Today would have been my Oma’s 98th birthday. It is also this girl’s 12th birthday!

It is appropriate that they share a birthday, as they are very much alike. They are outwardly quiet and appear to be easy going and always gentle. Inside they are analytical, fierce, perfectionistic, and utterly brilliant. My Oma went to college for a degree in mathematics and learned how to program computers back when women were not going to college for mathematics, much less learning how to program these newfangled computers. She loved to collect tiny things from her travels, and everything in her house was exactly where she wanted it to be. She was unbothered by what the world thought of her. Instead, she mastered her corner of creation and made it beautiful. Sunshine asks questions about theology and philosophy, understands her school subjects almost with explanation, has an interest in and grasps abstract concepts, and adores all things tiny and adorable. Her bedroom is picture perfect, her toys and things are perfectly organized and in the proper place, and she is unbothered by what the world thinks of her. Both have graceful and feminine confidence that can rival and beat the loudest, snarkiest, militant feminist.

One of the benefits of a July birthday in our family is that you may spend your birthday in a new, magical place.

She wanted presents, pizza, rice krispy treats, any dessert that included free access to ample sugary toppings, a trip to water, and some kind of fun park adventure, like mini golf, or a trampoline park.

Of course, whatever you want, miss princess.

We brought her presents, we got her pizza, we found a rice krispy treat, a frozen yogurt shop where the toppings were beyond ridiculously plentiful, and then headed to the trampoline park.

She’s always been a bouncy baby girl. We weren’t so sure she would be anything but sickly until she was about 4 months old. My midwife wasn’t happy that I had a sonogram at 5-ish months, she said it would harm Sunshine, but the room was very silent as they looked at her. There was something very wrong, they thought. They sent me to a 3D fancy pants ultrasound guy to get a clearer picture. What he found was a large hole in her heart. My doctor didn’t think it would close up well without surgery. I was ok with this. Babies are not always well when born. Then my water broke early, and she wouldn’t get ready to be born. 3 weeks later, she finally got sick of all the acupuncture and bouncing around I had to do to start labor. But then she was huge, and wouldn’t come out. For three days we tried everything to get her out. When she was born, the operating room went from concerned, to silent, to negative silent. She was huge but not well. They wouldn’t tell us what was wrong with her. He NICU pod mate was the smallest baby they ever had at that hospital. Sunshine was 2 weeks early, but 11 pounds. He heart was swishy and working ok, but that hole needed to close up, and they were only giving it a few months. She didn’t want to eat. She wasn’t comfortable in any position. She was so fat that her cheeks covered her mouth and nose so she could barely breathe. And they wouldn’t tell us what was wrong with her. For four days we sat and waited and tried to get answers. Nobody would talk to us. There were tiny babies near death to take care of, and this enormous baby with a mom sitting there all day and night didn’t need to be attended to. So why were we there? This was the best NICU in the county, maybe in the state, maybe in the world, and we sat and sat without answers. We figured out that she just wasn’t an urgent case, and so we would be on the back burner indefinitely. We wanted to go home. So we transferred her to the hospital next to our house. As the paramedic wheeled her out to the ambulance, the lead NICU doctor ran out after us. He was baffled. We were baffled. We had been trying to meet with him for 4 days, and here he was looking angry that we would dare move out of there. “She has pneumonia. If she doesn’t get good care she could die.” Um….ok. The NICU doctor at the new hospital happened to be best friends with Dr. Baffled.

Well, here’s the thing. Sunshine takes her time. You don’t rush this girl. She knows exactly what she is doing, and she does it her way. She’s not particularly bratty, and her ways are not unreasonable. In fact, what she wants generally corresponds to what everyone else wants but couldn’t quite put into words. She came home when she was ready. She hated nursing, and she wasted away to only 14 lb. at 6 months old. She refused to eat. I switched her to my own formula concoction, and she loved that. Maybe it was what she had been asking for all along. Her heart healed and by 2 months old, the murmur was hardly detectable. By 4 months, it was gone. Her doctor was surprised and pleased. He told me, “She is a very sweet and contented baby for having such strong likes and dislikes.”

