All 50 Road Trip-June 4, 2018, Day 24

(click here for today's pictures)

Rapid City, South Dakota to Mitchell, South Dakota

Before I begin today’s blog, let’s spend a few minutes talking about the things that we have lost on this trip. First, there was the toothbrush/toothpaste debacle causing us to lose 6 toothbrushes and a tube of toothpaste. Then on the cruise ship, I lost a pair of fingernail clippers. Don’t know how that happened since I used them one day and couldn’t find them the next. Robby wasn’t in my room, so I can’t blame him. Keaton has lost 2 earring backs, but that is of no worries. Also, I guess you could say that we briefly lost a windshield wiper when it flew off of the car, but we retrieved that so it surely doesn’t count. Yes, there is the one hubcap we lost before the cruise and then the other one we lost after the cruise. Now, I can’t take any blame for those.  And last night, we discovered that we are missing a pair of Anderson’s pajamas. Not a huge deal, but urgh I hate losing things. Plus there is one missing sock (one of mine, no less) from laundry a few nights ago. And there is now two things of chapstick that I can't find. Things like this could cause me to lose my mind! We have just a few days left so I am going to try my hardest not to let us lose anything else. 

We slept a bit later last night which was nice because we were up a bit with laundry. Reagan wanted us to wash her blanket and since laundry was free we did. However, the washing machine wouldn’t spin her blankets. After two times Robby had to put it in the dryer sopping wet. He tried to wring it out the best he could. It then took two drying times to get it dry enough to just bring back to the room to hang up for the night. Robby did dry it this morning again when he woke up and it was finally dry.

The breakfast was much nicer than yesterday. The kids sure enjoyed it so we were there a bit longer than we should have. Ur next stop was then Walmart to pick up some lunch items. The kids and I sat in the car taking bets on when Robby would come back to the car. Then I ran in Walgreens looking for stamps while Robby picked up some Redbox movies. I was out of luck on stamps though they use to have them. We have been gone practically a month and can’t manage to send the kids postcards home! I have been in at least 3 post offices that have been closed as well. Maybe tomorrow.

On our way to Wall Drug, we counted almost 60 Wall Drug signs. That passed the time very quickly. We pottied and then enjoyed walking around. All of the kids enjoyed climbing up on a jackalope. I was pregnant with Reagan when we came to Wall Drug. I wanted my picture on the Jackalope so Robby hoisted me to the top of it. It was quite a site him getting me to the top. When I sat down for the picture, I looked to the other side and saw the set of stairs leaving to the top of the statue. 

We walked around a bit and then finally had some ice cream before climbing back into the car. It wasn’t too far to the Badlands, and we listened to a few podcasts about that. We did stop a few times to take pictures for the view and do a bit of climbing. We did see some pronghorn antelope on the trail.  The Badlands are pretty interesting. They are not necessarily the best scenery we have seen, but it was certainly neat to see. 

We stopped at the Visitor’s Center and had a picnic lunch. It is hot here! I don’t think I really remember hot. Maybe I am more suited for Alaskan weather. The kids climbed a little bit and threw the football some. Then we went inside to look around. We saw people working on fossils, went through the Visitor’s Center, watched the movie (well, they probably did, but I happened to close my eyes during a little bit of it), and then the kids turned in their Jr. Ranger books.

From there, we drove out of the park and headed to the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site. Years ago Robby and I went to this NHS. We were offered a tour of the site, and to do that we climbed in a Ranger’s pick up and drove out to a missile site. It was quite an odd experience, but when we go down to the site, it was like it had been left untouched for 40 or how ever many years. 

Now, the MInuteman site has an incredibly nice Visitor’s Center that we walked through. They had a 30 minute movie but that is a bit on the long side for us and besides we had other things to do. After we walked through the exhibits, we jumped back in the car. We passed out drinks and snacks and then turned on a movie. Eeek. Our movie choice, though it looked family friendly, was not! We quickly switched to one that was much more family friendly and headed on our way down the interstate. 

Let’s discuss how nice seeing the interstate was this morning. We hadn’t really seen an interstate since Canada. Most of the roads that we have been on lately have been 2 lane roads that are incredibly straight and looooonnngg. We were a bit disappointed when our time changed back to Central Standard Time this afternoon. I guess that means that we are really heading home.

Robby stopped about an hour outside of Mitchell to pick up pizzas and for a potty stop. We ate our pizzas in the car while heading on to the Corn Palace. The kids finished their movie and played on their ipads the entire time. I looked at my calendar some and tried to make a mental plan for this weekend and next week and began to hyperventilate!

We changed on our minds on the way and skipped the Corn Palace tonight and headed straight to our hotel.  The hotel was the big event of the day. The kids remembered it from the last time that we were here-a huge waterslide in the hotel. They didn’t know that we were coming here so when we pulled up they were thrilled. I have never seen people get out of the car so quickly. 

The kids threw on their bathing suits, and we headed to the pool. They all went down the slide as many times as possible in the 2 hours that we were there. Robby unloaded the car while I watched them, then we switched and I worked on the room while he watched the kids. We even let them stay a bit longer than we had planned since everyone was having so much fun.

When we were back in the room, everyone showered while Robby ran down to do a load of laundry. Currently, the kids have just laid down, and Robby went to retrieve the laundry from the dryer. Hopefully, it is dry so I can fold it as soon as everyone is asleep. Tomorrow is a big driving day so we will need to get a move on in the morning!