To Iowa... and Beyond!

How do you begin to describe an indescribable vacation?  How do you share every spectacular thing we did over 2 weeks?  I'm going to do my best because I am so excited to give you a glimpse into one of the biggest vacations I've ever had.  I'm going to keep this post to explanation.  Pictures will come later, hopefully in the form of a Shutterfly book (which will be far more manageable!).  So I'll start with the "how".

We got told we were crazy by a lot of people when we told them our plans for this summer.  We estimated 60 hours in the car with a 3 1/2 old and a 1 1/2 old.  Yup, maybe we are crazy!  But in our trial and error with extremely lengthy car rides we've discovered a few tricks to survival.  So, rule number one in crazy long car rides with little kids, there are NO rules!!!  Every rule you currently have goes out the window.  You want Skittles at 5 AM?  Sure!  You want french fries with lunch and supper on the same day?  Sure!  Juice all day long?  Sure!  "Whatever" became my favorite word.  Rule number two, you have to have a DVD player!  Our van did not come with a DVD player so we have one small personal one and it worked great!  Surprisingly, the kids only watched a handful of movies the whole trip.  But I'm very thankful to Dora, Elmo, Princess and the Frog, and Tangled for giving us a couple of hours of quiet, uninterrupted car time.  Rule number three, junk food!  We took Mikayla to Target prior to leaving to pick out some fun car ride food.  She picked out, smarties, dum dums, gummy worms, Swedish fish, licorice, skittles, m & m's, gold fish, animal crackers, pretzels, fruit snacks, and mini marshmallows.  Don't judge us :)  And rule number four, do whatever it takes to stay awake!!!  Apparently we make our moms very nervous by doing this and cause some sleepless nights for them too.  Sorry moms!  Our strategy for staying awake for 22 hours or more... coffee, candy, air conditioning, and the Ipod blasting in the driver's ears.  All night long we try and switch off every 2-4 hours and attempt to sleep while the other drives.  I pretty much can't sleep, even with an eye mask and ear plugs :)  We were so blessed this trip to have no rain driving to or from Iowa.  There's nothing more hypnotic than the windshield wipers, in the dark, half asleep!  Oh and bring some Tums to combat the candy and coffee!

I also wanted to include some of our statistics from this trip.
We traveled through 7 states, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and South Dakota.
We spent time in 3 time zones, Eastern, Central, and Mountain.
We went through 12 tanks of gas.
We drove 3,700 miles.
We spent 70 hours in the car.  Kids strapped into their car seats of course!  (might be the first time I underestimated!)
We packed and unpacked our car 10 times.
We slept in 3 different places. 
We ate Pizza Ranch pizza 3 times :)
We (or more honestly I) took 1,200 pictures.
We saw more amazing things in 2 weeks than I usually see in an entire year!

First Half
We said a prayer and then pulled out of our driveway at 11am on Tuesday, July 10 and headed west.  We arrived in Sheldon, IA at 9am on Wednesday, July 11 and I can honestly say there wasn't a single tear for 22 hours!  Amazing!

We unpacked and the kids played with Grandma while we slept!  Then it was Pizza Ranch time!  Yum!
The next 2 days we spent time at the park, second hand stores, playing with cousins, meeting our new niece Adria and eating more Pizza Ranch :)

Saturday we drove about an hour to Lake Okaboji and took a nostalgic ride on my in-laws 1976 yellow boat.  It was a gorgeous day and 1/2 of our children enjoyed the ride.  I'm pretty sure you can guess which child loved the boat and which one screamed for the first half and slept for the second half  :)  We also got to swim off of the dock that Brian's uncle and aunt own.  I really wish we could do this more often with Brian's parents.  

Sunday was a bittersweet day.  One year ago on July 16 Rodney passed away.  We drove up to Sioux Falls, SD after church, ate lunch with family and then wrote little notes "to" Rodney, attached them to purple balloons (his favorite color) and released them.  Very moving, emotional, and surprisingly beautiful.  We also got to visit Rodney's grave, something we haven't done since his funeral.