Well, here we are today, still amazed that she is such a sweet, contented person for having likes and dislikes of steel. And she loves to jump, to climb, to dance, to sing, but always gracefully and effortlessly.

When Sunshine was 1, our family went on a road trip with our tent trailer. We put our sweet babies to bed, Sunshine got to sleep with the big kids, and settled in for what promised to be a great night’s sleep.

Something screamed. There was something right outside the trailer. We checked the door, it was locked. We were half asleep, falling over one another. The kids were sitting up and looking around in wonder. We counted them. One, two….where’s Sunshine???

There’s that moment in parenthood when you question everything. You question your adulthood, your ability to drive, all of your life choices, your own IQ, your very existence. That was the moment for me. Somehow, Sunshine was outside of the trailer, the door was still locked, and the rest of us had slept through whatever happened.

We fetched our screaming baby and discovered that the Velcro on the tent part of the trailer had failed, and baby girl had fallen through the hole, somehow didn’t become tangled in the rope of the cinch cord, and landed squarely on her head. She sat on the ground under the trailer looking quite betrayed, and questioning about us all the things we were questioning about ourselves.

She slept in the hole where the table was the rest of the trip.

Downtown Sioux Falls has this vintage vibe, lots of crumbling buildings left as historical markers, a train yard, an airport, and a river running through it.

This family loves water.

This is our kind of place. There is a large sign at the river that tells parents to take responsibility for their own kids. Kids can get hurt here, so let them play, but know their abilities and if they get hurt, deal with it. At first, it is hard to process that this means that kids can play in the river. There are no rails or chains or barriers. People can go into this river. Right there in the middle of this big city. What magical place is this?

The buildings along this stretch of the river are the remnants of an old wheat mill. The mill had many stories, and each level took wheat from its original form a bit further toward flour. I imagine all the settlers that did not die because of the jobs provided by the mill. It must have been hard work, and sometimes dangerous. The mill would have been cold as the winter approached, and likely workers had to leave their families on farms on the prairie to work at the mill. These ruins are just a tiny bit of how the personal character and hardy attitude marking this area were developed.

The kids found some animals in the river, much to their delight. Sunshine found Tamagotchi in her pile of presents.

So we like Sioux City. When we took a poll earlier in the trip, we were somewhat split in our leanings between East and West side of the state. Now we are basically all in love with the East side.

We finished off Sunshine’s birthday with dinner at Cracker Barrel. This may have been their first time there. After dinner we sat on the front “porch” of the restaurant in those big rocking chairs, like weird tourists, and enjoyed the comfortable warmth of the evening.

We are ready to begin our trip home tomorrow. None of us wants to leave.

Happy Birthday, Sunshine!

Today was a driving day, and so a lot happened, but not much seemed to happen.

We realized that we had not explored Sioux Falls enough to know what the East side of the state is really like, and we need to experience all of everything here.

We took the 90 for speed. It was fascinating. Not only did we see tractor after tractor, we saw miles of the interstate torn up down to the dirt, piles of steel and concrete, rock crushers making small pieces of concrete out of the big pieces, and new roadbed being prepared. We can’t figure out why they take the road away down to the dirt. Good thing we are not road builders! Ha!

Atticus and Brandon are still sick, which is super fun. Brandon is no longer dizzy, but he looks like a sickly homeless man. Atticus looks like a cute little sick kid who cleans up his own puke, and spent much of the day napping like a champ. The rest of us are downing Oscillococcinum like weird hippies and imagining every little pang of anything is the flu coming on.

Sick baby boys are so sad.

We didn’t stop often today. The kids got wiggly in the car. At one point, Brandon got a work emergency and so had an hour of workation. When I peeked back at the kids, during a particularly naughty spat, I saw a lot of mischief and one angry princess back there. “What’s happening back there?” “Nothing” “Sunshine is mad because she lost Gold Grab again!” “Judah is cheating!” “No he’s not, he’s just helping Atticus!” “Let’s listen to a book!” “We can’t! Popi is on the phone! We have to be quiet!”

Ummmmm….time for earbuds and some St. Augustine.

