Road Trip to South Dakota - Day 1

So last week on Wednesday we left for our trip to South Dakota. Cate, Chris, Lyle, Keegan, and I met at the Panera in Burnsville at 7am for breakfast before setting off. Cate and Chris drove separately, since there was no way they would fit in the car with me, Lyle, Keegan and all of our (mostly Keegan's) stuff. At Panera Keegan was his usual excitable self. He sat in his highchair and, having eaten breakfast before we left, ate some of those Gerber cheesy corn snack things. I am not a morning person and just the smell of those cheesy snacks made me nauseous. I also felt a bit guilty at giving my baby the healthy equivalent of Cheetos at 7am. But Keegan loved them. We "walked" around Panera some and then I gave up on the cleanliness efforts and let Keegan crawl around on the carpet some. We gave Cate and Chris a walkie talkie, which we had borrowed from my parents. We thought that would be a nice way to communicate since cell phone reception is iffy throughout the more rural areas of South Dakota. Around 7:30am we left and started the long trek to Hill City, South Dakota.

Keegan complained initially when we strapped him into his carseat; which he always does. Then he promptly feel asleep. Lyle and I turned on the audio book we started listening to on our vacation up north "Undead and Unwed" and took off. All was well until around 10:30am when Keegan decided he had had enough of this and was hungry. We stopped to feed Keegan a bottle. The rest stop we stopped at didn't have any nice inside seating area. It was freezing outside so Lyle sat on the floor in the rest stop and fed Keegan while I distracted Keegan with a number of toys. Lately Keegan gets bored eating and won't finish his bottle unless he has something to play with. I took Keegan in to the bathroom afterward and changed his diaper. The rest stop didn't really have a changing table but there was a tiled ledge in there that was maybe 6 inches wide. I used it to change his diaper; although it made me nervous cause I kept thinking he was going to fall off. We walked around some more to get out some of that Keegan energy. Then back into the cars and we were off again. Keegan sat quietly playing with some toys.

Around 12:30pm it was time to stop again. Keegan was crabby and everyone was hungry. We stopped at a Burger King. They had nice rolling high chairs there and Keegan got a crown to wear. Cate adjusted the crown to fit Keegan's head and put it on him; Keegan promptly pulled off the crown, looked at it, and threw it on the ground. This Burger King had a TCBY in it; so Lyle and I shared some chocolate frozen yogurt. We all gassed up our cars and Keegan and I wandered around between the Burger King and the gas station and then we were off.

I think it was some where between 1:30 and 2:30 when we crossed the border into South Dakota. Keegan had slept most of the way. Cate and Chris wanted to get a map of the area. So we stopped, the adults took bathroom breaks, Keegan ate some bottle and we took off again. I believe this is the rest stop where Keegan had an encounter with a minn pin. The minn pin was an old girl and thought Keegan was really neat; Keegan thought she was just awesome and giggled at her for a while. Anyway back into the car. Sometime in here Lyle and I finished our audio book and started another one called "Poison Study".

Last stop was at, you guessed it, Wall Drug. We were getting slow close to our intended destination and we decided not to stop at Wall Drug. Unfortunately Keegan decided that he needed to eat dinner *now*. So we got off at the next exit to feed him, which was Wall Drug. That's an interesting place. They had a cafe there with a very limited selection of foods. We decided to eat dinner there. The cafe was full of all of these stain glass lights and Keegan thought they were really, really neat. We walked around a bit after eating. In the Wall Drug courtyard Keegan, Lyle, and Cate sat on the Jackalope and Keegan petted a stuffed Bison. Then Keegan crawled around the courtyard some. While Cate and I looked at rocks in the rock shop, Keegan went for a ride on Lyle's shoulders and they and Chris went down to activate the giant dinosaur at the end of the hall. Dinosaur??!! you say. Well, I guess Wall Drug was beyond explanation, it was interesting but not necessarily worth a planned stop.

Back in the car again. Keegan was restless and didn't want to go back in his carseat. He had made a huge mess out of himself eating dinner and we had changed him into his jammies. We got into Rapid City around 5pm (mountain time). We were going to stop and get gas but decided we couldn't be that far away from the lodge since it was between Rapid City and Hill City. Around here Keegan woke up. He got angry, it was almost bed time and time for his last bottle. Lyle and I called to him that we were almost there; Keegan didn't care he cried and he cried. We drove and we drove. We drove up a hill and down a hill and back up again. The needle on the gas gauge teetered on E; then went below E. Finally we drove past the lodge, then turned around and pulled into the gravel driveway. The lodge was really nice Cate and Chris took the upstairs master suite and Lyle and I used the downstairs one. I wanted to be by the kitchen so we wouldn't have to come downstairs to make up bottles and wake Cate and Chris at 5am (Keegan's usually eating time).

We all unpacked and prepared for the night. Keegan refused his bottle; which is always an ominous sign for the night to come. He woke up at midnight doing his "I am really hungry" cry. After eating his bottle he went back to sleep. I sighed a heave of relief that we had made it here without an major incidence and that the lodge was as nice, if not nicer, than we had expected.