Long drive home!

 August 19th, the kids and I took off with my dad on a 4 day adventure back to Edmonton. A few months ago when we were planning our summer trip, we decided it would be best for Chris to fly home so he could get back to work and the kids, Chloe and I would drive. Now...I know better than to drive 24 hours alone with the kids so I asked my dad if he would want to ride along.  Ended up...he drove the entire time and I was so thankful to have him and to spend the quality time together.

On Friday we drove from Decorah to Rapid City, SD. It rained off and on the whole time, but otherwise no problems at all. We stopped in Wall to see what the big deal with Wall Drug was and turns out...it was no big deal. Just hundreds of signs telling you to stop was a tourist trap! We ate ice cream and got back on the road! That night we checked in to our hotel, ate Applebees, went swimming and went to bed.

Saturday, we got up early and did a tour of the Black Hills. First we started with Bear Country, USA. It was basically a drive through zoo. It was pretty cool and a definite highlight for the kids. The best part was all the bears. They were just walking around your car, playing, eating...just going about their day! We were supposed to keep our windows up at all times, but I wanted to see a little clearer so I opened mine and quickly got reprimanded over a loud speaker to close them! They were watching apparently:)

'

After Bear Country, we headed to Keystone to see Mount Rushmore. It was so cool when we got to the point in the road where we could see it. Thankfully, it was a cool day (65 or so) so we were able to leave Chloe in the car with the windows cracked and head in to see the monument up close. If it weren't around lunch time, I would have loved to stay longer. There were some really neat things in the museum about how it was constructed, the people who did it and lots about the presidents. Next time!

The picture below is from the road...I think it was my favorite view because it just came out of nowhere!

                                       

Each flag represents one state and below it says when that state was admitted to the union. 
                                      

Max and Mya were obsessed with taking videos and pictures of everything on this trip! So they hauled their ipads everywhere. 

After driving out of Mount Rushmore I looked out my rear view window and saw George's face sticking out! 

Next we drove to Custer State Park, but quickly turned around when we got to the entrance and realized it would take us 3 hours to get through the park! Instead we took off and drove to the Badlands. It ended up being a little bit of a disaster, but we eventually made it there. When we left, we took a different road and realized that when we were in Wall, we were only 8 miles from the Badlands! We definitely should have done it on the way in. It was a breathtaking place. The pictures just don't do it justice. If you ever get a chance to go, I highly recommend it.

Sunday morning we got up early and headed to Bozeman, MT. On the way we stopped and drove through Sturgis, SD. It was a Sunday morning the week after the big motorcycle get together so not much was happening! We also made a stop at the Battle of Little BigHorn..aka Custer's last stand. It was pretty neat to take the driving tour through the rolling hills that this battle took place. It was too hot to leave Chloe on this day, so we didn't get out and tour the museum or anything. But the kids got a lesson on taking away land from the Native Americans, so it was worth the $20 entrance fee for 30 minutes of time there. When we got to Bozeman, we checked into our hotel and headed downtown for dinner. We ate at a really great outside diner and had a wonderful night. I fell in love with Bozeman in about 4 hours. Very cool place...if any of our kids decide to go to Montana State, I'll be okay with it:)

                                               cemetery at Battle of Little Bighorn below

Monday we headed home! It was a long day (11 hours) and terrible conditions...windy roads with 80mph speed limit, lots of wind, smoke from the forest fires and then rain! It wasn't great and I was very grateful that my dad was driving. He was white knuckling it, but we made it home safely and were pretty happy to be home. My dad flew out Wednesday morning. Phew!! It didn't feel as crazy at the time as it does now when I'm writing it all down!