When we did stop, it was in the middle of cornfields, a lost gas station that was planted at a time when someone thought a town might pop up. “This here’s gonna be a BOOMING town! Just you watch!” The gas station store had an odd man running it, and there was a hearty array of home-made snacks and canned goods among the scanty candy junk offerings. Brandon bought some “corn cob sugar pectin” and some caramel corn puffs. The corn puffs were, well, inedible, and the corn cob sugar pectin will remain unopened…forever maybe?

The rebels began to riot over hunger and thirst, but supplies were running low. There was a little place called Krispy Krunchy Chicken. Oh, wait, it’s at a gas station. It’s a box of chicken from a gas station. Nobody seemed to mind very much that it was basically chicken coated in salt with a little bit of flour. I ate veggies, and Brandon looked like he was having a flu relapse.

Brandon had contacted his family in Sioux Falls to see if we could have a speed visit, and I don’t think we have ever been happier to reach a destination.

This family is a group of 5 sisters and 1 brother, cousins to Brandon’s mom, and 3 of the sisters, plus a few young cousins, were there. They served us ice cream, spoke softly, were such midwestern ladies, and made me want to live close to them. I want my daughters to grow up to be like them.

These are the South Dakota cousins. One of the sisters lives in Minnesota and is a flight attendant married to a farmer. We have met up with her several times as she travels to San Diego from time to time. Once, we even stayed with her family for several days while we rested up on a cross-country bike trip. I got to drive a combine during that stay.

Tonight we are in Sioux Falls at a dumpy motel by the airport. It’s not really terrible. It does not have a water park, no fun campground friends, no cute dive bars close by. We have been spoiled.

Brandon’s planned vacation work day turned quickly into Brandon’s vacation flu day. We decided to get away from camp and let him be miserable with his germs by himself, and hopefully avoid getting his gross bug in our systems.

There were two items on our “let’s do that” list for today. First, we wanted to explore a tourist trap cave.

I am not sure how many cities go from City to wilderness in the space of 5 minutes, but Rapid City does. This cute little cavern shack promised to be as packaged and adorable as we wanted. The tour consisted of the five of us, and an older couple from Missouri.

This is where the tour started. There was a nice, big opening for us to walk through. However, do you see that hole up there on that canyon wall up there? See it right there next to the pine tree leaning out of the hill? No? You don’t see it? Well, neither did we, but some guy did see it! There was this guy gold prospecting in these here hills, and he got stranded in this creek-ish gorge. He looked up, and somehow saw a little hole. He somehow knew it was a cave, and he somehow knew he could fit into that hole. He is also the guy with the best eyes in history. That’s a fact.

Here’s something interesting: This cave was never a mine. It has only ever been explored by people who are looking for adventure and yet another tunnel.

Our guide was a young kid named Ean, a senior in high school. He had explored much of the cave, and knew how to avoided dying by becoming lodged in extraordinarily tight spaces.

One day, he said, a few years ago, he was giving a tour when a guest accidentally dropped his keys down a deep hole. Well, our guide knew that the way to the bottom of that hole was through a very tight tunnel 2.5 hours in and 2.5 hours out. When Ean was off work, he headed down the tunnel to fetch the keys. At one point, he became wedged in the tunnel and could not move in or out. Luckily, he knew how to hold his arms when going through very tight tunnels, and so dislodged himself. He said that had he held his arms differently, he would have been lodged in there, an hour and a half from the entrance, and nobody knew the tunnels like he does. He would have died there. When he got back to the cave shop where the man was waiting, the man simply gave him a high five, and told him thanks.

This 17-year-old kid, 15 at the time, talked about this like it was no big deal. He had to stay after work, unpaid, for five hours. He almost got stuck and died. The guy was barely grateful. Shoot, the guy OUGHT to have handed him $100, or a Jimmy John’s gift card, or at least should have asked what his favorite food was and went to fetch it while Ean was in the tunnel. But only a high five. And Ean was hardly phased.

If this is what the kids here turn out like, I want my kids to finish off here.

The couple on our tour were farmers from Missouri. The wife was maybe more chatty than any person I’ve known, and her husband was silent. He said maybe 10 words on the tour. She said maybe 10,000. She was, at first, quite hen-pecking about the kids. However. I told her that Judah wanted to be a row farmer like they were, and her entire demeanor changed. As she noticed that the kids were good and calm and respectful, she engaged them in conversation, and by the end of the tour, we were all great friends.

