This is the Good Life: Road Trip 2015: Adventure 1

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Road Trip 2015: Adventure 1

Graduation was upon us and it was time to hit the road. We decided to make it a sight seeing trip. Several adventures wrapped up in a nice long vacation. Of course we had lots of little adventures along the way that we had not planned on, but isn’t that how life and traveling with children goes. Last fall we decided to see if our motor home would sell. It gets such terrible gas mileage and sure does slow down our trip, not to mention it is hard to drive in any city. David put it on Craig’s list at a higher price then we had expected and it sold within a couple days. We took that as, it was time to move on. So, as we have been planning this trip for the last several months I have been quite concerned with how we would do, being in a car for over 60 hours of traveling. Well, I will share with you the ups and downs of our trip in the next few days, along with what we learned about navigating different national historical sites along the way.

First Adventure.

Our first adventure took us a couple days to get to. We have a Yukon XL. We loaded up Wednesday night. Thursday morning we headed out, only 10 minutes behind schedule. We traveled about 3 ½ hours to David’s dad’s house, picked up his up his utility trailer, and found the trailer was a little bigger and heavier then we had expected. Our traveling time slowed a bit but our first night we made to the middle of Wyoming and spent the night with David’s brother and family.

The next morning off we went to our first destination, Mount Rushmore. The weather report had said it was going to be cold and rainy on Saturday, but it must have come a day early and we drove though the rain and cold on Friday. Friday night we found an amazing hotel. What I have found on this trip is it is better to prebook your hotel room before arriving to you destination. We had prebooked a family suite at the Best Western in Hill City, South Dakota. It had a separate room with a king bed and the kids were in the main room with two queen beds, a sofa, a table, and a kitchen area. The room had a large bathroom with a sink in the bathroom and a sink out side the room, not to mention a sink in the kitchen area. It was cheaper than getting two rooms and was large, clean and comfortable. I would highly recommend it.

We stepped out of our car and Sierra felt very week, cold, and shaky. It was late and had been a long day of driving so I just told her to take a hot bath and relax. The hotel had a beautiful pool but with Sierra not doing so well and we were all tired, we didn’t get to go swimming. The next morning Sierra was still not feeling well but was a trouper. The inclusive breakfast at our hotel was wonderful. A waitress took our order and came out with more food than we could eat. We headed to Mount Rushmore, only 15 minutes away. I had been there once with my grandparents when I was a child and as we approached the mountain it was thrilling. The park was just opening as we arrived and was not busy at all. What a neat sight. The weather was beautiful and we were so blessed with a lovely day. No rain till we left.

We spent about two hours at Mount Rushmore. There are a few walking paths, but the path we could have pushed the strollers on was under construction, so we just went to the main picture site and enjoyed the Presidents. Below the picture platform was an information area, complete with a short movie and miscellaneous relics from the building of the sculptures. Aidric’s favorite part was the imitational blowing up of the different parts of the mountain. So thrilling. It was fun to see. We then made a few sandwiches, piled into the car and headed on to our next adventure.