Stop 20: Platteville, WI--Final stop!

Our original plan was to travel to Milwaukee for this final stop but Jackie lives in Platteville and got word of our passing through and invited us to visit her. Jackie is the good friend of Andy's uncle, Jerry, and we haven't seen Jackie in far too long so the idea sounded great to us! We canceled our reservation in Milwaukee and got a hotel room in Platteville.

Sarah has struggled with looking for things on this trip.
Andy thought this sign was a fair representation of her abilities.

The drive from Elko New Market to Platteville was only (only?) 4.5 hours so it seemed like a breeze this time. We were cruising along and only about 45 minutes away from our destination when we saw the dreaded red and blue lights behind us. We were on a country road and legitimately didn't know the speed limit. Andy pulled over and was informed that it was a 55mph zone. He was going a smiiiiidgen faster than that (20mph over) and the office was going to ticket him. Sure enough, the officer returned a few minutes later with a shiny, white paper in hand with a court date or bail option if Andy preferred that route. Andy told Alex that he "earned" 6 points for that little offense so in Mario Kart, he'd be winning. Too bad Wisconsin doesn't play by Mario Kart rules.

We were feeling less than pleased with Wisconsin when we saw a 10-foot statue of a mouse holding cheese. Andy loves cheese. Sarah loves cheese. Alex just loves snacks (except cheese--that will actually kill him). So Andy u-turned and went back to visit the dairy seller for cheese. Ten minutes later, out came my family with blocks of cheese to take home to Ohio. And we got a photo of the giant, cheese-loving rodent. Somehow spending tons of money on cheese doesn't soothe the burn of the speeding ticket for me, but cheese cures all ills for Andy, so there's that.

We arrived in town, dropped our stuff in the hotel room, and got everything ready for bed so we could spend as much time as possible with Jerry and Jackie. Then we drove the 5 short minutes to her house and were treated to another delicious dinner, games, crafts, and wonderful company. Jackie was so very generous to us and the kids. It was a wonderful evening and we're all ready to return to Camp Jackie as soon as our schedule allows.

Our final hotel load in!

Dinner was delicious!

Alex noticed a beautiful sunset at Jackie's house.
We tried to catch as many sunset as possible on this trip and Alex was still on the lookout to the very last night.

The girls made crafts with Jackie (who is a craft aficionado!).
These are beautiful paper flowers.

We had a wonderful visit!

We returned to the hotel and everyone got ready for bed. In typical road trip fashion, I was the last one up awake. I cleaned out the old snacks from the van (it was a staggeringly large amount), got ready for the next day, and updated the three most recent blog posts. It was our last night in a hotel for this trip and it was nice to be in the quiet for one last time. Tomorrow we would drive one last, long drive together to close out this amazing chapter. I was thankful and humbled by this experience.

Stop 19: Elko New Market, MN -- Harms Farms

The drive to Minnesota was looking to be pretty long so we set the alarm early--5:50am. We needed to hit the road so we could roll into our stop at a decent time.

We had every intention of seeing the Badlands on our way through SD but because the drive is so long and it was suggested that we take about 4 hours to see Badlands, we decided to nix it and do two smaller sights instead: Wall Drugs and The Corn Palace instead.

Badlands from afar

Badlands from really afar

Look closely--there's a MAN on top of that windmill. No. Thanks.

First stop was not far from our hotel. We weren't sure what we were getting into with Wall Drugs but it was a cute little town, Wall, SD. It was basically a big, old fashioned shopping mall area. It had lots of quirky things and a little chapel inside. The story is quite unique--as the only drug store in town, and failing at that, it started out in the early 1930's. The wife was kept awake during a nap one day by cars driving by from visiting the plains and after brainstorming that they'd be thirsty after traveling, they began offering free ice water to passersby. This grew their business exponentially and they were a raging success. It's now a practically a whole town! We found some souvenirs (including one to replace the special one I'd purchased at Mt. Rushmore that Andy promptly broke within 5 minutes because he was made that we weren't standing up for a photo) and we were back on the road.

Next was The Corn Palace, in Mitchell, SD. This time coincided with lunch so we grabbed lunch here. And apporpriately, one of the sides you can order with your meal is...corn on the cob. And it was good corn. This place is a unique place originally designed to tout the region's crop-growing abilities to farmers from around the country. Each year the facade of the building, name entirely of corn, is changed to a new artist's rendering to reflect the "theme" of the building. We didn't have time for a tour but we did watch an informative video about the history. It was a cool place to visit--doesn't take long to look around and see it all.

Saving the best for last, our friends, Gretchen and Alex, moved to Minnesota several years ago and grew expanded their family just south of Minneapolis. They return to Ohio regularly and we deeply appreciate that they always make a point to visit us when they are in town. So when we were planning our trip last year and saw that our route was even kinda close to where they lived, we knew we wanted to make a point to get to their house for a change. Their family has grown by two children since they moved away and we miss seeing them. It's crazy how much their children have grown even since we saw them last November.

They were gracious enough to allow our family to sleep at their beautiful home and they made us feel so welcome. Their home is gorgeous and their yard is amazing! After enjoying a delicious dinner of REAL FOOD (it was so nice to eat home-cooked food again!), the kids had a great time playing soccer in the large back yard, making s'mores in the fire, and swinging on the awesome swing set Alex made for their family. I loved spending time catching up with Gretchen and hearing more about their life in MN. Our annual visits are wonderful but it was great to spend this amount of time with them in a relaxed atmosphere.

If there's a Harms around, it won't take long for a soccer game to break out.
In this case, there for 4 Harmses around. It was inevitable.

