The end of vacation...back to the real world!

We are back home, as I'm sure most of you are already aware. We arrived in Rhinelander around 2:30 Sunday afternoon and spent the next few hours unloading the camper! It was kind of a pain, but much better to load it once before you leave and unload it once when you get home than to unload everything every night at a hotel!

As always, the end of a great vacation is kind of sad, but it's nice to be home. This year we have a week and a half between the end of vacation and the time school starts, which is great! The past two years we've arrived home from vacation the day before school starts, which is terrible! The best thing is that we finished all of our back to school shopping before vacation, so this week has been a nice relaxing one.

Kindra started volleyball practice on Monday. We had been told she would miss an entire week of practice while we were on vacation, but it turns out she only missed one day, which made her feel a lot better! She has had practice for two hours each day this week, but they don't have any more practice until next Tuesday. Then they will have practice for two hours after school each day, except for game days. Starting September 11th they will have games most Tuesday and Thursday afternoons through the middle of October. Living in a place like Rhinelander, where the towns are pretty far apart, some of the games are at schools two hours from here!

OK, back to vacation. To be quite honest with you, we were all exhausted the last few days of vacation and ended up skipping all of our planned activities in Bemidji, MN and Hayward, WI. We did stop at the park and take pictures of Paul Bunyan and Babe, but we didn't make the 30 mile drive to the Headwaters of the Mississippi River. The KOA in Bemidji was great though....we had Lumberjack Stew for dinner and it only cost $1/person!

However, the KOA in Hayward, WI was the best one we'd ever seen! This place was just unbelievable for kids. I tried to take pictures to show you how many people (kids) were at this place, but I don't know if you can really tell. It was just so busy, I'd never seen so many people doing so many different things at any other campground! It might drive some people crazy, but we thought it was great. There were kids playing basketball, kids swimming, kids playing volleyball, lots of kids riding bikes (and you could rent bikes), there was a huge water slide, a game room, and awesome playground...it goes on and on. They had a great pancake breakfast in the morning, they had kids activities throughout the day, like dressing up like a pirate, and wagon rides on a big wagon pulled by a tractor. Saturday night they had a dance from 7-10PM with a DJ, and at 830 they had a nighttime scavenger hunt for all kids. They had treasure scattered all over the mini golf course, and divided the kids by age. They let the little ones in first (age 1-5) and they had about 10 minutes to find all the treasure they could. Then they let the older kids come in...until they had found everything. This was all done in complete darkness with just flashlights, it was so much fun!! There must have been over 100 kids there...and of course a lot of parents too.

One more cool thing about the Hayward KOA is that you can go tubing on the river, it's a calm 2 hour ride down the river. They rent you the tubes, take you to the entry point in the river, and pick you up 2 hours later downstream! Sounds like something really fun to do when the kids are just a little bit older! I'm already envisioning a trip back to the Hayward KOA, and probably the Bemidji one too, next summer when Chris comes up (with Dad's awesome new camper!)!

So on Sunday we had planned to visit the giant muskie at the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame. We drove by, waved at the muskie and came home!! We are planning a long weekend, or maybe even a week next spring to visit the things we missed the last couple of days. After our busy vacation, we needed a couple of days to rest before we got home!

School starts Tuesday, and EVERYTHING else starts that next two weeks. I'll spare you all the details, it's too late to exhaust myself like that, haha. It'll be nice to get back into a routine though, and Noah is very excited to get back to school. The girls are excited to get back and see their friends. Noah just loves school! Amaya is excited to start dance class...she found the bag with her dance leotards and wore them all day and all night the past two days. Fortunately, she eventually spilled something on both of them and had to put them in the wash!!

I'm off to bed....more later!

