On the road again!!!
The Midwest has “dinosaur gas.” What that means is that certain gas stations have a dinosaur in front of them, and kids climb on those dinosaurs. Today was the day that we finally fueled up at a dinosaur gas station. Sunshine and Atticus have been BEGGING us to stop at every single dinosaur gas station we pass, and we are those super mean parents who continue to tell them no. “When you have your own kids, you are welcome to stop at every corner on the block to climb and look at every dinosaur.”
Since we rarely take the main interstates, our way took us past Pierre, South Dakota. I had no idea a capitol city could be beautiful. I think what we are learning is that when you are in a state with so few people, there are not as many people to destroy things.
I have learned something important about dads on this trip. Dads are prideful of their roof rack travel junk appearance on a road trip. For example, if I say, just to be bratty, “That guy has a bigger pile of junk on the top of his car, and it is strapped down really well,” Brandon will get all defensive: “That dude’s stuff is touching the top of his car! His roof rack is too small for that load! That guy doesn’t have a roof rack at all! He must not care about his car.
Here’s the deal. I drove 5 kids around the country for 4 weeks no big deal, everything fit fine in the Suburban, no issues. You throw a dad into the mix and suddenly you NEED a bunch of junk such that you need to use the roof rack AND purchase a hitch rack:
* You know, that astroturf won’t take up much space, and it’ll make camp really neat! (We have used it one night).
* You know, I have this great camp stove that takes up hardly any space (half the cargo space) and runs on regular unleaded. You don’t even have to get camp fuel like a fool! (That camp stove basically engulfs itself in fire unless you treat it like a princess. Judah calls it “old Bessy!”)
* Look at that guy! His hitch rack bins look like they come from Walmart! Won’t last as long as my $125 bin from the outdoorsman store! It was like a gentleman’s Walmart in there. No ladies wandering around. (Great, Popi, just stuff the pillows in and let’s get on the road.)
I think they call this a micturition tournament. Or something like that.
It is remarkable that as soon as one crosses the Missouri River, one is in the West. This is not simply a cultural/social observation. The entire landscape, the air, the weather, changes. We have gone from the tall grasses to the mixed grasses, and we will shortly arrive in short grass land.
We have also found the badlands. Whenever we come here, we tell ourselves that we will backpack here one day and explore these crevices and crannies. We are closer to that dream than ever.
There was an important discovery among the ranks in the past few days: Brandon has never been to Wall Drugs. We must take him **evil, maniacal laughs* The last time we were in South Dakota, we were in desperate need of a finger splint for a kid who had a suspected fracture. I saw the sign: “Wall Drugs!” Bonus: “$.05 coffee!” Nice. I’ll put all my eggs in that basket, drive past one hundred tiny towns that may or may not have a drug store and coffee, and stop at Wall drugs. This drug store must be enormous. 5 aisles of nail polish, at least! If you’ve been to Wall Drugs, you know how wrong I was. Nuf’ said. It would be a bit of sweet revenge if Wall was hit by a tornado (killing nobody) and Wall Drugs leveled.
Brandon properly hated the whole place.
Well, we made it to Rapid City. I am unimpressed. It has been 10 years since we last were here, and in those 10 years, Rapid City has grown from a small town of maybe 30,000 to a city of over 100,000 if you include the outlying communities. I remember the cute little cowboy town with a sweet little university full of dinosaur bones and geodes. Now there are a lot of Targets and Starbucks coffee shops to navigate. Ew.
“You’d better get us back on the prairie if you want to convince me to live here,” I said, in my best princess voice.
The kids are having fun playing games and hanging out, our campsite has a pool and laundry, and we have a guy who has taken a break from his dad contest to pull out Old Bessy to make dinner. Things are pretty good, even if we are missing Brookings.
Recent Comments