Home sweet home

We did it!

We drove 4,621 miles....

Lin took this gem early on in our road trip while I was driving.

We made it home just before 11:00pm last night and were pleasantly surprised to find our lawn mowed. A big thank you to whoever did that for us! We also found our cats well cared for thanks to Grant and Tommy. Argos is still at Matt's (another ex-K9 handler) but Lin will grab him today. Argos is not the easiest house guest so we really appreciate the fact Matt and his family were willing to put up with him for just over 2 weeks.

We drove through nine states: Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota and Wyoming.

We visited seven national sites: Stones River National Battlefield, Badlands National Park, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, Jewel Cave National Monument, Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Devil's Tower National Monument and Wind Cave National Park.

We camped in seven different spots: Ferne Clyffe State Park (IL), Lake Vermillion Recreation Area (SD), Cedar Pass Campground in Badlands National Park (SD), Game Lodge Campground in Custer State Park (SD), Lewis and Clark State Park (IA), Lake of the Ozarks State Park (MO) and Old State Fort Archaeological Park (TN)

Here of some of our best of:

• Best campsite for view - Lin, Emily and Aaron: Cedar Pass at Badlands National Park Aidan: Lake Vermillion Recreation Area

Cedar Pass Campground view 

Looking another direction from the Cedar Pass Campground

A view down to the Cedar Pass Campground from the Notch Trail.

Lake Vermillion View 

• Best campsite for facilities - All of us: Lake Vermillion Recreation Area
• Best overall campsite - All of us: Game Lodge in Custer State Park

Such a great campground it is constantly booked up. We booked our site 365 days in advance.

• Favorite activity - Aaron: Minuteman Missile National Historic Site Visitor Center and tour of the command center. Aidan: Going to the Moonshine Gulch Saloon in the middle of nowhere (Yay! My infamous bike trip got a vote!) Lin and Emily: The hike to Little Devil's Tower in the Black Hills.

Taken inside the Minuteman Missile Control Center

Aidan on the way to Moonshine Gulch Saloon

View from the top of Little Devil's Tower Photo credit: Lin

• Favorite animal sighting - Lin: Bison Emily: Chipmunks - I miss the cute little critters but they are hard to get pictures of. Aidan and Aaron: Burros

Taken right before Lin accidentally made the truck beep which did not make the big bison happy!

• Best Resturant: Lin and Aidan: Cousin's Pub and Pizza at the Big Chair Emily and Aaron: Black Hills Burger and Bun Co. Both of these are in the Black Hills.
• Best local drink - Lin: Crow Peak Brewing 11th Hour IPA Emily: Prairie Berry Winery Red Ass Rhubarb wine. Both are located in the Black Hills.
• Favorite car activity: Rubberneckers game
• Best Rest Areas - South Dakota and Missouri
• The boys favorite picture - A pronghorn peeing on a prairie dog burrow. It is the one squatting in the middle.

We are all speaking to each other. I think we all had our moments of frustration etc (except Fred - he remained is happy go lucky self the whole time. Even Dizzy got a little snippy at times.) but overall it was a wonderful experience not only to see other parts of the country but also to visit with my Dad and Gail. None of us wanted the trip to come to an end and all of us would do it again...maybe not tomorrow...but for another summer adventure.

Dizzy is tired from all this traveling!

There is so much to do in South Dakota. Lots of people looked at me like I was crazy when I told them where we were going. I think the only ones who didn't look at me that way were the people that had already been. I can't say enough good things about their parks, the people we encountered and the beauty of the state. If you haven't been I recommend you add it to your list and spend some time there. We were in the state for nine days and I still have a list of things we didn't get to do that we're saving for our next visit.

We didn't get lost much. Actually I think we only had two real mishaps. One was on our way to South Dakota when we got turned around trying to find Stones River National Battlefield and another in Missouri when we were literally driving in circles until the boys pointed it out to us. We are still laughing about that one. Traffic was amazingly good until we hit Atlanta on our way home. I think we only saw two major crashes and only had a few slow downs due to construction.

Atlanta traffic jam

We have a new appreciation for rest stops and truck stops. Rest stops were great for picnic lunches that not only saved time but were often healthier, cheaper and tasted better than the fast food we could have stopped for. The last two days we didn't have access to rest stops at meal times and we definitely missed them. Truck stops generally had better and cleaner restrooms than regular gas stations and were easier to maneuver the camper in.

Fred and Aidan chilling at a rest stop in South Dakota

One of our many picnics during the trip. This one featured White Castle.