Rebecca

Vacation Days 12, 13, 14

Ok, I've been trying to update the journal for two hours now, and I give up!! This internet connection and I seem to disagree on everything, so I am going to just leave it at this:

Wednesday we drove to Fargo and spent the evening at the campsite. We had planned to stop at a buffalo museum on the way from Bismarck to Fargo, but our hectic vacation was catching up with all of us and we just wanted to relax! Anna met a friend from California who was camping right next to us, and they exchanged addresses and email before they left. That's one of the best things about camping, all of the great people you meet from all over the country.

Thursday we toured Fargo....first an aviation museum, then Bonanzaville...which is basically a recreated village from the later 1800s. All of the buildings are actually from that time period, and were moved to Bonanzaville over the years. As you can tell, I loved touring the old houses! Then we went to Famous Dave's for dinner, again! Fargo is a great town, and we could have spent a lot more time there. I wish I would have had more energy to see more of the town, we'll have to head back there sometime.

http://www.bonanzaville.org/main.php

Today we spent the morning at an RV service center in Fargo, having a problem with our water looked at. Basically, our toilet was running nonstop, even if we disconnected the outside water line and turned off the water pump. A leaky valve was allowing water from our fresh water tank to leak into the toilet. If we didn't flush it every 30 minutes or so, it would overflow. As you can imagine, that was a problem when we went to bed! Last night I had to use the toilet brush to prop open the lever so it would drain instead of filling. What a pain! They weren't able to permanently repair the problem, but did create a temporary fix until we get back home. Looks like our camper will be spending some time in the shop having many problems repaired when we get home!

Tomorrow we head to Hayward, WI and the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame...a huge fish.

More later,

Rebecca

 

Vacation Days 9, 10, 11

I apologize for taking so long to update again, now I have to play catch up! Sunday was very busy until late, Monday we were on the road until late, and this morning I couldn't get the internet to work because we were too far from the office for the wireless to connect.

On Sunday we took our rental car and headed about an hour north of our KOA to check out Deadwood, SD. The cool thing about Deadwood is that the entire town is designated a National Historic Landmark. There are blocks and blocks of buildings that are from around 1880, which is amazing! Deadwood was home to many notorious people, such as Wild Bill Hickock. Our first stop was the Broken Boot Gold Mine, which was established in 1878, during one of America's last great gold rushes. It was a small place, but it was nice and cool inside and we all developed a new appreciation for what difficult and dangerous work mining was 100+ years ago!

Once we got there, we quickly realized Deadwood wasn't a place designed for kids. Ninety percent of the businesses in downtown had gambling inside, which was a little intimidating. Behind all of these gaming machines there would be restaurants, gift shops, etc. but there were all these signs up telling you all the rules if you brought children inside. Such as children must remain 4 feet from all gaming machines, they can't touch the gaming machines, they cannot hold any money that will be used in or has been won from gaming machines, etc. Well, when I take Noah and Amaya into any store, I can't guarantee I can keep them 4 feet from anything! Curiosity made me enter the Bullock Hotel (you know, it's supposedly haunted, unfortunately they didn't do the ghost tours on Sundays or Mondays), and the first thing Noah did was run up to one of the gaming machines (the whole lobby was full of them...didn't seem all that historical to me!) and start punching buttons! Anyway, we had a nice lunch there, enjoyed all of the historic buildings, and then headed three miles to the town of Lead (pronounced leed).

Lead is home to the Homestake Gold Mine, which was in operation for over 120 years! The most amazing thing about this mine is what they call the Open Cut. It's a HUGE "surface pit" from which they mined the gold. This cut is so big that they've actually had to move Main Street in Lead several times over the years. The last time they significantly enlarged the cut was back in the late 80s, and at that time they had to move around 80 houses in town!! The pit is 12,000 feet deep and about a mile across. Take a look at the pictures, see if you can find the "little" pink booth...I thought it was a trashcan, it was actually a shack big enough to hold 12 men! It was such an amazing place. We even took the trolley tour of Lead, which basically took us around the entire town (the town was created because of the mine, and it seems like everything in town was directly affected by the mine), and ended up at the mills and such that took the ore and broke it down into the gold.

