Saturday, July 25, 2009

South Dakota is action packed!

Okay... so South Dakota isn't really all that action packed. Nonetheless, hello from South Dakota! You are officially reading the blog of the only family in America who takes a vacation to somewhere like Minnesota and South Dakota instead of the beach. :-) We have been gone since Wednesday and we've had tons of fun. We water parked it in Wisconsin Dells for two days, camped behind the county fair in Blue Earth, Minnesota for a night and now we're happily set up in Rapid City, South Dakota. We're waiting for Patrick to get back from a mountain bike ride so that we can go check out Mount Rushmore.

We've had so much fun. First of all, Wisconsin Dells is THE place to go if you want to spend a few days going to gigantic indoor/outdoor water parks. The place is crawling with them. And if you're lucky enough to have a scaredy cat 6 year old girl, you might get to hear such jewels as "No! I'm going to die!" and "You're trying to KILL ME!" as she claws frantically and tries to get out of a family intertube on an arguably calm and pleasant water slide. It was definitely an entertaining two days.

Patrick was SO excited because he'd found a free campground in this little place called Blue Earth, Minnesota. As an added bonus, there was a huge statue of the Jolly Green Giant. That pretty much sold me on the idea... Anyway, the campground was actually at the county fairgrounds and you could camp free for 48 hours. Of course, that applies 51 weeks of the year when the fair isn't in town. What are the odds of us pulling up in the middle of the fair? Seriously? We camped free anyway and I can't decide if it's #1) because they were gracious hosts or #2) because they thought it would be hilarious to park us directly behind a big barn where they were later going to be having a dance with music so loud I'm convinced you could hear it in Kentucky. On the bright side, Patrick finally started snoring and then - out of nowhere - abruptly woke up singing along with Sweet Caroline.

Now we're in Rapid City. We stopped at the Corn Palace and Wall Drug on the way through South Dakota. The Corn Palace has fabulous popcorn balls and I don't know if you can order them online but if you can, I suggest everyone buy a box. Wall Drug was a neat old west style town. The kids really enjoyed it. Griffin enjoyed peeing in the parking lot. So it was a win-win for everyone. I'm busting at the seams to go see Mount Rushmore. It better be as amazing as I imagine it will be or I'll be down the rest of the day. I will post some pictures from the trip with my next post.

I think we're off tomorrow to finish our trek to the ultimate destination: Colorado! I am in love with Colorado and if I could find a job while we were out here and get a relocation package, we'd probably never come home. :-)

To be continued...

3 comments:

  1. I think it is awesome how you all just go in your camper to all of these little towns and just find things to do, I love it!! Sounds like so much fun, I want to see pictures!!! Oh and those popcorn balls sound really good!!!

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  2. I really enjoy your sense of humor. You write humor very well. And, I love the stories. BTW, it's amazing how often the kids remind me of Patrick when he was young. :) If you guys ever make it out this way, you've got to come see us!

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  3. Sounds like you are having fun! I desperately need a vacation but lucky me has to go back to school in a couple weeks:(

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