Road Trip 3rd Leg - South Dakota to Michigan

Last leg of our trip (click here for first to see the eclipse and second to Mt. Rushmore and Devils Tower) took us on I90 thru South Dakota - I planned to stop at Wall Drugs which is highlighted on the things to do in South Dakota list but when we got there and drove in front of it I changed my mind. There were SO MANY people trying to park and enter that I decided driving by counted as seeing it. Google it to see for yourself - it's got a cool interesting history (in a nutshell the family who owned this little store came up with a genius way to get travelers to stop by and it's now a huge added-onto store full of everything. Everything.). I didn't even take a picture I wanted to get out of there so bad.

Next place I planned to visit was the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. Then as we were getting close we start seeing all these signs about the "Corn Festival" being held - you guessed it - the date we were there. They shut down the streets all around the arena (really, the Corn Palace is an arena/convention center - not a palace!) and hold concerts, etc. all weekend. So we aborted that plan and kept on going...maybe next time.

Spent the night in Sioux Falls - after getting home I heard there is a new list put out of the "happiest places to live" and the top 10 are towns in California, except number 5 is Sioux Falls! I had no idea, the people did seem very friendly hahaha...

I took no pictures this day of driving - it's very pretty country tho! My favorite thing about the day is meeting a woman camping nearby that also has a mini RV like ours (it's a Travato if you're interested), she mentioned there is a Facebook group only about Travato's and I should check out what other people have done to customized theirs...Dave just looked at me with an "uh oh, here she goes" look. I immediately joined the site and was blown away by some of the changes others have done! As soon as I got home I got busy - here are a few of the things we did: (some I borrowed from other people, some I came up with myself once the creative juices started flowing!)

we added a wire shelf over the side sliding door. D will have to learn to duck and not hit
his head (!) but we picked up a ton of un-used space. I got a 6' x 1' wire shelf at Home Depot, which fits perfectly.

 Rolled up there now is all of the window shades that we used to jam into the overhead space over the cab, freeing up that area to store bedding which I fought with every morning and night before! I also have room now to store a very lightweight stick vacuum dust buster thing (I found at Walmart for $20!)  to help with keeping things clean - it's one of the few I could find that still have a cord, everything's cordless now, but I didn't want to have to leave it plugged in all the time to charge. The space is small enough that I can reach everything while the cord is plugged in. 

one end of the shelf is resting in the overhead space over the cab (we anchored it down with a piece of wood and some screws to keep it stable) and the other end is being held up with 2 command hooks. In the middle we supported it with a piece of wire wrapped around the shelf and hooked to one of the ceiling screws - just to give it a little more support so it hopefully won't sag.
Hanging on one hook is the dreamcatcher I posted here.

 

this change we made a while ago when we decided that the "wardrobe" closet wasn't really needed for clothes (it came  empty with a rod across the top) and had Mark install some shelves instead. It now holds tons of stuff like bags, pet food and supplies, nesting pans, cleaning and extra paper supplies, games, and it's the "liquor cabinet" as well! On the door I hung a mirror and plastic basket using Command strips, I can sit on the edge of the bed and fix myself up so I'm not fighting Dave for the tiny bathroom space. 

this one might not work if things bang around and rattle too much, but for now I've hung up a couple plastic coffee mugs and stacked the dishes in a lid organizer standing on a small wire shelf. Under the shelf are serving bowls and plastic containers. In a plastic basket stuck to the back wall (you can barely see it) I have disposable plastic glasses, can cozies, dish soap, etc. 

hung up a paper towel holder on the side wall over the kitchen area, decorated the space with battery powered mini lights, put up the orange magnetic board on the left (it's holding my new cork flower vase I posted here), and stuck 3 small photos in lightweight plastic frames on the wall using Command strips. 

We don't shower in our tiny bathroom so hung this wire shelf up to hold towels and a wire basket filled with things like sunscreen, first aid kit, eyedrops, etc. I stuck a small towel bar underneath it to hang small wet things like my bath scrubby and washcloths. 

This is the back wall of the Travato when you open the back doors (the bed is to the left behind one closed door).  It now holds quite a few things like a broom, flyswatter, umbrella, etc. and I mounted part of a hanging shoe holder up to corral a bunch of small things that were stuffed in a junk drawer before - bug spray, flashlight, small tools, duct tape, bungie cords, etc. 

Oh wait, I just remembered I took one picture in Blue Earth, Minnesota - home of the (ho ho ho) Jolly Green Giant! If you look closely you can see Dave posing with the giant :)

The last leg of the trip took us thru the Wisconsin Dells, we didn't see much because it was just a stop to sleep on our way home but my impression is there are a lot of kids there. A lot. Really, a lot. Maybe we'll revisit when it's off-season to get a better look at everything!

That's it for this road trip journal - 10 days saw us do a big loop from Michigan thru Nebraska to see the eclipse, northwest to South Dakota and Wyoming, thru Minnesota and Wisconsin back to MI. Good to be home but we had a great time and I'd do it again in a heartbeat! Thanks for reading about our latest adventure!


one year ago today: Pina Colada Cupcakes

Road Trip 2nd Leg - Mt. Rushmore

After seeing the eclipse in Nebraska (click here for that post) we moved west to visit Mt. Rushmore - I've been wanting to see it for years and can now cross it off the travel bucket list!