Once we left Lead, we headed back to the campground for about an hour, just enough time to grab a quick bite to eat. Then we boarded the bus for the Crazy Horse lighting ceremony and laser show. For about 30 minutes before the show started, we were sitting outside watching Mother Nature put on a lights show of her own! I thought we'd be rained on before the show ever started, but all we got were a couple of sprinkles and then it all headed the other way. The show was nice, Amaya spent the whole time dancing to the music. It rained on us all the way back to the KOA, but had stopped by the time we got off the bus. We ran inside to grab some milk, and ended up running back to the camper when it started raining again!

Got back to the camper, realized our camper was having an electrical problem. So, got ready for bed using our flashlights! The next morning realized our hot water heater wasn't working either, so had to take showers in the bath house. Pavan was able to find a man who would come to our campground and take a look at the problem, since none of the RV repair places in the area could see us until later in the week. Basically, there is your chassis battery which runs the engine, and there are your house batteries, which run a lot of the stuff inside....such as all of your lights, the pilot on your hot water heater, controls on your fridge, etc. Well, for some reason our house batteries are charging just fine off of our chassis battery but won't charge when we are hooked up to AC power at the campsite. So, while we're driving the batteries are charging just fine. But after 2 days camped with the engine off, the house batteries go dead because they aren't charging from the land line like they should. Won't be a problem for the rest of our trip because we aren't staying anywhere for more than 2 days, but is something we'll have to get fixed once we get home.

OK...so we got a late start leaving on Monday because of the guy coming over to look at the RV. We had about 375 miles to get to Bismarck....375 miles of absolutely nothing!! We stopped at a WalMart in Spearfish, picked up some things, and then grabbed a couple of pizzas before we hit the road again. It was a beautiful drive, but empty. We saw a lot of antelope, some beautiful buttes that turned to huge rolling hills the closer we got to Bismarck. Drove through Sturgis and Belle Fourche, the geographical center of the USA. We didn't get to Bismarck until just before 10PM, so we ate the rest of the pizza and went to bed.

Woke up this morning to rain. They had said a few sprinkles in the morning and then sunny in the afternoon, so we just waited it out and washed 4 loads of laundry. (Had 5 loads to do, but they only had 4 washers, so did the last load tonight!) Pavan left at noon via taxi to pick up a rental car at the airport, a very nice mini van this time. We left around 2PM for Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park. What a great place! It is built on a site that was home to Mandan Indians back in the 1500s-1700s. They were eventually wiped out by smallpox, and the remaining Indians moved north to join with some ally tribes...safety in numbers. However, there were reconstructed earth lodges and a great museum about the Mandan people. There was a guided tour of the lodges by a Native woman who was so knowledgeable, it was fascinating.

A hundred years after the Mandan left the "On A Slant" village, there was a fort built on the site to help guard the railroad as it pushed westward. Named Fort Abraham Lincoln, at one point it had around 650 infantry and calvary men stationed there, including General Custer and the 7th Calvary...they left Fort Abraham Lincoln and followed the Missouri River (the fort is right on the river) into Montana for the Battle of Little Big Horn. Not many of them returned...

So, we got to tour the reconstructed home of George and Libbie Custer...a guided tour by a man dressed in period clothing. It was a lot of fun. The funny thing is that the fort was abandoned in 1891. After the railroad was completed, they just had no need for the fort. About that time, homesteaders were coming into that area...they came onto the fort and dismantled all of the barracks and homes and used that wood to build their houses!! So, a lot of the older homes in theMandan/Bismarck area are build with stolen government property!