As for the camper we love it and are all so happy we made the change before going on the trip. We had everything we needed and got good at set-up and breakdown. As I mentioned several time we love the big back window and the increased interior space.

Turning off my phone was a great decision and I think I will do it again. For the most part I had notes so didn't need internet access to figure out things like restaurant options but did use Lin's phone for that sort of thing a few times.

As noted in my last post I plan (yes-plan) on embracing my planning skills in the future. It worked well for us to have campsites booked. As for activities I can be flexible about those but think having the options researched to some degree helped us decide what to do.

Speaking of planning - Yes, I do have our next adventure planned. On October 12th we will be heading to Topsail Hill Preserve State Park in the Florida panhandle for the weekend. I'm going to be running the 30A Half Marathon with Team FTC and the boys are all coming along to enjoy a beach weekend - and cheer me on if they make it out of bed that early. Over and out until October!

Done wandering

Saturday, 7/28 7:00am - Here is a little recap of Thursday since I didn't have a chance to post on Thursday night or Friday morning. Thursday we had a fairly relaxing morning but I choose to go run since I hadn't had a lot of time to do that when we were in South Dakota. It felt good to get out again after a little break even with the hilly terrain.

The boys have been great humoring me as I take pictures of them by every sign. They had some fun climbing this one.

I also discovered why I didn't see any of the poopy geese in Iowa. They have a little hidey hole for sleeping so they went to bed before we arrived and didn't wake up until after we left. I did see plenty of geese while running and they did not like running. Every time I would run by them, carefully dodging their poop they would hiss menacingly at me. I used to like you Canadian geese but now I'm not a fan!

The geese emerging from their lair.

We carefully budgeted for this trip. We had gas money set aside and a daily allowance that would roll over if we didn't use it. We ended up with left over money so we decided to rent a set of wave runners for a few hours to explore the Lake of the Ozarks. We decided on two hours since the cold front and associated rain was close on our heels. The boys - including Lin - loved them and had a blast roaring around the lake but I was not a fan. Actually I hated driving it. Aidan tried to convince me that it would be better if I just let him drive it...ha ha ha...that did not happen. What did happen is that the boys took turns riding with Lin because nobody wanted to ride with me. I don't blame them and am happy that they had the experience but next time I'll save money and rent a paddleboard or kayak as those are more my speed. I'm glad I tried it once and did have fun exploring the lake a little with them. We went back to the campground for lunch and to hang with the dogs for the afternoon. It ended up not raining too much and we enjoyed having a little relaxation time. I actually took a nap and enjoyed some treats from Gail and Angela.

Delicious rhubarb strawberry muffins made by Gail and my favorite drink, fizzy water, from Angela.

We headed out for dinner, running a few errands first. Dinner at a local BBQ place was tasty. I have a picture from that but not a lot of pictures for the day since the exciting part involved water.

Now onto Friday. Let me start by saying I really didn't want this vacation to end. Well that sentiment is now gone and I'm ready to be home. Tennessee did that to me. I do know some very nice people that live in TN but over the years my personal experiences in the state have not been positive. This experience took the cake.

We left our Lake of the Ozarks campsite around 8:45 am yesterday morning and had a lovely drive through the region on country roads.

We even did some off roading according to the GPS.

We decided that we did not want to go through St. Louis on a Friday so opted for the slower, more relaxed scenic route. I enjoyed seeing a different area. We also got to see farms with something other than corn or soy. It is truly amazing how many acres of the country are covered with corn and soy crops. The only downside was that we couldn't find a place to picnic but we made that work by eating in the car. The drive was long but overall it was fine. 

It was around 7:30pm and we were rolling into our park for the night - Old Stone Fort Archaeological Park in Tennessee located just south of Nashville. A little history on the selection. When I was first planning this trip I thought it would be a great stopping point. At some point in the planning we added the bit in the Lake of the Ozarks so I also came up with another option further down the road near Chattanooga. When I presented both options to Lin he picked the Chattanooga one so I booked it. Fast forward to our trip up to South Dakota. At that point we decided that maybe Old Stone Fort would be a better option so we canceled the Chattanooga one and booked one of the last sites available at Old Stone Fort.

So 7:30 last night we were rolling into the park feeling good with our decision to select this site, since driving for another two hours and setting up in the dark did not sound appealing. We got to drive over this super cool bridge on the way into the campsite and there was even someone at the campground office to check us in. All of us were happy to get to our site, get settled and head out for dinner in the town next to the park. That was until we drove up to our reserved site #29 with our name clearly on the post and found someone else totally set up in it. That has never ever happened to us before. Let me tell you, I was tired and hungry and wanted them to get the hell out of our site. So I marched up to the door to politely tell them they were in the wrong site only to find that nobody was home. They did have a dog in the camper with a burning candle so obviously not the brightest individuals. I asked some neighbours if they had seen the people and one informed me that they had left with some other people and were not currently in the campground. Lin convinced me to get back into the truck and we went back to the campground office to call the Ranger on Duty. He wasn't that reassuring but did tell me that he would try to figure it out even thought they were completely full.