The drive from Kearney to Mt. Rushmore took about 6 and 1/2 hours, an easy day of driving. We saw wild buffalo herds and fields of prairie dogs - of course had to stop to take pictures! Sarge didn't like the buffalo and kept barking at them - they were so close to us tho and totally giving us the stink eye, I kept saying "great, we are gonna cause a buffalo stampede"! Yes, these are things I worry about hahaha! 

we pulled over on the highway to watch the wild buffalo

We were getting in pretty early so decided to stop off and see the Crazy Horse memorial on the way - it was going to cost $22 to enter and we could clearly see it from the road (and honestly, there isn't much to see!) so we snapped some pictures from the van and kept moving. They have been working on the memorial for like 70 years, the idea is like Mt. Rushmore - they are planning to carve Crazy Horse into the side of a mountain - but unlike Mt. Rushmore, it is very slow going. They have his face done and are working on his arm and pointing finger at the moment - Dave took this picture, it's showing the side of his face (at the top middle) with what will be his arm pointing straight out in front of him to the right (the equipment is sitting on his arm:

Anyway, since we didn't go in this was a very quick stop. Headed to the KOA at Mt. Rushmore for a couple nights - this is the biggest campground we have seen so far in our limited campground experience. It was a small city! It has multiple pools, waterslides, a rodeo arena, restaurants and stores galore - check out the campsite map:

We were up in the back by the rodeo arena (thank goodness there wasn't a rodeo then, I'm SO allergic!!) which was nice, away from the majority of the crowds but a long way from everything "entertaining" so didn't go explore much.

The next morning we headed a few minutes away to Mt. Rushmore; there isn't an entrance fee but you do have to pay to park. You can see it from the road (just like with the Crazy Horse memorial) if you don't want to enter but it was cool to go in and see it up close. There are trails you can walk around but it was really hot and Sarge was in the RV (we left the generator on but when it's so blasted hot I still worry - what if something happens and the generator quits? I don't like to leave him for long when the weather is like that) so we just took pictures, went thru the little museum and watched a short film on the making of the memorial (note: I totally didn't want to do this but D did, and it was worth it. If you get there and think you don't want to watch I recommend you do!).

We were only at Mt. Rushmore about an hour, so since it was early in the day Dave wanted to drive up to Wyoming and see Devils Tower (it's featured in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind). It's a little over 2 hours away and as we were driving we had the thought that we were then going to have to return 2 hours the same way and then the next day drive the same 2 hour route to continue our journey - that's a lot of doubling back so we made the decision to forfeit our 2nd night at Mt. Rushmore and relocate to Devils Tower. Turned out to be the right decision, the campground at Devils Tower was great, our site backed up to the tower and it's a beautiful area. The opposite of Mt. Rushmore, it's a small quaint campground (although they do have a restaurant and store which was nice) and the people are great. We ended up staying 2 nights here we liked it so much!

our view of Devils Tower from our campsite.

we took about an hour hike around the base of the tower

We were here on Dave's birthday so treated ourselves to breakfast at Cattle Kate's at the campground - it's hooked onto the store so I grabbed some caramel corn to give him as a little birthday treat and when I paid and told the register lady what it was for she said "oh I wish I had something nice to wrap it in!" Haha, so cute - I told her "it's just caramel corn and he's sitting right there watching me buy it so it doesn't need special wrapping " LOL.

My new favorite camping dinner is individual grilled pizza. I brought along small pre-baked pizza shells that we topped with sauce, chopped canadian bacon and canned mushrooms, shredded mozzarella. D put them on the gas grill for a few minutes until they were crispy and the cheese melted, doesn't take long. Oh man these were so good we had them again a few nights later!


one year ago today: wine cork keychain

Road Trip 1st Leg - Eclipse Hunting

We did a really fun road trip and I'm just getting around to sharing it with you! Yep, I'm a little behind...!

Dave really really wanted to find the perfect spot to watch the eclipse that took place 8/21, after much research and calling to find available campgrounds we ended up in Kearney, Nebraska. Al and Cathy drove separately and met us there - we planned to continue on after the eclipse but they had to go back home. Normally I wouldn't have loved our campsite, very flat with few trees and nothing else to do there - but this time it worked in our favor. Couldn't have asked for a better place to set up and watch the eclipse! We were super happy about that...but then we saw the weather reports predicted for the 21st and you're not going to believe it but right where we were they were predicting clouds and rain. In the entire path of the eclipse we chose the one spot it was expected to rain! Good grief. There was much discussion about driving a couple hours away that morning to hope for better weather but in the end we decided to stay put and see what happened. I'm pleased to say we had PERFECT weather (other than it was smoking hot there) - no clouds, no rain, and we were able to see 100% totality! So cool! Dave got some great pictures:

do you know how hard it is to take a selfie wearing solar eclipse glasses? with them on it's completely black, you can't see a thing! so we had to all look at the camera, I held my finger over the button and then put the glasses on without moving, and hoped for the best hahaha!! 

this is how dark the area was during the total eclipse

here's our campground - there weren't even masses of people around watching the eclipse,
we got lucky.  afterwards we heard other areas were packed and no one could move. 

I was using the umbrella for shade while watching the eclipse - Cathy took this picture and
questioned my "effective use of an umbrella" since I wasn't actually covering anything hahaha! 

Al and Cathy stayed in a local motel - our tiny RV can only sleep 2 and for some reason they didn't want to tent it haha - but they hung with us at the campsite playing games and chilling, and we grilled out for dinners. One night was the chicken sausage, pre-boiled pasta, red sauce that I've posted before (click here), the other night Dave grilled marinated chicken and we made 4 individual foil packets of sliced potatoes and onions, topped with a dab of butter and s/p (wrap up tight, throw on our little gas grill, cooked until potatoes were done)...why does everything taste better if cooked outside? This was delicious! They left first thing Tuesday morning for home, while we headed west to see some more of the country...will fill you in on that tomorrow!


one year ago today: junkin' with Candy led me to update this canister/wood thing...