunnels on this byway and another one we did later on, which were kind of terrifying but cool. This one was the least scary.

But what we didn't expect were a TON of areas to pull over and explore. So we did some climbing on rocks and just taking in the gorgeous landscape.

I even climbed up on a rock. AND got down without assistance and without falling. WIN.

 Can you spot Matt in this picture?

 The kids thought climbing rocks was easily the coolest thing in the whole world.

Lots of this kind of stuff.

So after driving for awhile, we decided to stop and have lunch. Which, this place was kind of cool but terrible service. And kind of terrible food. I'm SURE I asked for a beef hamburger and I'm SURE I got buffalo. I didn't take more than three bites and called it good. For as much  money as you spend, it's not a lot of food and what you do get isn't that great. Then I found out this is the place that prepares the meal for the cowboy dinner we were scheduled to go on.

 So while the kids were pretending to be weird statues, Matt was calling to cancel our cowboy dinner reservation. Initially, Jackson was upset until I promised I'd buy him a cowboy hat (because we were supposed to get on on the dinner ride) and then he was fine. But we still wanted to see buffalo, I knew we couldn't leave without seeing them, so we switched our Jeep Safari tour to 1:00. That gave us an hour to get there and the woman on the phone assured us we were 30 minutes away. Easy. So we got in the car and hauled ass figuring getting there early meant everyone could pee before we embark on our tour.

The fastest way to get there was to continue on the byways but this time we got onto the Wildlife Loop. Which isn't nearly as hilly but equally beautiful.

I wanted to put this guy in the back. Matt said absolutely not. See? This little guy even looks sad about it.

So we're trucking right along and bam- road block. I'm talking maybe 30-40 cars in the road and we see a visitor center building and black dots on the road. As we approach, Jackson just about lost his shit in the backseat.

I wish I had thought to take video of him, but he was screaming, "MOM!!! We have to stop! They are all over!" And sure enough,

buffalo were everywhere. Honestly, there had to have been hundreds. Some were as big as I thought and a few were as big as my Ford Escape, I kid you not.

I did take video of the noises they made (not included here, sorry), but I should have recorded Jackson telling us they knew he was here and they were talking to him.  Honestly, he's such an odd little kid but I absolutely love it. He really WAS thrilled. This was probably the best day ever for him.

Couple of things. 1. Buffalo are huge. I felt really scared for the three people on motorcycles in front of us because the one that was as big as my car came up to them a few times. I would have peed my pants. 2. There was a Range Rover with Florida plates who drove in the grass to get around buffalo and some of our cars to take a picture of the largest one. I really wanted to ram into them because a woman was practically hanging out the sunroof taking pictures. 3. Then a guy got out of his car, walked along side us and tried to pet a baby buffalo, like an idiot. That got a little dicey and we all rolled our windows up because as Matt said, if shit was going to go down, he's not getting in our car.

But we sat for quite awhile watching them. Mostly because they were blocking the road. Coincidentally, we missed the buffalo tour and we saw them drive by us. SO, we saved our money and saw the exact same buffalo.

And this guy tried REALLY hard to get into my window. No thanks. If you were a goat, most definitely.

After our exciting times on the Wildlife Loop, the buffalo started moving and we continued on our way. Now that we weren't doing the dinner or the safari tour, the rest of our day was wide open. So we decided to continue to the third byway, Iron Mountain Road. Which, I'm going to tell you right now, if you are prone to car sickness? Avoid it. I am not prone to that and I got car sick.

But it was so worth it because it had maybe the best views ever.The tunnels were far scarier. There are signs telling you to honk as you go because oncoming cars cannot see you and they are only one lane roads. One of the last tunnels had no signage, but there was a woman taking pictures and she was screaming at us to  honk because nobody can see you. Not only is it really long, but there was a bit of an incline and that alone says "head on collision" all over it. Thankfully, we never met any cars in them, but that one was particularly terrible because right as you get out of the tunnel, it's almost an immediate U-turn to the left otherwise down the mountain you go. But at the end, I could tell Matt's nerves were shot. It's a really difficult road to drive. The little town you come out in, I think it was Keystone, had stores along a boardwalk, so we stopped. We each got a shirt that had the Iron Mountain Road logo and on the back it says:

-17 miles
-314 curves
-14 switchbacks
-3 pigtails
-3 tunnels
-4 Presidents
-2 splits

It says 4 Presidents because out a couple of the tunnels, you get an amazing view of Mount Rushmore. Totally worth the ride despite the fact I thought I was going to lose my lunch.

After that, we decided we still had time to kill, so we went north to Rapid City.

And went to Dinosaur Park. Which, not going to lie, was kind of stupid. So we only stayed for a few minutes. Then, we went to Storybook Island.

Which turned out to be really great. THIS is the kind of park every city should have. It was free, really clean and well maintained, and the friendliest people working there.

All of the play areas are straight out of children's books so the kids had a fun time going through all of them.