We decided to go get dinner while we waited for him to figure it out. Luckily the place we went had an abandoned business next door so we parked the truck and trailer there while we went to dinner. Also the cold front came in handy as it wasn't super hot so we could safely put the dogs in the trailer while we ate. Dinner was edible. While at the restaurant I called other nearby campgrounds in hopes of coming up with a backup plan. No backup plan since things were all full. About half way through dinner I got a call from the Ranger. He had not been able to make contact with the individuals in our campsite but when looking through the reservations noticed that we had two. Two???? How could that happen? We only made one last week. That's where my planning and subsequent forgetfulness saved the day. Apparently back in January, I had booked site #21 at Old Stone Fort so we had a site after all!

After dinner we made our way back to the campground, first stopping at Walgreens to get anti-itch cream since the boys got tick bites in Missouri. We made our way to campsite #21 in the dark and found it EMPTY! Yay! After a little initial frustration we were able to figure out a method for getting the trailer backed up in this heavily wooded park in the pitch dark and were set-up by around 9:30pm. I was done interacting with people so opted to try our trailer shower which we had never used. It was wonderful to take a warm shower at "home." and now we know it is a viable option when we need to use it.

This morning I woke up to a beautiful view.

The site I apparently booked back in January is perfect. It is located on the quieter loop with a view of the river from our back window. One other positive from the whole experience is that since we had to haul our trailer to dinner with us we didn't end up having to unhook. That will make our departure today even easier.

Fred and I took a walk to the cool entry bridge.

This experience leads me to two conclusions.
1. I'm not meant to be a wanderer. I will embrace my strength as a planner and will at least book places to stay each night on our trips. Last night with the prospect of nowhere to hook up to electric, have a shower and generally settle almost drove me to tears. Some of the places we have been this summer one could drive up during the week and probably secure a site but I can't deal with the uncertainty. I think it would stress me out and take some of the joy away from the overall experience.
2. I will never camp in Tennessee on a weekend or holiday ever again. We almost made the blanket statement that we would never camp in TN again but they have so many beautiful parks that we don't want to miss out on. I would even want to come back to this area due to some of the surrounding activities and the general beauty of the park. So TN we may give you another try during the week while most people are working and therefore not available to steal our campsite and generally be obnoxious.

Universe, we got the message and will be heading back to Gainesville today. The trip has been wonderful and I look forward to our next one. I will do one more post when we get home before signing off until our next adventure.

Cold fronts and goose poop

Thursday 7/26 6:30 am - Yesterday I woke up fairly early, especially when you take into account the time change. I was awarded with this view.

We have been enjoying our big back window throughout this trip. So glad we opted for the rear living plan over the bunkhouse plan even with the boys sleeping inside the camper for the majority of this trip. This is the first long trip that I'm not really feeling like I need/want to go home. I would be perfectly happy to keep traveling. Having the extra room due to the slide makes a huge difference. We still love our new camper and haven't encountered any issues as we have used it.

Back to the day. I took the dogs out for their morning walk and dodged the piles of goose poop everywhere.

It is bigger than Dizzy poop!

The weird thing is that the poop was everywhere but I didn't see a single goose! I loved the morning view of the sunrise but if we ever stay here again would select a site away from the water so we could skip the goose poop.

We left our site early and fast after looking at the weather. The front that we outran on Tuesday was catching up with us and although the more severe weather wasn't predicted until later in the day we really didn't feel like driving in the rain if we didn't have to. We pulled out at 7:45 am. Goodbye Lewis and Clark State Park. You were good for a quick overnight but I wouldn't make it a destination.

We were out of Iowa by 9:45 am and well on our way to our next stop - Lake of the Ozarks. As you can see the clouds were chasing us. At times it looked like waves in the ocean.

Aaron missed most of the drive. He made himself comfortable by wrapping himself in pillows and snoozed for most of the trip.

We stopped just outside of Kansas City for a rest stop picnic lunch. I made chicken salad for sandwiches the night before and it is a new favorite lunch treat for the family.