We left Fort Abraham Lincoln at 5:15 and rushed to get to our next stop, the Historic Port of Bismarck, for our dinner cruise on the Lewis and Clark Riverboat. The cruise left at 6:15 but we were supposed to arrive 30 minutes early. Tuesday nights are Famous Dave's cruises, you get to eat BBQ during the hour and a half cruise up the Missouri River. It was such a beautiful day, and such a great cruise. Afterward we walked around Keelboat Park (where the port is located) and saw a reproduction keelboat like one Lewis and Clark used on their trip on the Missouri back to St.Louis. OH, FYI...it was about 30 miles north of Bismarck where Lewis and Clark met Sakakawea! We've learned a lot about Lewis and Clark AND Sakakawea during our time in North Dakota!

Then we drove around Bismarck, drove through the capitol grounds where I took pictures of the Sakakawea statue. Then back to the campground, time at the playground, finishing laundry,etc. Now I'm officially caught up!! Tomorrow we leave Bismarck for Fargo/Moorhead. Will spend all day Thursday in the Fargo area.

More later!

Rebecca

Vacation Day #8

I know, you are all shocked to see that I have less than 100 pictures today. The Black Hills are beautiful, but we just haven't been much of anywhere yet...that will change today though. We are planning a trip to Deadwood to see an original gold rush town, including a tour of a 100+ year old gold mine and a visit to the haunted Bullock Hotel. Maybe even a trip up the mountain to view the graves of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane. Should be some interesting pictures to come out of Deadwood...

Yesterday we ate the delicious breakfast Dad prepared over the camp fire. He made the most delicious biscuits in his Dutch oven, which I think surprised us all, him included! We had biscuits and sausage gravy and scrambled eggs, it was great. We picked up our rental mini van (a real relic...I think it was one of the original mini vans...) and then drove by Crazy Horse to take some pictures from the side of the road. Then we headed to Keystone to check out all of the shops and such. We looked at a lot of Black Hills Gold jewelry, and I finally found a necklace and earrings that I really liked. After that we headed into Hill City for a trip to the grocery store, and then back to the campground. We rested for awhile, had supper, and boarded the bus at 6:20 to head to Mt.Rushmore for the lighting ceremony. We had plenty of time to look in the gift shop and eat some ice cream before the ceremony started at 8. It was a very touching ceremony, I would recommend it for anyone...unfortunately when it came time to light Mt.Rushmore, the fog had rolled in and you couldn't see anything! It was like one of those bad postcards that are pure white on the front and say "Mt.Rushmore in the fog".

Better run, suddenly everyone is ready to go!

More later,

Rebecca 

Vacation Day #7

Yesterday morning we all dragged out of bed, and then Pavan took the kids to the playground while I showered. Then I took advantage of the time alone in the camper to get some cleaning done...sweeping, spot cleaning the floor, washing the counters, cleaning the bathroom, etc. The thing that amazes me the most is all of the dust on everything. Driving with all the windows wide open, combined with the always present wind in the plains seems to create quite a layer of dust in the camper! The good thing is that cleaning the entire camper only takes 20 minutes, at the most!

We hit the road right at 11AM, and the first thing we did was take a wrong turn! We followed the signs that said they would take us to I-90, but about 12 miles down the road the sign to I-90 pointed up a gravel road! Well, that couldn't be right!!! So we pulled out all the maps and realized we were supposed to turn right, not left! There was nowhere to turn around, so Pavan just slowly turned us around right in the middle of the road. It's not like there was any other traffic anyway! So we headed back the other way and found our way onto the Badlands Loop...a 40 mile loop of road that takes you right through Badlands National Park. You get off I-90 at Cactus Flats and end up back on I-90 in Wall...which was perfect because we wanted to visit Wall Drug.

If you ever drive through South Dakota, I highly recommend you take the Badlands Loop and experience this amazing National Park. I cannot put into words the beauty of the Badlands. You can just imagine people hiding out in the many crevices, and the contrast between the varying landscapes is just breathtaking! As you can tell by my 150 pictures...I just couldn't seem to get enough of it! Every time we turned a corner, it was something even more beautiful than the last! The one thing I didn't count on, though, was the extreme dryness of the area. You would walk out of the camper, and could feel the moisture being sucked right out of your nose and mouth and throat! We'd get back into the camper after 20 or 30 minutes at one of the overlooks, and suck down a glass of water. We were very careful to keep the little ones hydrated!