After killing an hour there, we let the kids pick where to go for dinner. Sadly, Jackson found a Chuck E. Cheese. Admittedly, neither Matt nor I had ever been, so we agreed. $55 later, and those kids had enough pizza and game tokens to make them squeal with glee. Maybe the best part about this is that I schooled my family on Skee Ball and nobody got near my 31,000 score. Best ever? No. But it was far better than anything any of them were doing! HA! After that, we decided enough was enough for one day and headed back to our camping cabin. Finished off the last of the smore's ingredients and got ready for bed.

We made a last minute decision to cancel our hotel for the next night in Mitchell and instead, we'd do several things on the way home but just drive straight through. I'll let you imagine how that went. I'll post about that tomorrow.

BUT, you'll be happy to know that on night two in a camping cabin, I did not pee my pants. No sir. This big girl made her husband walk with her to the bathroom, with a flashlight, around 3 a.m. He sees better in the dark than I do apparently.

Caves, Crazy Horse and Cabin- DAY TWO

I was probably the most excited about day two, myself. We had lots on our agenda for our trip but it came down to fitting things in when we could.

 So this was the day we were going to go to the Rushmore Cave. I was most excited about this because, fun fact, I was a bit of a geology geek in high school. Totally loved it. I've gotten rusty and I always wish I could just take classes for fun. Oh well, someday.

The cave turned out to be super cool. It's all limestone so you can't touch any of it otherwise it turns black and dies. I mean, who wants to kill it? So the kids were really good about following the rules.

Jackson was most impressed when our guide, Brady B., told us how far under ground we were. He thought that he was a real explorer.

Some of the areas were very narrow and steep. If you are at all claustrophobic, probably not the best thing for you. But we managed to get through the entire tour without incident.  

We had a pretty great time in there. Afterwards, we bought the kids a bag of dirt with rocks/gems in it that they could "mine". That lasted maybe a full two minutes, but they thought it was pretty cool.

After that, we got in the car and headed towards the Crazy Horse Memorial.

Which was pretty stinking massive. It's not completed and honestly, at the rate they're going, it won't be finished in my lifetime. Probably not even my kids' lifetimes. While I appreciate the whole "not letting the government help out" thing given it's a memorial for the Native Americans who basically had everything taken from them because of the government, it's hard to appreciate this for what it will be when it's not even half done. But it is huge. Mouth Rushmore is smaller than Crazy Horse's head.

Matt helping Jackson get a better view.

This is the mold they are using for a guide. So, it'll be pretty impressive. Someday.

Surprise- Jackson found another buffalo to take his picture next to!

After Crazy Horse, we were all kind of exhausted. We had spent most of our day in the car going back and forth between places so we decided it was about time to check out these camping cabins.

 Honestly, they weren't awful. They were pretty small. The beds were hard as hell even with the thing they are calling a mattress. Which was really a glorified nap pad for kindergartners. There were towels on the windows and they called those curtains. The bathroom was just under a 1/4 of a mile up the trail. So, it was doable.

You can tell by Olivia's face she was not impressed when we informed her that her and Jackson had to share a bed. Granted, there were more than enough beds but I had only brought one fitted sheet for our bed and one for theirs. I didn't have room to pack more than that so they had to share. Overall, that worked out pretty well.

So we did our hot dogs and beans on the grill.  We made ourselves a little picnic.

 And we obviously did smores.

We took the kids and showered up. Not as terrible as I expected. I mean, it could really have been far worse.

 We got ready for bed..

 ...even me.

And we went to sleep.

Well, the kids did. Matt and I lay there sweating our fucking asses off. Because at that point, it was about 92 degrees in the cabin. We had the windows open, no breeze. We were literally baking in there. Around 2 a.m. though, Matt had drifted off and I had to pee. I had to really pee.

I debated on holding it. Quickly dismissed that when I sat up and realized my bladder is as full as it gets. I had to take action. I was able to find my sandals, but not the flashlight. A quick check out the door and I figured, it's not that dark. I'll be fine. I'll just pay attention and hustle.

So I set off.

I only make it half way there when all of a sudden, I go down.

I go down hard.

I know I made a "umph"  noise. I honestly thought I broke my ankle. I wasn't sure what I had done. Was it an animal? Was I going to be mauled in a weird "campground" on the god damn highway?

No.

It turns out to just be a hole. A dangerous hole that has ruined everything.

Because you see, by this point, all hope was lost. I started laughing. Which means in that exact moment, I started peeing.

Oh yes.

This girl, age 32, peed her god damn pants while sitting in a hole, laughing, in the middle of night, in a weird campground on the god damn highway.

And I really peed. I peed enough that I honestly considered just stripping down right there and running back. But then I saw some guy pissing out of his camper, and while I realized how genius that was and wondered why didn't I just do that, I decided to not streak through the campground.

Instead, I waddled back trying to not drip on my sandals.

I got back to the cabin and changed into new underwear. Decided that maybe not having pajama bottoms was a good thing because it was so hot in there, and went to bed.

Rather, I lay in the dark and ridiculously hot room for another few hours until others woke up.

Needless to say, my first night in a camping cabin was kind of eventful. Even more so when in the morning, on our way to the showers/bathroom, we all noticed my giant puddle of urine. Matt asked if anyone saw my face or which cabin I went into.

Asshole.