day 1 & 2.... Peterson Sojourn West 2011

Dear friends & fam.... sorry this is lengthy.... we've had a busy 48 hours!!!

Brock and I picked the boys up just after lunchtime Friday, the last school day of kindergarten & 3rd grade.

The boys had each written on a flower pot full of lilies, "Thanks 4 a gr-8 year!"

What amazing teachers the Lord blessed them with this past year. The have helped their minds to grow strong in head knowledge...& their hearts to grow in love of the Lord, His word & "heart knowledge."

Our youngest waved to his classmates snd said,"See ya in 1st grade!"

First grade, how did my baby grow up so fast?

We loaded up, hit the road.... & remembered we had forgot the guide book.

Once on the road we made ham sandwiches, ingredients packed in a cooler.  Did you do that on vacation as a kid.  Our cooler was a blue Coleman wit a white lid.  My dad tells stories of my Grandma Lenore's styrofoam cooler, covered in contact paper. Brock's families was a big red Colelman with a white lid. He and his brothers used to fight over who got to ride backseat 'shot gun' on the cooler.

Our cooler is a light blue Coleman, with rear wheels, a 'suitcase' type retractable handle, spit lid with cup holders.  It doubles as the macbook holder for movie viewing.

We are doing this trip the old American way... Dave Ramsey style. Our only expenses on day 1 were gas and $11 dolars worth of slurpies and tacquitos at a QT in Iowa.... $3.59 gas too, that's almost $1 cheaper than in DeMotte!

The boys watched a few movies, played DS, & grab a$$ (as Brock calls it, I call it 'nit-pic-in') .... we snacked on Twizzlers, trail mix & turkey jerky....  the fellers (as Grandpa Mike calls them) took their shirts off to ready themselves for slumber.... I caught a flash of flesh out of my peripheral vision.... our youngest was buck naked... exclaiming, "I forgot to put my briefs back on!"

The boys eventually got slap happy, giggling at the weirdest things... Our youngest wanted to have a 'cowboy campout' on the floor of the Yukon, giving his brother dibs on the bench seat.... after while, they surcombed to slumber... just in time for us to have to wake them up to go into the hotel for the night.  Our youngest was sleep walking... I hear the sound of liquid... he was taking a leak in the kitchenette garbage can.

We drove for 11 hours, covered 560-ish miles.... crossed through Indiana, Illinois, Iowa & South Dakota..... rolling into Sioux Falls at 11-ish.  We hadn't made reservations, deciding to 'fly by the seat of our pants.'  This is something we started about 3 years ago.  When we are a few hours from the destination, we look up lodging on the Garmin & start dialing the iPhone..... we have gotten some great deals on rooms doing this over the years.... $45 in Chillacothe, MO..... $80 in Ceadar Rapids, IA.... we hadn't taken into account the South Dakota State Track meet in Sioux Falls.

We ended up finding a room at the Homewood Suites, $140, not bad, very nice, excellent breakfast & pool.

This moring the boys slept in 'til 7:49 a.m.  ... gullped down some OJ, eggs & bacon.... went for a swim to burn off the pent up energy from yesterday ride.

We pointed the Yukon towards the Falls Park, a 100 foot falls, covering 123 acres... an average of 7,400 gallons of water.

www.siouxfallscvb.com

While walking the trails of the falls, the boys declared, "Isn't this majestic, God thought, I want a slab of quartz here, a boulder here to make these falls!"  Brock, told them, "Wait 'til we get to Yellowstone, it's even more majestic."

We headed west, on on I-90..... made a pit stop in Michel, Nebraska at Cabela's for a compass, bear bell & a new pair of Keens for all our peds.

The boys listened to Gary Paulson's The River, on CD.... Brock listened to podcasts: Freakenomics, Adam Corolla, Dave Ramsey.... I enjoyed the view, prairie, pastures full of bovine sunning themselves, beaver dams build in little roadside ponds, horizon as far as the eye can see, blue skies dotted with fluffs of cummulus....

I read a little Francis Chan, Crazy Love, sharing the true love of our Savior, and Jennifer Weiner told me a tale on my kindle, Fly Away Home, when my brain started to hurt. I navigated from the old State Farm map.... and was an excellent 'backseat driver.' .... & thanks to our uncle loaning us his Verizon, wireless modem, I was able to write & blog to you, upload pics, work on AGAPE 2 LEARN stuff & Marvelous Math camp I am facilitating, email-ed, facebook-ed, etc.

We arrived at the Badlands National Park by mid-day.  What an amazing piece of this earth. The boys oohh-ed & aahhed over the first little hills we approached, once again proclaiming God's majesty.  We hiked the Cliff Shelf, our youngest recognizing a choir of crickets, singing us a Badland ballad.  We spotted deer tracks in the mud along the hiking trail.

On the drive out of the park we came across a prairie dog 'town'. We stopped, the boys insisting on getting out for a closer look.  We told them that the dogs would probably retreat to their dens.  Those little rascals are used to people, they stayed on their mounds, 'chattering away' (as our youngest also observed).  On the drive we saw prong horned deer grazing, a tom turkey strutting, and antelope at play.

I wanted to stop at Wall Drug, in Wall, South Dakota. To have a soda and sundae at an old fashioned fountain.  A friend had recommended the stop, their family had done so on a South Dakota vaca a few years back.  We ended up making it there for dinner.... buffalo burgers, fries & onion rings.  After dinner, my husband exclaimed, "I'm stuffed, I don't think there's room for dessert."  Our youngest piped up with his favorite line, stolen from Todd, Grandad's ranch right-hand-man...."I'm never too full for ice cream. It just melts and fills in the extra space."  They had scoops of cookie dough.

I took a peak at their history.... cute story of the American dream.... they needed customers, put up billboards advertising 'free water,' and now serve 20,000 customers free water on a given summer day..FREE WATER. Now days we pay a couple bucks for water.  What an ingenious marketing plan, cooked up by the wife of a pharmacists, as she tried to nap with her children on a scorching summer day.

Finally we drove to Crazy Horse Memorial for a 10:15 p.m. laser light show....

Then hit the hay at the White House lodge... $79 travel steal....

Sunday, we will take in Mt. Rushmore... and head to Cody, WY....

Pray for our traveling mercies ... as we take in this great land.

Many tales & pics to follow (the wi-fi card couldn't take the upload)....