After we left the park, it was only about 10 miles to Wall. We stopped for a couple of hours at Wall Drug, which is quite a place! I think we could have spent a couple of more hours poking around all the stores in Wall, but after lunch we headed toward Mt.Rushmore, where we knew Dad and Margaret were waiting.

All the way from Wall to Rapid City we could see some storms developing off to the north. As you can see, the contrast between the yellow prairie land and the dark sky was beautiful. We turned off I-90 just before Rapid City, following the signs to Mt.Rushmore, as our campground is on that same road, 5 miles west. It was an interesting drive in the camper, at times I felt like we should all start chanting "I think I can, I think I can", and then holding on tight as we came back down the hills. Again, the landscapes were amazing. To think that a couple of hours before we'd been in the Badlands, a dry, desert area with many canyons and wide open spaces. And now, we were in the mountains!

At one point we knew we were getting close to the area where Mt.Rushmore is located, but I wasn't prepared to round a corner and see the monument right from the road! I was shouting, all of the kids came running up to the front and we all had our noses pressed to the window! It was just amazing. We are planning to head back to Mt.Rushmore for the lighting ceremony tonight. We can catch a shuttle from the campground, or take our own cars if necessary. There is also a lighting ceremony at Crazy Horse, but it's a lot more expensive. I think we'll just visit Crazy Horse on our own during the day today.

The KOA here at Mt.Rushmore is HUGE!! We are lucky enough to be about 10 spaces down from the front gates, but the campground goes on forever! Dad and Margaret were supposedly going to be two spaces over from us, but they are actually about 5 spaces down from us, on the other side of the road. Oh well. Last night Dad had plans to grill brats and hamburgers. As soon as he got the grill going, it started to pour down rain! Not only that, but we soon discovered we were under a Severe Thunderstorm Warning, Flash Flood Warning, and TORNADO Warning!! We went up to the camp store to ask where we should go in case of bad weather, and were told that most severe weather breaks up when it hits the mountains...the worst we might get is huge hail!!! We ended up eating dinner in our camper, and looking through all of the pictures I've taken so far.

This morning Dad is making biscuits and gravy in his dutch oven, and then we are going to visit Crazy Horse and Custer State Park, then the lighting ceremony tonight. 

Here comes Margaret with breakfast, gotta run!

More later

Rebecca 

Vacation Days #4,5,6

Tonight has been one of those frustrating times when I can't get the internet to work quite the way I'd like, and I find myself writing my journal entry for the second time...because it failed to save the first time. SO, it's late, I'm tired, I still have four loads of laundry in the dryer...forgive me if this is shorter than you'd like. I'm sure most of you are most interested in the pictures anyway!!

Tuesday we had to check out of the KOA in Sioux Falls by 11AM. Around 1045 Kindra and I headed to the airport to return the rental car, and Pavan took the others in the camper to stop by the RV dealer to pick up one more thing. After he picked us up at the airport, we headed to Falls Park one last time to pick up a few souvenirs and to take a few more pictures of the falls in the daylight.

We left Sioux Falls around 1PM and headed to De Smet, a drive of about 2 hours in the camper. It was a beautiful drive. A lot of people might think the endless corn fields and prairie grass is boring, but I think it's wonderful.

Once we arrived in De Smet, we took a quick drive around town to get a feel for how easy it would be to walk around the town the next day. It's a small town, a little too far from the camp ground to walk into town, but small enough to walk wherever we wanted to go once we drove into town.

