Well there comes a time when you have to let your children spread their wings, and for our daughter that time came this summer when we drove off to Wisconsin so she could start her freshman year of college. To make our time together more meaningful, we turned the road trip into a mini vacation; just us girls. We traveled from California through Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Minnesota, finally arriving at our Wisconsin destination. We took silly pictures, and did silly things along the way. Here I will share some of our adventure with you!
The first thing we discovered, was that some states along the interstate are definitely are not as exciting as others. They were long, flat, and boring — we had to get inventive to find things to do.
We had not planned on staying in Las Vegas, but after we ate, and wandered around some in the heat, we decided that maybe it would be a good idea to grab a hotel for the night, and start our real adventure the next day. Once we got checked into our hotel and settled in the room, we explored Circus Circus. First we went to the Adventure Dome, (the rides seemed so much more exciting when the children were younger. I gambled a little while Kelsey enjoyed a cup of coffee at a little cafe. Then we went and saw some of the circus shows, and played a little in the arcades. Kelsey videotaped us being very unsuccessful in the arcade area. After dinner, we decided to take a walk on the strip to go see the new pirate show at Treasure Island. After a tiring walk (it was hot), we arrived a to see the 8:00PM show just to find that they decided to cancel it due to “high winds”. There was a slight breeze, but I am not sure how they could have defined it as wind. We decided to head back to the hotel and get a good nights sleep before we pressed through Utah the next day.
Our second night we camped in Utah. As we were traveling light in regards to camping equipment (the car was filled to the brim with stuff she needed at college), we had some rather unique meals.
A Delightful Meal
The next day we took off, not sure what our destination would be.
Well, the parts of Wyoming we hit were just about as exciting as the interstate in Utah. We decided we would zip through the state and head as quickly as we could to the Black Hills of South Dakota. We stopped at rest stops, saw our first wild life, and I found a geocache.
Kelsey at Independence Rock
Well, even in the city, it is wild life
We finally arrived in Spearfish, South Dakota, found a campground, and set out to plan our next few days.
1st Destination — Deadwood, South Dakota
We spent a few hours exploring Deadwood, Kelsey thought it was fun to watch me play a few slot machines. I love old western towns, and this one was very historic. We even found a cool estate sale in one of the casinos they had a cool bar top that was encased in pennies.
That's a lot of pennies!
After enjoying a nice Chinese lunch, we headed off to see Mount Rushmore. We made a quick stop there for a few photo opps.
Mount Rushmore and State Flags
Then we headed off to find a campground in the direction of Custer, South Dakota, and ended up making quite a few side trips along the ways. The story told by the pictures below.
A street named after Roy!
I soon discovered that Kelsey likes to have pictures taken with a variety of things, and she insists that those with her do too!
If there had only been room in the car for all of them!
Mama, Poppa, and Baby Bear?
Best Friends
Can I bring him home with me?
Wow! There are wineries in South Dakota, granted the wines were made with berries other than grapes, but it was still fun tasking them. Some of then were actually quite good. To bad I could not take liquids on the plane back home, so I could not bring back any to share.
After a good nights sleep, we went to Custer State park, where we were treated to some spectacular wildlife. We went there mainly to see the roaming buffalo herds, and we were not disappointed. I can only post our still shots here, but we were treated to a wonderful group of stampeding buffalo, and have an awesome video of it. Below are some the pictures were took there.
First our Donkey friends. These animals are descendants of the ones brought there by the early minors in the area. The roam freely through the park, and frequently come visit the tourists looking for handouts.
Our Donkey Friends
Does he was a ride?
Below are some more of our “live” animal friends:
Large Buck
The Patriarch of the Herd
After a fun morning with the wildlife, we were hungry and headed into the town of Custer, South Dakota for lunch. Before we ate, we just had to check out a cool thrift store, and have a couple photo ops with the “wildlife in the city. I plan to make a couple piggies for my front yard!
These were awesome buffalo works of art…..
After an amazing time spent in and around Custer, we continued on our way through South Dakota. No trip to the black hills would be complete without a side trip to Wall Drug. My it has expanded since I was last there. They added an addition onto the back side — oh no — more things to be photographed with!
Well, we had a great time at Wall Drug, I won’t bore you with all the pictures of us there, but for two coffee fanatics (I roast my own green beans at home), the 5 cent coffee was certainly a draw.
From there we made our way to The Badlands, unfortunately, my pictures did not do justice to the awesome landscape, I know next year we will definitely be focusing most of our trip on the Black hills.
Once we ran out of the beautiful landscape of the Black Hills, are pictures became fewer and far between, we did make a few for stops though on our way to Wisconsin. No trip would be complete without stopping by the Corn Palace in Mitchell. Notice they have already changed the front to reflect 2009. Each year they redo the outside. Inside there are photographs of what it looked like each year since it was built.
After leaving the Corn Palace we headed to Viborg, South Dakota. It is a VERY small town where both of my parents were from. I use to vacation there almost every summer growing up; but the saying is true, you can’t go home again. It had been 20 years since I was last there, and my how it had changed. My grandfathers store that he had ran from 1920 to 1950 was boarded up. The only thing that brought real joy to me was finding that the old park I had played in was still there. I doubt anyone still uses it, since they now have a modern one built in town, but it brought back memories. They still had the same play equipment that I played on! It was rusted, and termite infested, but it was still standing. I remember my brother pushing me on the merry-go-round until I was so dizzy that it would make me sick. Notice it is crooked (it was that way even way back when!)
From here we pretty much made a mad dash to Wisconsin since going through Minnesota on I-90 there was not much to stop and do. I did find a couple geocaches, but that was about it. We ended up spending a few days in Madison, Wisconsin before heading to Kenosha. (We could not get a hotel in Kenosha since the Harley Davidson riders were celebrating the 101 anniversary in Milwaukee, and hotels just were not available. No worries, we found plenty to do in Madison. They had a really nice mall, and Kelsey was able to get some “real” winter clothes; another down jacket, and a nice down vest. We visited a farmers market at the state capital, and discovered it was opening football day, wow those Badgers were crazy. We didn’t take many pictures there, except with our cell phones, since we were tourists that wanted to travel light. On Sunday morning, we left bright and early for Kenosha, we got Kelsey settled in (she is loving it there). There is some adjustment to sharing a room that is 1/2 the size of her bedroom here, but she does not mind.
I flew back to California on Wednesday. We had tons of fun, and I can’t wait to fly back in May and document our drive home. We will head back through the lower states!