It was certainly the best cave tour I have been on.

The second item on our list was the alpine slide in Keystone. We drove the pine-forested road around the mountain, and up into the tourist-trappiest town on earth. As many times as we have driven that road, it is always beautiful. We always see deer, remark at the wooden arched bridge, the thick, bright green grass, and then you are suddenly in Keystone.

We were met with some bad news: because of some rain, the alpine slide had been closed for the day. Well, not the biggest deal. We were all tired, and the kids wanted to swim, so we headed back to the campground.

Even on vacation, we have trouble NOT making things, and the girls wanted to tie dye, so we did. Kiara is interested in ice dying, but we had no rack. Fortunately, we have a lot of sparkling water cans, because it is our dirty addiction, and so we piled them up and piled on the ice and dye. We found some nearly-free buckets at Walmart for the other project.

We are social distancing from each other tonight. Atticus has started to throw up, and there is a feeling of doom in the air. Brandon is in the adult tent by himself, I’m in the kids tent, and Atticus is outside on the ground with Judah some distance away. Brothers are the best!

This morning we went to church in Rapid City. There are no Anglican churches in Rapid City, so this time we went to one of the local Lutheran churches, and found a sense of family there. People welcomed us with opened arms!

Sunshine and the boys made instant friends, and even Kiara put aside her shyness for a second and talked with some people.

Some folks had lived in Rapid City their entire lives, some people had kids in college in Brookings, all love living in South Dakota and welcome families moving in.

Living in South Dakota means likely joining up with the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church, and we are wrapping our minds around that.

We were planning to go to the Hills Alive concert in Rapid City at night, and until then, we had a lot of laying around and doing nothing to do. The kids raided the s’mores supplies and ate Ramen noodles while we took naps. Parents of the year!

A realtor here gave us info on a few properties to look at, so we headed out to see some possible areas we might like. One was near the airport with possible water on the land. There were cows and prairie grass farms everywhere, and cute little farm houses. Any of these could work well. I remember the time I sold a landlocked piece of property in California, just 3 acres, to a couple who had money to burn, and the selling price was $350,000. Here, 20 acres of bare land goes for less than that.

Rapid City has several open spaces where people gather for all sorts of outdoor events. This state in general does things outside in the summer, presumably because you are shut up inside for 3 months of the year while it snows. Unless you have snowshoes and a snowmobile. Then life never stops.

Kiara and Sunshine almost immediately headed as close to the stage as possible since they knew and liked the singer Mandisa. We arrived just in time to hear her, and not a second sooner. I think the girls would have like to spend the entire weekend at the concert. Maybe sometime in the future they can do that.

This is what the boys thought of the entire affair.

We finally wised up and handed the boys some cash. They came back with funnel cake, water, and cotton candy. Such a healthy snack! Did I mention that we are parents of the year?

Atticus did find some friends to play with. He could make friends with a family of jackals. We timed it, and from the time I sent him off to find a group of kids to occupy his time, it took him 14 seconds to be involved in a football game. Judah and I were amazed. It takes Judah 58 seconds to solve a Rubix cube.

It takes Atticus less time to make friends than for Judah to solve a Rubix cube. There must be use for those kind of skill in the job market!

Before the night was over, Judah and Atticus were high up in a tree, and other boys were trying to follow. Some moms let them, some did not. No moms told my boys to come down, no helicopters came hovering around. Blessed South Dakota.

It turns out that Brandon has the flu, so his disinterest in the concert was somewhat less disinterest and more general malaise. This is going to get fun fast!

Today is “explore downtown Rapid City” day. We’ll need our strength. Good thing the chuck wagon chef brought his game on this trip and is wearing his food fancy pants today. If he makes something for me that isn’t vegetarian, at least it has bacon!

This camp ground has a pool, and that means that before we go anywhere, that pool needs to be tested out. One kid didn’t listen well when told to get out of the pool yesterday, and so he has to sit out the pool testing this time.

He kept yelling things like, “The shovel has a snake on it!” and “The lady has a cup on her shoe!”