Then we headed out to the Ingalls Homestead. Talk about love at first sight!! You can see from the pictures the beauty of the land and the buildings, you can see all of the fun activities we were able to experience...but what you can't see is the magical feeling of walking on the same land as Laura, experiencing many of the same sights and sounds as she described in her books that we've all read for so many years. It was awesome. I cannot even begin to describe the wonderful time we had at the Homestead, or how sad it was to drive away this morning. During the day it was great, but the evening was even better. All of the other tourists went home, the Homestead was officially closed. But we were left, along with two or three other families (there were only 4 RV sites, which were never full...and then a few covered wagons you could rent to sleep in for the night). The barns were still open, the houses were still open, some of the animals were still there (most of the horses and the big cow were taken across the road to a field at night). It was like we owned the place, and it was so amazing! One more thing I want to say about the Homestead....the kids loved it there. There was no internet access, there was no cable TV, there was no playground or swimming pool (other than the teeter totter and sandbox)...but I never once heard them complain about being bored! SIMPLICITY...that is the key to so much of the happiness we are all searching for in life!

Yesterday we drove the camper into De Smet, parked on a side road and walked around town. (and walked, and walked, and walked!) We ate lunch at a diner in town, checked out a lot of the historic homes and buildings that Laura talked about in some of her books, and visited a lot of gift shops. Once we were walked out, Pavan and Amaya went to get the camper, and the rest of us headed to the only grocery store in town...a very small store that reminded me of the one we shopped at when I was maybe 5 years old. Then back to the Homestead, where we made some new friends from Canada and had a campfire until nearly midnight.

This morning we spent a few more hours visiting with our new friends on the Homestead and then headed for Mitchell, SD to see the Corn Palace. We spent maybe an hour in Mitchell and then headed west for the Badlands and our next stop. The thing about the Badlands is that they come up so suddenly, they are such a shock! Here you are driving along for hundreds of miles and all you see is prairie and corn. Then all of a sudden you come upon the most amazing landscapes, like you are on another planet! I just kept wondering about all of those pioneers that headed west in their wagons, traveling maybe 15or 20 miles a day. Nothing but grass, grass, grass....and then suddenly these huge canyons and amazing landscapes. They were probably wondering, now what??

Ok, so here we are at the Badlands/White River KOA. We will take the scenic 30 mile loop through part of the Badlands tomorrow, which will bring us into Wall, SD...where we will stop at Wall Drug. Then onto the Hill City / Mt.Rushmore KOA.

Time to get the clothes out of the dryer...

More later

Rebecca

Update....it's midnight (mountain time), the laundry is done, the journal is finally done...and I am going to bed! I will try to get the Badlands pictures online tomorrow night, ran out of time tonight!

Vacation Day #3 Sioux Falls, SD

We spent yesterday exploring Sioux Falls and preparing for the next couple of days in DeSmet. We don't know anything about the campground in DeSmet, so we are preparing for the possibility that it won't have any hook ups at all. Maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised when we arrive, and find out they at least have electricity and water, wouldn't that be nice! Regardless, we are going to have a great time in De Smet! Here is a website that tells you a little bit about the town and the great stuff there is to see...Kindra and I both love reading about live on the prairie 100+ years ago. She has been reading the Little House series recently, and I have been reading a series about a group of homesteaders from Norway who settled in North Dakota in the 1880s...so the trials of the homesteaders in this area of the country are fresh in our minds, even if it is the fictionalized trials! To actually see the town, the land, the houses, the prairie they speak of in those books will be an amazing experience.

Yesterday morning weslept in and then relaxed here at the camper for a few hours. At 1145, a taxi came and took Pavan to the airport to pick up a rental car (minivan to be exact). When he got back, we loaded up and headed into Sioux Falls. First stop, Falls Park. It was terribly hot and humid outside, but there was a stiff breeze that helped us along. We spent about 45 minutes in Falls Park and then hopped on the trolley (free! very nice). Our intention was to get off the trolley at some point and walk around Main St. but once we got on we realized what a perfect tourist tool the trolley really is. As you drive through downtown, there is a narrative playing overhead, telling you all about the historic buildings in the city. So, we rode the entire trolley route all the way back to Falls Park, then drove around some of the historic housing districts on our own.

