Road Trip

Beginning in Rapid City, SD, (after a connecting flight in Minneapolis, MN from Atlanta) we headed out in a motor home in a loop covering over two thousand miles through South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah.  Visiting several national monuments and other places that caught our attention along the way and staying at KOA's to rest,  it has been a trip to remember. 



Day 1: Thursday, June 3rd

Today we left for our journey West.  Awoke @4am to leave for Rapid City, SD via Minneapolis, MN.  Got out on the 2nd flight (flying standby, of course, is always a gamble) and were thankful for it!  A different story in Minneapolis, however, for we were basically there from 10 am to 10 pm. A very long day!  Alex and Tim both weren't feeling well.  Tim had a fever and slept most of the day with the exception of moving from end to end of Minneapolis' airport to change concourses no less than 4 times.  The airport there is rather large and you have to walk everywhere...a tram takes you from concourse A to D (I think) but all the others require walking.  It was unusual to be flying the former Northwest flights...made me appreciate real Delta flights all the more.  A lot of kinks they need to work out yet, especially on bringing the staff up to speed on how Delta runs things.  The boys handled themselves marvelously through all the hours of waiting, especially considering that they didn't feel well.  Many grandmas and grandpas complimented them on behaving so well. Scott got on an afternoon flight (still not sure how that worked out) so he was able to go ahead of us an pick up the RV and get the shopping done for our trip before the rest of us got there.  That was a blessing, since the rest of us didn't land until after 10 pm.  We stayed at the Rapid City KOA.  The campground there was very nice...and close to the airport, which came in handy.  It was so nice to fall asleep somewhere other than in an airport chair! :)

Day 2: Friday, June 4th

We woke up and enjoyed a leisurely morning at the KOA...the boys were feeling okay in spite of awaking with fevers and extremely sore throats.  Before breakfast, they played checkers outside on this huge board made of different colored pavers.  They had a lot of fun doing this.  I think one of the boys wanted us to make one in our yard when we got home.  A nice thing about KOA's is that they make pancakes for breakfast every morning (some of them are just weekends).  All you can eat pancakes for $3...not a bad deal really.  Once everyone got ready and ate breakfast we headed out for Estes Park, CO.  That was going to be our final stop along our way, but the weather forcast was so bad for SD, we decided to reverse our route and begin in CO and end in SD.  

One of our destinations was on the way, so we went and toured Wind Cave Nat'l Park.  It was a nice break on a long car ride.  The history of the cave in very interesting...the points of interest about the cave are as well...but I've been inside (shall I say) "prettier" caves.  A good stop.  You can read more about Wind Cave here:  http://www.nps.gov/wica/historyculture/learning-about-the-park.htm

Aside from the boys both having fevers the entire way, the day's journey went well.  They both slept alot and were very lethargic when they were awake...not like them to be that quiet.  Was able to add a new state to places I've visited along the way...Wyoming.  I had never been to Wyoming before this day.  From the way it looked we must have stopped at the only gas station for many, many miles...alot of miles go by inbetween glimpses of civilization out there it seems.  We pulled into Estes Park's KOA around 9 pm their time.  We had gained another hour, so we were off Eastern time by 2 hrs now.  Very hard to figure out which time zone we were in at times...and I'm still a little off today even after being home 4 days.