The kid’s tent looks way more fun that our tent. They have glow-in-the-dark blankets, sparkles blankets, zebra blankets, cute stuffier, fireworks, and picture search books in their tent. We have a mattress, 2 boring blankets, and lots of work gear. Yawn. We need a tent disco ball, at least!

The kids came back wet and happy. “There are kids in the pool, and we made friends,” they said. Ah, camp friends. We have made many camp friends this trip. Camp friends are such a kid phenomena. I’m thinking that we stodgy adults need to get in on this trend.

Stop telling me that this town is cute. I’m still grumpy from having to leave Brookings.

As we drove into town, I was looking at the Rapid City crime statistics. Pretty grim. It turns out that Rapid City has a much higher crime compared to Escondido! Really? Escondido, home to gangs, extreme poverty, homeless pooping on the sidewalks, sex trafficking…really? Rapid City has higher crime? Huh. Something to call the Rapid City PD to discuss at a later time.

I was just reading the crime statistics to Brandon when a police car came speeding down the street, siren and lights blasting our sense, and he slammed to a halt not half a block from us, pulled out his gun, and captured…someone…wow. Ok, so maybe that was just a fluke. Surely it’s not that bad.

We chalked that up to coincidence, and parked to walk around. This place does have the cute factor. However, it’s a big city, and people are not as friendly here as in Brookings. There is a lot of signage letting people know what they can and cannot do. Don’t touch this. Walk here. Don’t do that. This is what a city may need to keep everyone in line. A smaller town has people who simply say what they expect.

There are toy stores on several blocks in downtown Rapid City. It seems that Who’s is the big name here. Their hobby shop had everything Judah and Atticus would ever want, including remote controlled cars and drones, and toys for their brains to feed on, as well as toys for them to annoy their sisters with. We took pictures of their favorites so that we could remember these when birthdays come around.

We ate at a downtown cafe that used digital menus, and the waitress was pleasant, but treated the job as a job. Fair enough. It is a job. She I did the job well.

In a small town, the job appears a bit incidental to the social experience. You’ll get to buy the thing you came for, but you’ll also get a conversation and make a friend. there is something very attractive about that lifestyle.

A quaint town goes from boring to delightful when there are interesting touches here and there. In Rapid City, one encounters the presidents of the United States on every street corner. It adds to the patriotic vibe here, and the kids enjoyed stopping at each one to read who it was and what the plaque said about each. Atticus was thrilled to FINALLY come across George Washington. “He’s my favorite. you know why?” “Because he has your name?” “No, because his name is George.” Oh, my mistake. He has your middle name. Silly Atticus George! If we move here, this will forever be his favorite place in town! Look how he even tried to stand like old George W!

Another interesting touch is the parks in this town. No two parks are even remotely similar. Now, no kid is complaining that all the parks back home in Escondido all have nearly the same play structures and look. A kid plays and doesn’t notice such things. However, there is something very important about variation. This is the park with the splash pad. Across the grass is another Who’s toy store, this owe with a patio featuring an enormous chess set and toddler playground. The train tracks next to the parking structure are heavily traveled, and the trains loud in all ways. There were signs telling kids not to climb on the rocks, but otherwise, kids were free to run and play. No helicopter moms in sight. No city employees lurking around waiting to yell at kids for having fun. The kids at the park, siblings and strangers alike, played together and looked after one another.

The people we have encountered in this state are something to be desired.

Tonight there was freshly-made beef stew at the church wagon. We are going to keep this chef around for a while!

Convince me to love Rapid City.

Today is day 1 of exploring this town we may move to. There are several reasons that we put Rapid City at the top of our list as we were researching.

1. Reasonable weather
2. Reasonable cost of living
3. Reasonable homeschool laws (downright great homeschool laws)
4. Lots of fresh air and sunshine
5. Outdoor activities within an hour away
6. Spectacular places to roam within 2 hours
7. The best swimming hole in the universe just an hour away

We approached the city from the south today, and it isn’t so, well, sprawling and ugly, as the northern approach. Today we drive around and take a survey of the areas around here.

To the North and West are the somewhat fancy areas, to the south is the farm area, and to the East is the Air Force base. We went North first. While there was an area with a street named Sunshine Valley, or something close to that, the price of land there is California pricy, so we drove on. Out of curiosity, we drove through Sturgis. Well, at least we know of one place we won’t move to! Lots of opportunity to sin there, that’s for sure!

