SUMMER ROADTRIP 2014: The Drive Out - or - Great American Kitsch!

Good heavens, I think this is the longest blogging break I have ever been on.  I had all intentions of blogging during our vacation, but it just didn't happen.  We were really busy and I tried really hard to get to bed at a decent time most nights so I wouldn't be wasted the next day. So I will try to catch up as best I can over the next few days.

Just know that our trip was Awesome. (With a capital A.) And long. But mostly awesome.

This year we decided to make a little detour on our way to Utah.  Instead of driving straight through on I-80, we took a northerly route so we could spend a few days in Yellowstone. This meant two long days of driving just to get to Yellowstone, then another long day from Yellowstone to Provo, all the driving while in Utah (and there was a lot), and then two long days home.

It was a lot of driving.

But my children were champs.

I'm not saying they were perfect.  There was still a bit of whining, a little crying, some yelling and threats (from us), fights in the back seats we could ignore, fights in the back seats we couldn't ignore...  But overall?  My kids are excellent travelers.

I did most of the same things I did for our last roadtrip: new games and toys for each child, a notebook full of facts and games and stuff for where we were going, tons of DVDs, and - most importantly - snacks.  Remember all of those snack sized Ziploc bags I scored for so cheap at Sam's Club a while ago?  I figured out that those fit perfectly into the cheapo Sterlite shoe boxes, which happen to fit perfectly under the seats of our van.  So I put personal portions of tons of random snacks into the bags and threw them at to hangry children throughout the drive.

I am - and I cannot state this clearly enough - a genius.  Well, at least when it came to the snack thing.  Seriously, the kids loved it and it made life one-bazillion times easier than portioning snacks out into cups or whatever it was that I used to do.  We are never going back to the old and now-forgotten method of snacking on road trips.

Okay, so, the trip.  Here's a map that I made the kids so they could follow where we went. (It's not perfect, but close.)

So we drove and drove and drove some more.  And it wasn't that bad.  We had lots of potty breaks and stopped for lunch... somewhere, I don't remember now... maybe in Iowa?  And we drove and Tess and Cole realized, after asking several times each if we were there yet, that we were serious when we said we were going to drive a long, long ways.

In the late afternoon we finally made it to our first "big" stop: the famous Corn Palace of Mitchell, South Dakota.  What?!  You've never heard of the Corn Palace?!?!  Well, you are not alone.  None of us had.  But I had read something about it on Trip Advisor and there were tons of billboards for it and we all needed a break out of the car, so off we went.

First we had to get a pictures in front of the big fiberglass ear of corn.

Here's the Corn Palace itself.  It's under a bit of construction, so it's not nearly as grand as it normally is, I'm sure.

See all the mosaics and stuff on the side?  All made of corn!  Very exciting!

The inside was this big arena, with stadium seating on one end, a stage on the other, and then on the basketball court in this middle was all this corn stuff/souvenirs/whatever you could ever hope to buy.

We browsed, and I was very tempted to buy a corn keychain to put next to my cabbage keychain, so then when people asked about it I could say "Oh, I got the cabbage keychain on a quick trip to Taipei, but I got the corn keychain while traveling in SOUTH DAKOTA!!"  But the chance of that ever happening was not worth the $10 they were asking for the corn keychain.  Oh well.

Spencer gave a thumbs up for the idea of gummy corn.

Josh was not fond of the idea of gummy corn. (I had to agree.)

We of course had to take the obligatory corny pictures.

And some on the tractor as well.  Because if there's a tractor inside, it must be climbed on and photographed!

As you can see, the place was pretty big and could hold a fair number of people.  As you can also see, our little family lowered the median age of visitors by quite a bit.

That night we stayed at a hotel in the metropolis of Oacama, SD. (Population 460.)  We got a suite with three queen beds in it.  We were all exhausted and travel weary, but that didn't stop Tess and Cole from staying up all hours of the night giggling and talking and being generally naughty.  Lance and I finally gave up and fell asleep before they did.  Rotten kids.

The next day we had an early - but MUST SEE - stop: Wall Drug. If you've ever driven within 500 miles in any direction of Wall, SD, then you've seen the billboards for Wall Drug.  For a detailed history of the place, click the link, otherwise, just know this: it is a big tourist trap.  And we knew that going in, so we knew what we were getting into.

It was pretty amazing.  It was huge and kitschy and crowded!  Stuffed to the gills with knick knacks and signs and statues and stuff to buy.

