I grew up going on family vacations. Every summer we would pack up the RV and head out somewhere for a fabulous adventure. When most of my classmates hadn't gone more than 4 hours outside of our hometown I had been to Mesa Verde and the Grand Canyon and Washington DC and Atlantic City and to the Alamo and into Canada, and to Niagara Falls and to New York City and climbed the Statue of Liberty and descended into Carlsbad Caverns and had watched fishmongers throw huge fish in the air at Pike's Place Market and stood in solemn silence at Gettysburg and looked at the Liberty Bell and swum in the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans as well as the in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite the fact that none of us were ever lost (for long) or harmed in any way, I have to confess that Chad and I were strangely reluctant to take our children on an extended trip. It seemed very difficult and expensive and fraught with drama. After our successful excursion to St. George in the winter, however, we were emboldened and set aside money for a trip to see Devil's Tower and Mt. Rushmore. The initial plan was to go in June, which would have been a whole lot cooler (temperature-wise) but other concerns and responsibilities pushed our travel date to mid-July. This put us past the 4th of July crowds at Rushmore and also helped us avoid the Sturgis biker rally craziness in August. (Saw it once, totally don't need to see it again!)
We had hoped to leave on the 14th, and then on the 16th, and then on the morning of the 17th, but Chad's work reality intruded and we finally we able to take off in the afternoon on the 17th. Chad had been working psycho hours to make our vacation happen so I was in charge of packing. I was very concerned that I would leave behind something we desperately needed and I have some kind of nervous tic...I was not going to leave until the house was CLEAN, so in between tracking down rarely used camping equipment and scrubbing floors I was slowly going nuts. Thank heavens for Heather! She helped me pack and held down the fort while I ran to various stores to pick up last minute items. She saved my sanity and has been such a tender mercy to me. She always seems to show up at the right time. The only things Heather and I didn't do were pack Chad's things (because that would be weird and that way he would know exactly what was in his bag) and hoist the all-weather bag full of our camping gear on top of the van. When Chad arrived, he and I managed the bag o' stuff and tied it down with a multitude of bungee cords (that bag was the best!), packed up the kids with all their pillows plus their 1 requested toy and stuffed animal, put the coolers in place for road-related snackage, and were on our way to the Wharton's who had, in a moment of insanity, agreed to go along with us.
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| View from our campsite. |
After a 6+ hour drive, we arrived at our first destination on the outskirts of Casper Wyoming. It was so nice to walk into the loving arms of family! After we got the kids settled down to sleep we had a nice visit with Sandra and Keith and then went to our bed to crash. The next day was spent getting the Wharton's all ready to go and by four in the afternoon we were on our way to Devil's Tower. The light was still good when we got our first glimpse of the tower. I remembered, from a family trip back in the day, that the tower stood alone in a plain and that it would rise up unexpectedly as we drove closer. We were so excited to catch a glimpse that we mistook a huge water tower in the distance for the real thing and even started filming. HA! Finally, though, it came into view and we enjoyed the beautiful drive to our campsite, which was within the park and right in the shadow of the famous igneous intrusion. We set up camp and then ate spaghetti by the light of Keith's handy-dandy propane lantern. That guy is the camping gadget man! He had everything we thought we needed plus stuff we totally needed and never would have thought of. I highly recommend him for all your camping trips!
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| Wow! Somebody is grumpy in the morning!! |
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| Casa de Wharton for the duration of our trip. |
We woke in the morning to a totally blue sky and a fabulous view. Chad and I handled breakfast, since the Wharton's had made dinner, and I melted the tongs on one of Keith's camping forks which I was using to cook bacon (he was really nice about it). After eating bacon and eggs we broke camp, collected the kiddos from their wanderings and headed up to the see Devil's Tower.
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| The kids totally wanted to camp in this teepee at the base of the trail. |
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| The real bosses plan our route. |
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| Those are some tough kids! |
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| View from the trail. |
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| He is too adorable!! |
We decided to start off with the hike, which was 1.3 miles, and which the kids handled like champs. At the end, Mckenna's energy started to flag and since Sandra was helping Eli, who had tripped on a root and scraped himself up, I picked her up and carried her to the end. When Grant saw that I was carrying Mckenna, he went to Sandra and totally mooched a ride off of her. We ended our visit with a tour of the visitor's center where Merritt committed to memory the Native American origin stories for the tower. After a wrong turn which ended up giving us a great long distance view of Devil's Tower, we ate lunch at a spot near our campsite and then headed toward Deadwood.
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| Well, we're melting from the heat but we're having fun! |
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| Long distance view. |
Chad was interested to see the graves of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane, but when we got to the city we found that the only thing you can do in Deadwood for free is breathe. They actually charge you to go into the cemetery! Sheesh! We decided to protest this lunacy by boycotting the cemetery and headed instead into Rapid City where we snagged hamburgers for dinner and then drove to our camping spot for the night, dodging deer along the way (good driving Sandra!). By the time we located it, it was very dark, so we set up our tents with the help of our car headlights and went to sleep with no idea that Keith had found us a beautiful and amazing place to camp.
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| Sunrise at our awesome camping spot. |
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| Wild animals in the woods. |
