Road Trip Recap Part 3: South Dakota

You know your spouse really loves you when you tell them that nearly half of your summer vacation is going to be spent in South Dakota, and they just smile and say it sounds wonderful.

Turns out, South Dakota is pretty wonderful.

Our first evening was in Sioux Falls, the largest city in South Dakota. Initially, we had planned on using it as a place to stay the night at. But a friend told us to makes sure we took the time to see the Falls.

 We are glad we did. The park around the falls was lovely, the falls were beautiful, and the old mill structure was interesting. We spent a lovely evening walking along the river and waterfalls, an evening that would have otherwise been spent being lazy in a hotel room.

The next day, we continued our drive west across the state.

We made a quick stop at The Corn Palace, a basketball arena/souvenir shop decorated in, yep, corn!

After that stop, we debated about making the slight northward jaunt to see the state capitol, Pierre. On our last summer road trip, we made an effort to see the state capitol of each state we drove through.  Once we saw that we would also drive through the Pierre Grasslands, we decided the extra mileage was worth it.

Driving through the grasslands, there is nothing but gently rolling hills. At one time, I would have found this type of landscape boring and monotonous, but now, I find it soothing and quieting.
I'm glad my children have the opportunity to stand in places without buildings, without crowds, and just feel wide open empty spaces with nothing but sky and grass and themselves.

Pierre itself wasn't much, as with a population of less than 14,000, it is the second smallest state capitol. We got there during capitol building hours, and I couldn't help but want to peak inside. The inside was bright and beautiful and well worth the extra little drive.

That evening, we arrived in Wall, famous for the much advertised Wall Drug (as we drove past hundreds of billboards for the place). I'm completely not above a good, kitschy tourist trap!  Wall Drug is strange and eclectic and honestly a little fun. The kids sat on a jackalope, we drank the free (and not so good) water, we ate donuts and got our free bumper sticker.

One of our goals on this road trip was to see as many national parks/sites as possible. The first one on our list was Badlands. We had heard so many amazing things about this place and the boys were excited to do some hiking. When we woke up to pouring rain, the disappointment was palpable. We decided we would still drive through the park, but that hiking was out of the questions.

Even in the rain, Badlands was impressive. The colors may not have been as vivid as if it had been sunny, but the scenic outlooks were just as stunning. There is no other place like it, with its striped, jagged ridges and winding crevices. We even braved the wind and rain to run out to the end of some lookouts for better views. Bug and Monkey were so entranced by the terrain, they still begged for hiking even with the cold soggy weather (of course, we had to say no, since we were barely equipped for leisurely day hiking, let alone serious muddy trekking.)

After driving from one end of the park to the other in the rain and making our way back to our little cabin rental to warm up and dry off and eat, the rain let up in the evening. So, we hopped into the van for a sunset pajama tour of the park. It was well worth it, as we saw huge families of prairie dogs, herds of big horn sheep, vultures, and some of the stunning colors we were hoping for.

The next stop was maybe the most iconic of all South Dakota sites: Mount Rushmore. Hubster and the boys had actually stopped here a couple of years ago when they had gone to visit Hubster's family in Montana, but it was my first time and I was pretty exciting. It seems that some faces carved in rock might be dull, but there is something so majestic about the monument and the feat of engineering and artistry, that I couldn't help but feel a little more patriotic and in love with this country of ours.

After the morning spent at Mount Rushmore, we continued further into the Black Hills and stopped by Crazy Horse Monument. This work in progress was well worth the time. Almost as a reply to the Mount Rushmore that the Native Americans have their heroes as well, this stop allowed us to marvel again at incredibly engineering and talk to our boys about some of the more difficult aspects of our country's history.

I don't think that this monument will be finished during my life time, as they are working solely on donations and visitor fees to construct the memorial that will be much larger than Mount Rushmore. However, the vision and effort are valiant and made for a very memorable stop.

We spent the remainder of the day exploring the Black Hills by going to Custer State Park. Here, we maneuvered narrow roads and narrower tunnels along the Needles Highway (at one point, Hubster got out of the car to make sure the van was indeed going to fit through one of the tunnels.)

Because we didn't get to do any hiking at Badlands, we took advantage of sunny weather and intriguing rock formations and did a lovely small hike to Cathedral Spire.

After that adventure, we continued to drive through the park, taking in the thick forests and grasslands. I almost convinced Hubster to stop so we could feed the wild burros, but no such luck!

After three lovely days of South Dakota, it was time to continue our journey. But I must say, South Dakota knows how to impress!