We next went South to Hermosa. Now this is more like it! Prairie forever, some trees, rolling hills, a rodeo in town. The town is a rodeo and a post office and some kind of official looking building that is crumbling. This is my kind of town. We saw a woman walking to get her mail, and her long, flat driveway was about 1/4 mile long. She looked happy, and she waved at us. Prices here are more our style, for sure. There is a doomsday prepper’s property for sale just north of here with a few bunkers for when the end of the world happens. That appeals to my mischievous side. I’d like to tell people that I have several doomsday bunkers and just leave at that. Maybe that’s where we will live.

One thing you have to be aware of when camping in the Midwest is a constant possibility of thunderstorms. If you are in a tent, maybe you should get to somewhere less exposed. We decided to drive around town and wait out the storm. We did some grocery shopping at Safeway, which exists here because, well, it’s the West.

The kids were tired of driving around, and so we let them watch a movie. They chose The Wind in the Willows. This is the best collection of vintage Disney. Not only can we watch Toad and learn about friendship from Badger and Ratty et al., we get to learn about The Ugly Duckling.

You can have your vain, whining, malcontent modern Disney princesses. I’ll take this mama swan who brings stragglers into her fold with love in her eyes and outstretched arms. Selflessness over vice wins, in my book.

So much for day 1 exploring Rapid City. It grows on you. There is a lot to do here. It is far more like the lifestyle we are used to. People loved his city and stay here their entire lives. The entire spectrum of folks live here, from farmers to factory workers to soldiers. They all live here and like it well enough. Maybe we’ll give it a few more days to let it grow on us a little more.

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.

We left Brookings today.

I forgot to take a picture of the community pool, so here’s a quick shot of it as we blasted past.

So we are on the road again. I think I love Brookings and maybe want to move there. It’s not the most practical place to live. There are some drawbacks to a tiny town. For example, the dance studio is fairly limited. There is not Little League here. Costco is an hour away. But would those things matter? Can we dance a bit less, play baseball in another league, take advantage of the laws here the allow homeschooled kids to join public school sports? Maybe. For now, we will keep this on our list of amazing places, and find out what Rapid city is like.

But first, De Smet.

The last time we came through here, I promised that if we ever passed by again, we would go back to the Ingalls homestead and camp there.

This place is freedom. The kids hardly waited for us to pay for their entry, and we hardly saw them again except for in the distance for the next several hours. Atticus made friends with another boy who taught him how to rope. They all made rope. They all rode horses and drove the cart. This time, there was a little colt just a few weeks old dashing around it’s mother horse as she gave rides to kids. That baby colt…cutest thing since Atticus was born!

We peeked around in all the special places, the little dugout, the barn, the little house. There in the little house, what should we find but a pair of sweet orange kittens! Lucky little guys! There is no greater life for a kitten then to spend days getting pets from a hundred doting guests and nights hunting mice. Good boys!

Notice that Kiara is holding the kitten while Judah is practicing roping her head. This is chaos.

If anyone is wondering which Little House tourist trap is best, well, De Smet has our vote. They have the perfect number of buildings and places to visit. They have the covered wagon, and one of Laura’s schools as a stopping-off place. The kids get to drive the wagon, a harrowing experience.

They have a stage coach to climb on and sit in. Brandon hopes this is a miniature version of the real thing.

They have a vintage church that they brought from way off on the prairie to show what church might have been like then.

And they have farm equipment with these odd little chipmunks, or are they ferrets? Ferrmunks? They are adorable.

And they let kids roam here. That’s Judah off in the middle of the prairie. Not pictured is Judah crawling through the corn patch rather than taking the road. He appeared, muddy and overjoyed. His own tiny corn patch back home is thriving, and this large corn patch is his aspiration in life. This child so wants to be a corn farmer!

When all the employees went home, we set up our tent and made a fire. Well, the men folk put up the tent and made a fire. They also cooked dinner. The girls and I went off to find a perfect place for a photo shoot.

“Mom, can I do a photo shoot too?”