When the kids went to bed, we adults stayed up well past our own bedtimes chatting about life, health insurance, the kids growing up, and how we haven't aged at all too much since having children. We didn't even go upstairs to bed until around 2am. We had so much fun with their family that we took very few photos. It was unlike us in so many ways but it's a testament to the good time we were having.

They made breakfast for us in the morning and it was such a treat. Andy's first words to me in the morning were, "I smell bacon." He doesn't get such luxuries at home so he was probably ready to leap off that bed, pinched nerve or not, and grab himself a pound of that bacon!

Charlotte and Fred had a great time playing blocks after breakfast.

We chatted for a while longer but eventually needed to make our getaway because we had another 4-hour drive to Wisconsin next, before heading HOME the following day. It was such a wonderful visit that we didn't want to leave but we were thrilled to hear they would be in Dayton within a week for their regular summer visit and we'd hopefully get to see them again. That made the parting much easier. All in all, we left their home fans of Minnesota. The state. We have no opinions of Minnesota over Green Bay as they relate to NFL teams.

Stop 18: South Dakota missed its quota

This stop represented 90% completion of our trip and it was safe to say that we were 90% ready to be home. Rapid City, SD was a two-day stop so we had a little bit of down time and it was right on time. Andy's back/leg was really suffering and he needed to get some work done somewhere with an actual connection to the interwebs. The kids were worn out and didn't even want to swim in the hotel pool (and it even had a big water slide! We were just about to have to go naked because all of our clothes were dirty and crammed into a garbage bag. Two nights in South Dakota was a welcome stop, even after a pretty drive and a rainbow to greet us.

We arrived around 9PM after enjoying a sit-down restaurant dinner (one of our only ones like this but we were tired of eating out of the cooler or paper wrappers. I immediately started laundry while Andy took Alex and Charlotte to the pool--mainly so he could go into the hot tub and rest his sciatica. They had a whopping 30 minutes there before closing and arrived wet and cold back to the room. Everyone just vegged out while I worked on laundry and prepping for the next day. I was up late working on the blog and catching up on other family tasks--I find I don't need as much sleep as the rest of the family and it's easier to get work done when it's quiet.

After breakfast the first morning, the kids went back to the room while Andy and I worked in the dining area of the hotel until around 2PM and then left to explore the sights. We concluded that all the bison have moved to Yellowstone. We were looking forward to seeing the large herds of bison at Custer State Park but by the time we exited the park, our final bison count was only 9. We did see some other new animals and learned a lot about them, so all was not lost. It's a lovely place and we're glad we did it. Here's our final animal count:

Antelope: 10
Horses: 49
White-tailed deer: 10
Burros: 7
Wild turkeys: 1
Prairie dogs: 17
Bison: 9
Mule deer: 18
Chipmunks: 2
Mountain goats: 1
Bird repeating Andy's made-up mountain lion whistle: 1
Motorcycle "hogs": 17
Dead birds after slamming into our windshield: 1

After seeing all kinds of wildlife and cruising the park for a few hours, we headed for Mt. Rushmore for an evening view and to watch the illumination/national anthem/flag folding ceremony. Alex was really looking forward to this stop almost more than any other because he's a fan of the Berenstain Bear books and they go to Mt. Grizmore and he loves that book. At one point he told us, "I'm so excited about this I can hardly contain myself. I have always wanted to see this with my actual eyes!"

There are 6 or so mule deer in this photo.

The Teletubbies might be serving Tubby Custard here.

Sarah thought this hill looked like a Windows start-up photo

Prairie dog hole

Charlotte hand next to a prairie dog hole

The road to the actual monument is winding and goes to quite an elevation. It has carved tunnels and old-fashioned bridges.. At one point, Mt. Rushmore is visible through the trees from several miles away and it's really pretty. We snaked our way to the monument. It was stunning. The girls and I shopped for souvenirs while Alex and Andy headed for some seats to watch the show. There was gallery-style, bench seating to watch the 9:00PM illumination and by 8:00PM, most of the seats were taken. Fortunately (?), because Andy was having such a difficult time walking and needed to sit down, he secured our seats right away and we had a front-row view of the impending illumination.

We watched the sun starting to set and I decided to validate our parking pass early so we weren't waiting in line afterward with hundred of others. I got hot dogs for everyone on the way back and a gal inside cafe casually mentioned that she sure hoped the rain would hold off until the show was over because it really looked like it was going to storm soon. I blew her off and shoved my way through the now massive crowd to reach our seats with the food. No sooner did I plop my buns (hot dog and human) onto the bench did it start to sprinkle. But we're Murphys; we're not afraid of a little water so we kept sitting and waiting. The show started and it was a narrative about the history of the monument and the men etched into the mountain's facade. The winds kicked up and suddenly, to our left, was a large lightning bolt. It looked closer than it likely was but many people left immediately while others--us included--sat and waited it out. Evenutally, despite Andy's mostly quiet protests, a ranger came and told us that we had to evacuate because a major storm was dangerously close. Just then, the rain started to come down and the wind whipped up. It was a rather unpleasant walk to the car--but because we'd already validated our parking pass, we moved right past that line and right to our van.

To pass the time, these goofballs were editing weird photos of each other.

They were having a blast!

It's impossible to tell in this blurry photo how much it was raining.
The wind was also really blowing and people were high-tailing it to the parking machine.
All the people, that is, except us. :) 

We had no phone signal for most of the day for directions and this time of day was no different so we had to follow rudimentary street signs. It made us wonder more than once: How did we get anywhere before GPS? But we did make it back to the hotel and we all fell into bed knowing that the next day would bring another long drive to MN to visit our friends. Alarm was set for 5:50AM. Lights out on South Dakota.