Our Excuse of a Vacation

For any of you that keep semi-tabs on my family, you know that taking off in the summer WITH my husband is almost impossible. The original plan was to make a day trip out of going to A Day Out with Thomas. Our 5-year-old is a diehard fan, so tickets to this event were part of his birthday gift. As time wore on, we realized that Slade's annual leave was maxed out, so he took a few extra days off. (The only way for him to TRULY get a day off is to leave town completely. He spent 5 of 7 days working on his last "vacation".) So, three days and about $500 later, we had the only thing we could truly call a "vacation". And we were never further than about 120 miles from home.

We started off by taking in the Central States Fair. Now a person could have tipped me over if they had been any where near me when I learned that for each of my children, a day pass for the rides would cost $25. Couple that with the fact that my 2-year-old is about 1/2" too short to ride many rides alone....we were going broke fast. Since he couldn't go alone, and we didn't want him to be left out - Slade went and bought yet another $25 wrist band. UGH. The rides are disgusting and rickety, and the smell of fair food about made me SICK, but it's all about the memories, right? RIGHT?

Do they not make "conventional" carousels anymore? What in the hell is that thing Taylor is riding?

Spencer on the slide. ICK. But he loved it.


If ever I can get over the germ and dirt part of a fair, I might almost enjoy it. Except, wait, I stood on black ashalt all day, so I didn't enjoy that either. No, I don't think I ever will enjoy it - unless it involves lots of beer and loud music at the Coors tent. But that tends to get me in trouble.

From here, we fueled up and headed on to Belle Fourche to see Slade's folks. His sister and her family were also due to be there, and we hadn't seen them in 5 years. Sad, considering we live about an hour and half apart. Oh well - due to life's circumstances, this happened - but we're hoping to be "over it" now. Slade's folks have a great back yard. I know his Dad spends lots of time puttering back there. We both loved it. Now to figure out how to landscape ours a little so we don't hate it. Slade's nephew and his girlfriend are great with our kids, so entertaining them was not our problem. YAY!

This is nephew Brett toting Taylor around in a 5-gallon bucket.

Spencer with his Aunt Chanda

Because Slade's folks live in a home of about 700 square feet, we rented a room for the evening at Motel 6. (Yes, they left the light on for us.) Let me just say - I don't recall ever having stayed at a Motel 6...but it was lovely! Cleaner than most 4-stars I've ever been in, and there wasn't anything they didn't think of. The only complaint was that they don't serve continental breakfasts.

To my surprise, they did have an indoor pool, so the next morning we waited until it opened at 9:30 to go for a dip. I'm glad we did as this turned out to be our only chance for swimming! The guys convinced me to get in too - bikini and all. THANK GOD we were the only ones there! I had to take note that this was the first time in 11 years of knowing Slade that we swam together!

Love this picture of the kid that HATES the pool.

Just so you know how lovely I look when I'm first awake and drenched.

Photography by our 5-year-old. I was terrified he was going to drop my camera in the hot tub. Don't you love the coon eyes I'm sporting?!

After our swim, we cleaned up and headed for Spearfish. They have a beautiful fish hatchery there. And the best part is - it's free! Slade took the boys to feed fish while I found the original hatchery superintendant's home and got a tour. I love stuff like that. I wanted to pick that house up and bring it home with me. It's over a century old, but it lacks nothing when it comes to detail. Here are a few of my favorite shots from there. Dani, please excuse my crappy photography. I know I must make you cringe. :)

After about 2 hours at the hatchery, we headed to Pizza Hut for the buffet. It was every bit as wonderful as I had been hoping. Slade and I had both been craving it since seeing a commerical a few weeks ago.

We took off to drive through Spearfish Canyon, en route to Keystone. However, my husband failed to tell me that this would be nearly 70 miles of hilly, windy terrain - completely crowded by tourists. Somewhere in the middle, my pedal-happy husband let us out to see Roughlock Falls. The boys could have played there forever, but I was freezing to death. (Yes, in August in South Dakota - I was cold!) And I knew it wouldn't be long before they found mud.

Here's where the trip started to get miserable. Because Slade insisted on driving with the windows down, my allergies were killing me. I was almost carsick, and he couldn't figure out why he had a 2-year-old kicking the back of his seat. Well, duh. No person, including myself, is terribly interested in spending a perfectly fine day trapped in the car speeding through hilly terrain at mach speeds. But whatever. I finally convinced Slade to lie to the kids and say "5 more minutes" when they asked how much further - I wanted to believe it more than they did!