I turned around, and there was Judah Axton. These are the kinds of things you ask for when you grow up with sisters close on either side of you. Ok, Judah, we will find a place to get some pictures of you!

This is a beautiful piece of the earth right here. We went on a run in the tall grasses and came back to a glowing sunset. Kiara discovered that her shoes are a favorite of the local red ants. Hopefully those ants will go home tonight so she can use those shoes tomorrow. We have a big day tomorrow, as we drive from De Smet all the way to Rapid City!

I am officially in love with Brookings.

Here are the delectable details:

Small town feel
Farmers
Adorable downtown
College vibe without the clubbing options
Big stores available (Lowes, Walmart, Joann’s, etc.), but these stores are off the freeway rather than a town feature. You have to drive to them.
Perfect selection of needed stores downtown (coffee shops, restaurants, hobby shops, bike shop, dance studio, etc.
Water, water everywhere
Parks and places to play
People are Midwest nice
Farmers
No loiterers in town, yet no signs prohibiting such
Minimal kids on screens
Kids climbing trees
Farmers
Farms
An hour from a big city where you can find ANYTHING you want

Last night we left the kids in bed and visited an Irish dive pub where happy hour was from 3am-midnight, and what that meant was that even fancy drinks cost pocket change. Earlier in the day, I had seen the bartender outside the coffee shop applying for a job. “I have a baby on the way, and I need something with health care and more regular hours,” I had heard him say. And there he was at 9:00 at night, tending bar until midnight. His girlfriend worked a few doors down at the competition. His idea of a better job was at a coffee shop. In his defense, the coffee at the coffee shop was incredible, the service cheery and a social event, and the coffee shop closed at 6:00 pm. This is a man who is going to make this family work. There was determination in his face, and he couldn’t be more proud of that unborn baby. “He’s only 9 weeks old, but my girlfriend said I could tell people, so I am telling EVERYONE!”

There are good parents in this town, and at lest one is joyful in what could be seen as difficult circumstances.

I could spend the rest of my life here. Judah and I might just stay here forever.

Life happens even on a road trip. There are dishes to do, and each of us is expected to take care of their own dish plus pots and pans.

The natives were restless, and we knew of a very unique donut shop in town.

“Go to the donut shop!”

And they went. They walked. They walked halfway across town, crossed streets, walked past strangers, no big deal. You can do that in a tiny town.

We needed an oil change and some other maintenance done on the Suburban and had found a local shop that could get the work done. The kids were wandering the Main Street after donuts, the sugar high causing an aimless stagger, and we gathered them up one by one on our way to the auto shop.

Then we walked to the pool. This would be our life here, or in any small town. Walk here, walk there, walk home. Ride your bike when the distance is a bit far. Drive across town in 5 minutes.

Our walk took us across the railroad tracks, through pretty dirt alleys lined in flowers, and past vintage house after vintage house.

Every back yard we passed had flowers, whether those flowers were planted and tended to or not.

But all good things must end. There is a severe storm warning for tonight and we are in a tent. We needed to change that situation to avoid a sleepless night and a soggy lifestyle, so we packed up.

One of our neighbors at the campground came with his workshop hauled behind his house. He was an art fair leftover, on his way to the next art fair, and he was replenishing his inventory. I stared like a toddler as he climbed out of his enormous house on wheels, sauntered back to his enormous trailer, leveled his deck, and pulled out a saw, a vacuum contraption, and a load of Corian. Then he began to saw. In a campground. And nobody yelled at him! I can die happy knowing a place like this exists.

He told us that he left his job as an auto shop teacher in Rapid City to pursue what he loves, making art and selling it. “Kids don’t take auto shop anymore,” he said. I wanted to tell him that my son would love to take auto shop, but I didn’t think my excitement in meeting him would show through those words. I understand exactly where he is coming from, anyway. It’s why I have taken leave from teaching philosophy. Kids don’t want to take a class on thinking well any more. The difference is tat my class is required. I teach kids to think under duress. There is nothing good or lovely about such a job. In 10 years when the question is asked, “Where have all the teachers gone?” just look for them at the art fairs and in the gentleman homesteads. Chances are they are still teaching, but not in the boxed up institutions where souls go to die. But enough of that.