Monday the men left at 2am to drive to Chamberlain, SD to go fishing on the Missouri River.  The women and children slept to a normal hour, packed the cars and headed west as well.  We had to stop and see the World's ONLY Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD.  Yup you read that right, a palace made of corn!  I'll let your imagination go with that for a little while until you see pictures :)  And we had our first ever corn dog there!  We then continued on our way to Chamberlain and reached our beautiful hotel (a huge thank you to my in-laws for arranging for this!) and quickly jumped in the indoor pool to escape the 108 degree temperatures outside!  Actual temperature!  We then enjoyed a delicious fish supper, courtesy of the men's abundant Walleye catch, and after 20 years of not eating fish I finally gave in and tried it and actually like it!  I mean how can something deep fried and covered in tarter sauce taste bad?


Second Half
We packed the cars and continued our westward journey through South Dakota.  In case you were wondering, South Dakota doesn't contain a whole lot besides wide open prairies with a few cows placed in just the right areas to keep our children entertained.  We then stopped in Wall, SD to check out Wall Drug.  I'm still not sure I can describe this very unique place but it's small town, South Dakota version of an indoor boardwalk.  Can't picture it?  Me either and I was there :)  We enjoyed some free ice water, 5 cent coffee, ice cream, took a picture on a giant Jackalope (a cross between a jack rabbit and an antelope, not real of course), and a very life like T-Rex.  Still can't picture it?  I don't expect you to!

Badlands National Park

We began to catch a glimpse of the spectacular Badlands and my eyes began to swell with tears.  I never expected to see something so beautiful and amazing in a place called the Badlands.  I was blown away by the natural beauty of this very desolate area.  It's a couple hour drive through the National Park and I was in awe for every minute.

Hill City

We finally arrived in the Black Hills National Forest and headed to our "traditional" cabins at Rafter J Bar Ranch in Hill City, SD.  We decided that we had to expand our sense of adventure so we bypassed the "comfort" cabin for our not air conditioned, no bathroom, no kitchen, 1 outlet cabin and it was perfect!  Even though it reached 100 degrees almost every day, the nights were so cool we had to turn down our fan.  The bathrooms were a short walk across the field and it was surprisingly fun to meet all sorts of people while blow drying your hair and brushing your teeth :)  Our first evening contained an incredible mountain hail storm followed by an equally incredible rainbow!  While at our cabins we enjoyed eating together as a family, all 19 of us!  We spent lots of time in the pool, throwing water balloons, blowing bubbles, having immeasurable amounts of fun with glow sticks, and microwaving smores :)

Mount Rushmore

Yes it's spectacular!  Totally worth driving all the distance to go and see!  Pictures simply do not do it justice and I am so glad that we got to see "the faces on the mountain" as Mikayla referred to them.  The viewing terrace was just beautiful with the path leading up to the faces lined with all of the state flags.  Surprisingly while we were taking pictures we met a recently retired Paterson fire man thanks to my brother-in-law wearing the PPFD shirt we gave him.  Small world!  We then enjoyed a picnic lunch in a small wooded area not far from Monument.

Needles Highway

This was terrifying!  Narrow roads, crazy twists and turns, one lane tunnels, and these wild rock formations reaching up to the sky and at the top of the one mountain a rock that looked exactly like an eye of a needle.  God's amazing creation!

Bear Country/ Reptile Gardens

After a day of sightseeing monuments and state parks we decided to take the kids to more hands on/ kid friendly things.  First stop was Bear Country.  Essentially a drive through zoo in which Caden got a very nice nap :) and Mikayla got to sit it in the front with me while looking at and getting very close to reindeer, big horn sheep, wolves, mountain lions, buffalo and of course lots of bears!  Caden woke up just in time to see the last animal, the buffalo and he thoroughly enjoyed it too.  

Next stop was Reptile Gardens where we enjoyed a bird show, an alligator show and a snake show.  The kids also got to "pet" a snake, a crocodile, and enormous tortoises.  We ended our fun "kid" day with root beer floats and milk shakes.