After a trip to Wal-Mart, We spent yesterday afternoon/early evening catching up on some things around the camper. We already had three loads of laundry that needed washed, so I took advantage of a few hours free time to get that done. Pavan made a run to the RV dealer next door to pick up a few tabs to hold a glass door panel in place and a few other things we've realized we could use, and spent some time making a few minor repairs to the camper. The kids just watched TV and played. After living in Rhinelander for the last few years, the heat just zapped everyone. Of course I made the mistake of looking at the weather in Rhinelander this week...it was only 79 there yesterday. Will be in the 60s and 70s all week, with lows all the way down to the lower 40s!!!

We left the camper around 7PM to get some dinner and then head over to Falls Park for the laser lights show. Pavan was craving BBQ, so we went to Famous Daves. None of us had ever been there, but we will definitely be going back! My stomach is growling just writing about it...everyone was tearing up the BBQ, especially the ribs. Even Noah ate 2 ribs....NOAH!!! They have 6 or 7 different sauces on the table, so we tried every single one. Ordered a sampler meal that was enough to feed an army...all of it absolutely delicious! Yummy!

All afternoon we'd been keeping an eye on the weather. Just as we were leaving the restaurant, it started to rain and the sky was so dark. We almost headed back to the camper, but decided to drive by Falls Park to see if the show was still going to happen. When we got there, it wasn't raining. We spent about 20 minutes climbing on the rocks and looking at the falls (such a cool place!), and then spread out some blankets on the grass to watch the show. It was such a beautiful night, nice and cool with a wonderful breeze blowing. The show was so neat, and every once in awhile a plane would fly overhead on it's way to or from the airport, which the kids loved. The light show on the falls was beautiful, as was the lazar lights show. The main part of theshow was the history of Sioux Falls played overhead and shown in light pictures on the side of a building. I took some video during the show, I'll get it on YouTube eventually! Noah fell asleep during the last 15 minutes of the show, but afterward the rest of us climbed down some more rocks and took some video clips of the falls. It was too nice out to go home! (Kindra stayed behind on the grass with Noah, she was talking with a friend on the phone anyway!)

Ok I'd better go. Lots to do before we head out today. After I drop the car off at the airport, we are going to make a quick stop at Falls Park so I can get some pictures of the kids climbing on the rocks down to the Falls, so you can see what I"m talking about. It was just too dark last night to get any good pictures. Also, pick up a few souvenirs at the visitor center there.

Remember, we are headed to De Smet this afternoon. Not sure if we'll have electricity or water, let alone internet access. Might be a few days before we are online for more updates.

Oh, almost forgot to mention something very important. We have made a change to our itinerary for later this week. When we leave De Smet, we are going to check out the Corn Palace in Mitchell and then stay overnight at the Badlands/White River KOA in Interior, SD. That will be Thursday night. That will allow us to take a drive through part of the badlands, stop in Wall at Wall Drug, and then continue on to the Hill City/Mt.Rushmore KOA on Friday.

More later,

Rebecca

 

Vacation Day #2

Well, day #2 finds us at the KOA campground in Sioux Falls, SD. We went to Day Out With Thomas this morning, arrived around 11AM. We had been promised there was ample parking for the camper, but they lied! We ended up parking a mile down the road from the train station at a wayside, and walking. Whew. The kids had a lot of fun though, we had our ride on Thomas at 1230, ate lunch, played for awhile, and then hit the road (after the mile walk back to the camper, haha! Of course on our way back to the camper, the train was right beside us, so it made the walk a lot more fun...even if we did feel like we were on exhibit, all of the kids kept waving to us...Amaya and Noah were walking and waving for the entire mile!)