Micro Donuts. That’s a better topic. That’s right. I said micro donuts. Have you ever wanted a donut, but not an entire donut? And then you go to the donut shop, and not only are the donuts boring, they are also enormous donuts. All you want is a reasonable donut. Like a bit of a donut. And you want cute little topping options, made to order. Pink and white vertical stripes and a cutesie logo would be a plus, but not a chain. It’s gotta be a mom and pop. And you want a California-transplant-turned-midwestern-mama running the place. Sigh.

Stop the car, folks! Micro donuts to the rescue! People, this place is a slice of heaven! You can order “normal” donuts, if you like, but they won’t be enormous. But what you end up ordering are teeny toy-sized donuts with perfect toppings like cotton candy, hazelnut-chocolate, lemon cream, Boston cream, or something called “snow sugar” that makes your mouth smile for a very long time!

The rebels were rioting from deathly hunger, so we grabbed sandwiches at a place sporting this sign ^^^^, appropriate for my kids who now want to come here wearing ONLY shoes and shirts, and headed for the hotel. This hotel had a water slide inside of it. There was a brief conversation about whether it is safe to swim inside during a lightning storm, a conversation that was not resolved, and the kids headed off to swim. We went for drinks at the hotel restaurant.

This traveling with big kids thing is growing on me. We get just a few years of this before they rightly abandon us to their own lives, so we are soaking it up.

We lived in Brookings today.

But first, a cicada came out of its shell on our tire! These guys fill the air with their music and wander around in their sludgy, brown bodies until one day, they pop out, all green and shiny and beautiful!

Kiki put this guy on a leaf by the creek so that we would not squish him.

I needed to get some work done, like laundry, so I dropped everyone off at the community pool. 100’s of people gather there, so we figured it would be a great place to observe the folks who live here. The community pool in this town is a kid’s dream There are huge water slides, kid pools, an enormous swimming pool, a snack bar, a playground at the neighboring park, and no helicopter moms. Hang on, what? No helicopter moms? In fact, the age to go to the pool without an adult is 9 years old. Yep, that’s right! A 9-year-old could potentially ride a bike to the pool and go swimming. With the exception of a few pre-teens, all kids were playing nicely, no meanness, helping little ones, watching out for one another. Even the few rowdy kids looked at the life guards and followed directions when told to behave. The lifeguards were just kids themselves. There is an obvious respect for authority and fellow humans here. Just another mark in favor of Brookings.

We spent a lot of the day at the pool. I went down town and did some laundry and looked around a bit. Main Street sports several coffee shops that serve great, locally-roasted coffee, antique shops, outdoor shops, a bike shop and club that leads bike rides several times per week (Why, yes, I DO want a place with group bike rides!), little pubs, a pizza place, a place to do laundry, a dance school, and several local eateries. There is a children’s museum, library, and post office, as well, in the downtown area.

I picked everyone up and we headed to Nick’s Hamburger Shop. It appeared to be run by a family, even the young teen son was working there. It was a great little place, even if they didn’t offer a vegan/vegetarian option. I think a person who wanted that (me?) could, over time, make friends with them such that they’d have a veggie burger in the freezer. That is the kind of place this is. Everyone knows one another.

Apparently, yesterday Judah and Brandon spent the family fortune on fireworks. Judah used up all of his little car fireworks, and wanted more. However, no luck. This place is open until midnight. Huh. I guess they are opened until midnight IF they open at all. Today they were not opened. I am pretty sure Judah will grow up to be a fireworks engineer.

So, of course, we sent the kids off to light fireworks while we lounged around camp.

At this point, the kids don’t want to leave this town. They think this might be the only place like this. We keep telling them that there are other places to explore, and that it’s not this town in particular, but this entire area of the country that is like this. People are nice here, they seem to care a bit more. Small towns have more pride in their buildings and houses, and there is less crime. The kids are used to seeing a lot of pain in humanity, people sleeping on the street, people so high they cannot comprehend their actions walking in traffic, people treating others without kindness or humanity. This place is not wealthy, by any stretch of the imagination. However, there is more hope in that air than the town we live out of right now.

The kids have given smiles, kind words, money, hugs, to the suffering in our town. They would need to find a new mission here. I am sure it is here if they look.