We arrived at Lake of the Ozarks State Park around 4pm and got set-up fairly easily except that I forgot that we had a slide and didn't take into account the space it needed when guiding Lin. Luckily it just fit but it was so tight that it made me nervous so we just pulled the slide in a tad. We are staying here tonight as well and are happy to have a mini break from our drive home. We have a beautiful site right on the lake.

After the night before I was worried about the potential for goose poop when we were pulling up. Turns out geese like flatter areas so the lakefront spots that are flatter are filled with goose poop but our steep site is poop free!

We filled in our sticker as we waited for dinner to heat up. States that were added include: Illinois, South Dakota, Wyoming, Iowa and finally Missouri.

After dinner we took the dogs for a quick walk over to the marina and beach area. I have never seen so many friendly deer. They weren't even phased by the dogs.

After our deer walk we watched the sunset over the lake. I barely kept my eyes open to see sunset and went to bed soon after. There was so much to see in South Dakota that we were on the go almost constantly. It was all fun but I think it all caught up with me and I was just exhausted. I got a good night's sleep last night so today should be better.

Sort of wandering...

Tuesday, 7/24 10:30pm - Today was the closest we have come to actually wandering. Originally we had a fun afternoon and overnight at the Badlands planned and reserved but after hearing the forecast decided to head further east. We had successfully dodged getting hail damage during our time in the area and didn't want to risk damage by staying one extra night. Seriously I should have taken a picture of some of the trailers at our campsite. It was pretty severe.

At first we thought about going back to Lake Vermillion which we really enjoyed but decided to head into Iowa so we could add that sticker to our map and also have a shorter travel day tomorrow. It is the first time I have traveled without reservations. I did use Lin's phone to check the number of walk-in sites at a state park right off I-29. It looked promising so we decided to chance it.

It was hard driving past the Badlands. We all were looking forward to our planned adventure there but we'll just have to save it for our next visit. All of us loved the area and would like to return at some point.

Our first stop was at a rest stop in the middle of the South Dakota prairie. Apparently there are plenty of snakes at the rest stop but luckily we didn't encounter any!

Lin really wanted to go to Taco John's. I guess there used to be one in Gainesville and he had fond memories. We had seen signs for them on our travels to the Black Hills so we decided to stop at one for lunch. The billboard advertising for the one we stopped at had the slogan "Easy off, easy on." I don't really know what they were trying to promote with that and it didn't really make me want to stop but I can appreciate fond childhood memories so we gave it a try. I got a taco salad and it wasn't too bad. The boys all seemed happy enough with their meals. It is basically like Taco Bell but maybe a small step up. I forgot to take a picture of our Taco John picnic overlooking the Missouri River.

The time between Taco Johns in Chamberlain, SD and the exit we took to head south to Spirit Mound felt incredibily long and I-90 was super bumpy. Lin and I were a little tired and frustrated but luckily the boys were asleep for that portion so they didn't have to suffer. Even the dogs were asleep.

Next stop was at the Spirit Mound Historic Prairie that I originally wanted to stop at on the way up but we ran out of time. Lewis and Clark walked nine miles out of their way to visit this big mound in the middle of the prairie. The Native Americans believed that there were little evil sprites that would shoot them with arrows if they approached the hill. It was very peaceful and we saw and heard lots of birds and insects. Nobody in our party was shot by any arrows although I have to admit due to time constraints we didn't make it up on top of the mound.

After that we got dinner at a little take out restaurant located in a Ace Hardware in Vermillion, SD. I waited outside with the dogs and Lin questioned whether I was sending him in for food as a joke. A little weird to have restaurants in hardware stores but the food was fairly good.

Aidan was over the drive and over me taking pictures!

One more hour to the place we were hoping to camp. We watched another beautiful sunset while making the final push to Lewis and Clark State Park in Onawa, Iowa.

We were able to snag a site and got set up relatively easily. It is a pretty park on water not far from the Missouri River. Unfortunately due the proximity to water the bugs are plentiful and the geese have pooped everywhere. Fred enjoyed having a little extra dinner tonight! Ironically we ended up in site 13 at this park which is the same number site I had reserved at the Badlands. Still sad about missing out on more time in Badlands NP!

View from our campsite. According to the local news the cloud on the horizon is a thunderstorm forming in South Dakota. Glad to be viewing from a substantial distance.

Well, we won't get carried off by a tornado tonight but we may well be carried off by mosquitoes....  As I'm finishing this Lin and Aaron are doing a good job trying to massacre the influx that flew in when we were shutting the outside door. At least we don't have to go out again until we head out tomorrow. Oh and I was successful at killing most of the house flies we had picked up in SD. They were a little sluggish after their travels in the warm trailer.