The drive to Sioux Falls took about five hours. Traveling in the RV is slower than traveling in a car, but a lot more comfortable. I mean, while Pavan was driving down the road, I was able to use the restroom, turn on the bathroom light to wash my hands and comb my hair! Unbelievable. If I wanted to make lunch, all I have to do it turn on the generator for a minute and pop something in the microwave. It's just strange.

Right now the kids are playing on the playground, which is right outside our camper. Tomorrow we will call a taxi to take us to Falls Park. From there we can ride a free trolley to everything we want to see. Tomorrow night is a laser lights show at Falls Park, should be very cool!

Check out this link...this is Falls Park.

http://www.siouxfallscvb.com/

Going for a walk...will add pictures later tonight.

More later!

Rebecca

Vacation Day #1

Just a quick note to let you know we made it safely to our first stop on our vacation. We are at St.Paul East RV Park in Woodbury, MN...which is about 10 miles east of St.Paul. We arrived around 3PM, went swimming, ate dinner, went walking to check out the campground, and then watched some TV for a few hours so we could keep an eye on the weather. Thankfully, the worst of the storms passed a couple of miles north of us, so we just had some heavy rain, thunder and lightening. Enough to scare Anna and Noah (Amaya had already fallen asleep by that time), and enough to thrill Pavan Kindra and me!

Tomorrow we have tickets to Day Out With Thomas. Should have lots of fun pictures to show you from that. It's taking place in Stillwater, MN...which is about 12 miles from here. After that, we will head to Sioux Falls, SD for a couple of days.

OH, by the way...Anna made it home from camp. She had a great time. I cannot believe all the awesome cards, letters, and gifts she received while she was at camp! Thanks to all of you who sent her something, she must have been the envy of every kid at camp!

More later!

Rebecca

Our vacation itinerary

Things are busy as usual around our house. Anna is gone to Girl Scout camp until Friday, then we leave Saturday for our 2 week vacation through the Dakotas. Sorry I've not kept up with the journal, this summer has been hectic. For the last week and a half I've been fighting a terrible cold that just seems to get worse every day. At this point I've decided it's actually my fall allergies getting an early start, and have started taking an insane amount of allergy medications and inhalers to try and get it all under control. Until I get it all straightened out, I'm almost afraid to leave the house!! The amount of pollen and such in the air literally takes my breath away...

Here is our itinerary for our trip. You can still reach us via email (most of the campground have wireless internet and I am taking my laptop along) or via cell phone. For those of you who didn't receive the email, I have a new cell phone number. 715-401-0095

More later,

Rebecca

August 11th Leave Rhinelander, stay overnight in St.Paul, MN (St.Paul East RV Park 651-436-6436)

August 12th Attend Day Out with Thomas in Stillwater, MN....then drive on to Sioux Falls, SD (Sioux Falls KOA 605-332-9987)

August 13th Spend the day in Sioux Falls, SD, overnight at Sioux Falls KOA again

August 14th Drive from Sious Falls, SD to DeSmet, SD...location of the Ingalls Homestead, as in Laura Ingalls Wilder! We will actually be camping on the homestead! (Ingalls Homestead 605-776-3594)

August 15th Spend the day in DeSmet, SD...the little town on the prairie

August 16th Drive from DeSmet, SD to Hill City, SD. This will be our base camp for all of our adventures in the Black Hills. (Mount Rushmore/Hill City KOA 605-574-2525)

August 17th, 18th, 19th Exploring the Black Hills

August 20th Leave Hill City, SD for Bismarck, ND (Bismarck KOA 701-222-2662)

August 21st Spend the day in Bismarck, overnight at Bismarck KOA again

August 22nd Leave Bismarck for Fargo, ND (Moorhead/Fargo KOA 218-233-0671)

August 23rd Spend the day in Fargo, overnight at Fargo KOA again

August 24th Leave Fargo, ND for Bemidji, MN (Bemidji KOA 800-562-1742)

August 25th Our 5th Wedding Anniversary Leave Bemidji WI for Hayward WI (Hayward KOA 715-634-2331)

August 26th Home