FINALLY, we got to Keystone - a neat little tourist town that I love. All my life I had been wanting to do the Alpine Slide. Basically you take a ski lift up a nice "mountain", where you can see Mount Rushmore from the summit - then you can ride down a 2000 ft slide on a bobsled looking thing. It was every bit as fun as I had imagined. I wish we could have afforded to ride about 3 more times - but at about $23 bucks each time for our family, we decided once was enough for this trip. At the top, they have a neat little bungalo-looking restaurant nestled among trees and flowers - I can't wait to eat up there. Here are a few pictures of us at the top. Taking pictures coming up and going down was impossible for me, though I did try. I won't share those feeble efforts.

We had reservations for a lodge with an outdoor heated pool in Custer, so we jumped in the car and headed that direction. Slade ignored my hints to stop at Prairie Berry Winery where I thought I could score a few Christmas gifts. Oh well, it was better that we didn't seeing how the kids would have been less than impressed with a place like that.

When we arrived at the lodge, I jumped out to go check in and was smacked with a sign that said "Due to flooding on August 17th, the pool is CLOSED". Cripes! That was our evening plan! Slade and the boys found a playground while I checked my email. Finally we went to Dairy Queen and had the most disgusting meal ever. That place was filthy too. But it didn't stop me from indugling in a Brownie Earthquake Sundae. We got back to the hotel around 8, twidled our thumbs for a bit and finally turned out the lights. That may be the first time in 25 years that I've been to bed at that time on purpose. I sure wasn't sleeping, unfortunately, as the bed was hard, the pillow was way too fluffy and there was a streetlight shining through the only miniblinds right into my face. Really, I'm not a big whiner.

Despite having gone to bed at 8pm the night before, we slept until after 8am the next day. None of us were too keen on moving very fast. Our agenda for the day was simple: Flintstone Park, lunch, Thomas the Train, home. The rain didn't stop us, but it did slow us down a little.

I have fond childhood memories of Flintstone Park, but I also know who the Flinstones are. My kids saw it as nothing more than a big park. They didn't care about the characters, the house and Bedrock "replicas" or any of that. Had all of the Flintstone stuff been replaced by SpongeBob, they would have thought they were in heaven. But they loved the park and the train ride they got.

Me with the leading ladies of the morning.

The boys and their Dad making wishes with pennies at Mount Rockmore.

Spencer had to stop and watch the train every time it went by. He comes by it naturally seeing how Slade's Dad's family were all railroad people.

Taylor had to try on a water buffalo hat. He kept saying "I'm a bull!"

Finally it was time for lunch, and Slade recommended the grossest looking little dive for our meal. And then he parked behind the joint. If you've never looked behind a restaurant - Don't. We ate - and my meal was about as good as my Dairy Queen experience from the night before, but I'm not one to turn away even bad food.

I had been begging since the night before to find a laundromat because I knew what the weather was predicted to do, and I was right. The boys were out of clean jeans and sweatshirts - and I didn't want them going to Thomas looking like complete ragamuffins. After denying a nasty little laundromat in Custer , we found a really nice one in Hill City. Slade and the boys were able to spend the time throwing rocks in the creek behind the building, while I robbed internet access from the hotel next door and caught up on a few things.

FINALLY, it was off to Thomas. The boys were fairly excited, but the weather was starting to dampen the mood. Most of the activities were under big tents, so we didn't get too wet...but it's still exhausting to be cold and damp. We arrived about an hour and a half before our train departure time, so the boys got to play at Imagination Station, meet Sir Toppum Hat and spend more money I didn't have in the gift shop. Oh well, ya only live once. When it was finally boarding time, we were pleased to see that because we put it off until the last minute, we rode in Annie (passenger car) ALL alone! Taylor was asleep within minutes. Take away the blaring Thomas music and give me a blanket, and I would have been right there with him. I could have bumbled along that track all day under the right conditions! As it stood, we rumbled backward for about 10 minutes, then rumbled forward back into the station. Fooled the kids, but I was smart enough to know we hadn't gone anywhere. :)

I forgot to mention - the dirty engineer cap that Spencer is wearing actually bears some significance. At Slade's folks' house, we were visiting before getting in the car, when I said something about a conductor hat. I have no idea what it was because I don't even remember thinking about it. Slade's Dad disappeared into the house and came out a while later with this ancient filthy old hat. He said it had belonged to his father (who was a real engineer for the railroad back east) and said he would love for Spencer to take it and wear it on his special Thomas day. I thought that was very sweet.

After Thomas, we headed for home - stopping only to pick up Scout at the "dog hotel" and grab a (finally decent) meal of McDonalds! Oh, and I made Slade stop at Walmart so I could buy some African Daisies for my pot on the front step.

I'm still not unpacked and I don't have plans of doing it anytime soon - however, I also don't want to "vacation" again for a long time.