These types of statues of wild west types were everywhere.

Here's the courtyard in the middle of the complex.

Here's a giant stuffed gorilla who would play the piano for $.50.  (We did not deem it worthy of $.50.)

There was also, of course a giant jackalope for the kids to climb on.

Tess refused to get on, in case you're wondering.

There was also - of course - a giant animatronic dinosaur that growled and made a fuss every 12 minutes.  So we had to stick around for that.

Terrifying!!

The walls of this place are just covered in photos from the 1800's and knick knacks and things.  I thought this display of the different types of barbed wire was a good representation of what you would find.

See all the photos on the walls?

Here's part of the cafe, but it wasn't that crowded yet.

Watching the dinosaur - these three would not get close to it at all!

We decided to have ice cream for lunch at the Wall Drug.  They had kind of an old-timey ice cream counter.  The kid who served us was German, which was interesting.

Spencer got pumpkin pie.

Tess got "pink". (Strawberry.)

Josh got vanilla.

Cole got chocolate - so did I.  It wasn't that great. (Not gross - just maybe not the $2.89 we paid for each cone!!!)

And goofy Lance got raspberry.

After lunch we loaded up again and made our way to our next - and biggest - stop of the drive out: Mt. Rushmore!

I have seriously always wanted to go to Mt. Rushmore, but not enough to ever just make a trip out of it.  Since it was pretty much on the way (as much as it ever would be on any drive) we decided to go.

We braved the crowds, paid the ridiculous $11 to park, and walked through the heat to see this.

You know what?  It was pretty cool.  I mean, it was a lot closer than I expected it.  It's an American icon!

But it was hot.  And crowded.  And my kids were not very happy.  A nice lady offered to take our picture, but Spencer kept freaking out about how bright it was.

So instead of putting his arms up he hid behind us.  That punk.  So these are the closest I'll ever get to having a family picture at Mt. Rushmore.

Mr. Cole with the Mr. Presidents.  Cole was pretty impressed.  When we came up the hill and saw it he kept saying "Oh look! On the hill! There they are! Oh look!"

A few pictures either Spencer or Josh took - I can't remember now. George's head was cut off in this one, so we had to try again.

 Tess would have none of it.  She probably couldn't figure what all the hubbub was about.

Growly growl.

So before our trip I made my boys read books about Mt. Rushmore and Yellowstone, because I'm that kind of mom.  And Spencer wanted a picture on the avenue of flags because in one of the books it basically said (and I am not exaggerating here) "Every tourist with a camera HAS to take a picture on the avenue of flags at Mt. Rushmore", which we thought was pretty funny.  Since we had a camera we HAD to take a picture.

By this point we had only been at the park a good 30 minutes, but we were all ready to leave.  The kids were in no mood for hiking or the museum, and really, if you're not going to do that what else are you going to do?  (Besides take pictures.)  So we made a quick stop at the gift shop for a refrigerator magnet (because that's what we do) and got back into the car.

Where we drove very slowly behind a dang motor home. (These became the bane of our trip.) Seriously, buddy, just pull over.

But we did get to see George peeking through the pines, so that was awesome.

More George... and the motor home.

We finally ditched the motor home, only to hit a lot of road destruction.  Trying to get out of that blasted state was kind of a pain.  But look how happy our children were!

 The aforementioned road destruction.

So very happy! (I think we were just all glad to be back in the air conditioned car.  It was hot!)

So we drove and drove and things were pretty boring in Wyoming (as they are wont to be) until we hit the Big Horn mountains, which were pretty spectacular.  Only it's hard to get pictures from a moving car (we weren't willing to stop).

And there were signs everywhere telling you which prehistoric era the rocks had been formed during.  A geologist dream, I guess.

And at one point we got stuck behind a ginormous RV going up the pass, but he was kind enough to let us by.  But then on the way down we stuck behind this Camry who, I can only guess, was terrified out of his gourd about going down the pass and only went like 35 MPH.  You can imagine how happy that made Lance, who was driving.  It seriously probably added a good 30 minutes to our drive, he was going that slow, and there was no way to pass him.  Curse you, terrified man in the Camry!

So we got out of the mountains and drove and drove and drove for what seemed like an eternity (but it wasn't really - it was just at the end of two long days of driving) until we finally got to Cody, WY, which would be our home base for the next three days.