Road Trip Recap Part 2: Omaha

Stopping at Omaha wasn't part of the initial road trip plan, as it would add an extra day to our trip. But we could think of a couple good reasons to make this stop. First, it would break the travel up, which is key when traveling with kids. And second, both Hubster and I couldn't wait to watch Duck at the zoo.

It ended up being a good thing our first real stop was Omaha, since we got out of Iowa City quite a bit later than was ideal. Had we gone on to South Dakota as we initially planned, we wouldn't have made it there until much past dark. However, we made it to Omaha at a very reasonable time, had a lovely dinner, and got to bed at a time that none of us were tired the next day.

While I'm sure that Omaha has tons to offer, we were there for only one main purpose: the Henry Doorly Zoo.  We had been several years earlier, pre-Duck addition to the family. The older boys only vaguely remembered it. Hubster and I remembered it as one of the best zoos we had been too.

Our memories served us well, because the zoo was phenomenal.

We strolled through jungle scapes, walking over rope bridges and behind waterfalls with free flying bats and birds around us (and only losing Duck once.)

We wandered through the ever impressive Desert Dome.

We watched penguins for the longest time.

We had lunch outside while we listened to howler monkeys.

We saw newly born baby sea lions and orangutans that were so darling the boys had to drag me away. Hubster does not share my enthusiasm for adopting all baby animals.

We stood quietly, impressed by gorillas and tigers and rhinos. We saw aardvarks and echidnas and sloths and armadillos.

We have been to many zoos, and seen the same type of animals countless times and every time, my children are enthusiastic, interested, and awed. It's a wonderful reminder to not became jaded, because the world and all the living things in it are amazing.

This stop may have added extra time to our road trip, but it was well worth it.

Road Trip Recap Part 1: Leaving Iowa

Slowly but surely, I'm finding the time to sit down and process all the changes we've been through in the last couple months. (Even as more changes keep coming our direction!) Unfortunately, with my new schedule and work load, I have only been able to find one day a week to sit down and write about it. After catching up on some essentials (I was not going to miss Bug's 13th birthday), it's finally time to write about the exciting events of our summer.

When we found out we would be moving to Salt Lake City, we decided early on to combine our move with our love of road tripping, and make the transition from Iowa to Utah a vacation.  We planned out a 10 day road trip covering as many places as we could between the two states.

With our road trip last year, I summarized the whole thing in one enormous post. This time, I'm going to split it up, not just to make things manageable, but so that I can selfishly indulge in more details.

But before we could leave on this trip, we had to pack up and leave our home.

(How I felt about this process)

I had gone through various stages of mourning about leaving our Iowa home. It was our first home, where we had gone from a family of 4 to a family of 5, adopted our cats, and survived residency. The first time we didn't share walls and floors and ceilings with other people. The first time we could paint and renovate and fall in love with a house.

We had been paring things down as the house went on the market; all our family photos were packed, most the boys' artwork and toys already in boxes. I was dreading the rest of the packing. But as the movers came the first day and finished the packing, I did ok. I was busy chasing Duck around and answering questions about what should be packed and what was staying.

However, any stoic leanings left the next morning as the moving truck showed up. As soon as the movers started carrying boxes out of the house, I couldn't contain my emotions. I stood in the kitchen, the movers working hard around me, and just let the tears flow. That house felt like family, and I felt like I was abandoning it and all the memories we made there.

There was also the small issue of not actually having a place to live in Utah. Our home loan was still in processing, and each day, I spent hours and hours on the phone and they kept requesting more and more documents. We were supposed to close on a Thursday, and that day came and went. On Friday, they asked for more paperwork. That afternoon, all our things left for Utah, with us planning on following in a few days. Monday morning, the day we were leaving the state, they called and asked for more clarification. At that point, I was frantic. We were hitting the road in just over an hour, and it looked like we might be homeless since the loan officer wasn't sure the loan approval would go through.

As I was doing a final cleaning of the house, mopping the kitchen floor and washing the counters, and Hubster was loading the last few things into the van, I got yet another call from the mortgage company. This time, it was to say the loan approval had just gone through.

Once again, I found myself standing in the kitchen crying, but this time in pure relief.

We left a welcome home sign and a bottle of champagne on the counter for the new owners, locked the doors, and took one last picture with our first home.

Having leveled up in the adult version of Tetris...

It was time to say goodbye, and start the journey, not just for our summer road trip, but our trip to our new home.

The remainder of the day was spent driving through the softly rolling farmlands of Iowa, wondering when we might see them again, pointing out redwing black birds and the steady flicker of fireflies as dusk descended.

We made it clear to Nebraska before remembering we had left an entire box of popsicles in the freezer. Oh, well, just another welcome home gift, I suppose.