Harney Peak

That night my expert hiker brother-in-law planned a hike up Harney Peak.  It is the highest summit in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains.  It is 7,242 feet, 3 miles up and 3 miles down and takes about 4 hours to hike to the top and back. Brian and I planned on joining Nathan, my sister-in-law Kerry and Brian's dad for an evening hike.  Turns out we had pushed our children to their breaking point that day and after a not so nice meltdown at the pool I realized I couldn't leave anyone else to deal with the impending disastrous behavior so I decided to stay back.  Apparently it was incredible!  Difficult, but definitely doable and they all had a great time!  I really wished I had gone but based on Mikayla's second meltdown, including standing in the field between our cabin and the bathroom and screaming that she didn't want to brush her teeth and then me accidentally getting locked out of our cabin with Caden screaming inside, I'm pretty sure I made the right decision.  Ah vacations with little kids, you gotta love it!

Crazy Horse

We probably would have skipped over this monument due to it's cost and it's uncompleted nature.  However, my grandpa visited this area a few years ago and raved about it and very much encouraged me to go.  So off we went to see what Crazy Horse was all about.  We got there and immediately slipped into a documentary type movie.  Half way through Mikayla informed me that this was her favorite movie ever!  While I did find it very informative, I don't think it made my top list :)  Anyway, we learned a lot and the monument really became spectacular when we learned just how big it will be when completed.  The fact that the faces of Mount Rushmore, something we just saw and were amazed by, will fit into the head area of Crazy Horse.  That probably doesn't make a lot of sense without pictures, but this monument is the side profile of a Native American, with an arm extended, riding on top of a horse.  The head and top of arm are completed right now, but we still got a sense of just how incredible this monument will be some day.

Custer State Park

We got to see "real" buffalo :)  Okay that's really an inside joke, but we did get to see wild buffalo and lots of them!  This required another couple hour drive, but it was so worth it to see herds of buffalo, burros (aka donkeys), antelope, and prairie dogs all up close.  So close in fact that we fed and pet the burros!  With a picnic lunch in between and ending with swimming in Sylvan Lake, our Custer experience was simply perfect!

We then reached our last day in the Black Hills, we packed up and began to head east.  With a few stops, one including lunch by the Missouri River again, we made it back to Sheldon, Iowa with very little difficulty in about 8 hours.  We unpacked the car, again, did some long overdue laundry and got some Pizza Ranch take outs.

Our final event for this trip was our niece's baptism.  Heidi and Ryan were so kind to squeeze this in so we could not only be present for the baptism, but also for Brian to be able to baptize his niece.  It was such a blessing to be there for that.

Well our 2 weeks were then officially over and we said our very difficult good-byes and headed east at 9:30am on Monday, July 23.  We made it back to New Jersey at 10:30am on Tuesday, July 24... in one piece.  The trip wasn't as event free as the way out but we were able to make it without stopping despite an elevated level of crankiness, and not just from the kids!

I can very confidently say that this trip was worth every mile, every minute in the car and every dollar spent.  The smiles and laughter (which were abundant!) outweighed every difficulty.  I know Caden won't remember it at all and Mikayla will probably only remember small pieces, but I still think it was so priceless to spend time together with family but also spend time together with just the four of us.  We needed time away, we needed time together, we needed a break.  This was one time (actually one of many) that I was thankful for our "not so smart" phones.  With no access to e-mail or Facebook our minds were able to rest. 

My sense of adventure was definitely awakened and I really hope to see more of the United States in the future.  Yellowstone, Glacier, the Redwoods, the Grand Canyon,  I want to see them all!  And I might even consider trying camping in the more literal sense.  Maybe a tent?!?!  Maybe for 1 night to start?!?!  We'll see :)

Sorry for the length of this post, but I thoroughly enjoyed reliving each moment and I know no one except my parents would sit down and listen to each and every detail :)  I've got my pictures down to 750 and all uploaded to Shutterfly so hopefully I can share our beautiful pictures soon!