Just Say Yes to a Fall Road Trip

Sunrise in Wall, SD, November 2023

I don't expect to be doing much traveling in 2024, at least not for the first half of the year, and any trips I do take aren't likely to be more than a few days.  I am blessed to have both my parents alive and relatively healthy despite being well into their eighties, and I'm enjoying spending more time with them and giving them support when they need it.  Lately I've been sticking close to home and probably will be for a little while. I figure now is a good time to reminisce about the 10-day road trip I took with Nick back in November!

(It's always fun when I can go out on the town with Mom and Dad! Recently we went to see Nick perform in a local murder mystery dinner theater production, and we celebrated Dad's eighty-ninth birthday!)

Last fall it occurred to me that I hadn't been out to visit Chris in South Dakota since Thanksgiving 2019. We were stranded by a blizzard and had to stay an extra night and drive to Denver in the snow to get a flight home because the Rapid City airport was completely shut down.  He has been home plenty of times, for holidays and things, but I hadn't gone to visit him in nearly four years.  Not wanting to risk being snowed in again, Nick and I decided on somewhat of a whim to take a road trip out West in early November.  My mother was scheduled to have surgery in January, and I knew I would need to be close by during her recovery (which I am happy to report is going well) and would likely need to stay close to home for a while.  So, on the first Sunday in November, we were off.

When we hit Indiana we started to see the big windmill farms. Nick was fascinated with them so I took a few shots through the car window.

According to Google Maps, it was about a 24-hour drive from Christiansburg to Rapid City. We allowed several days to get there, so we could see and do some interesting things along the way.  For instance:

1. Finding the oldest geocache in Illinois, which is placed in a lovely park with a lake and trails that you can hike during the summer and cross-country ski in the winter.

2. Visiting Wisconsin Dells and experiencing Wizard Quest, which is kind of like a big elaborate escape room, with multiple "quests" you can complete in a maze of rooms and magical settings.  One minute you're in a Lothlorien-like forest, the next you're in the deepest depths of the ocean.  I think we must have walked ten miles while we were there.

Neptune wearing glasses. Lots of quirky things like this at Wizard Quest.

This was the view from our hotel room in The Dells.

3. I wanted to see Sioux Falls, because I'd seen pictures and it looked spectacular.  And it was impressive, although I couldn't help but try to picture what it may have looked like before there was a city built around it. I imagine it was even more majestic.  And, I wanted to find this quirky geocache I'd seen in YouTube videos, called "My Little Jar of Unicorn Farts."

Geocacher SoDakZak placed this fun cache in his yard in Sioux Falls.

Upstream from the falls is a riverwalk along the Big Sioux River, with several sculptures including this arch near our hotel.

We also stopped to check out the Corn Palace, which is a fun stop if you happen to be driving by, but I wouldn't bother taking a special trip just to see it.  There is a neat little gift shop across the street where you can get souvenirs and local wine.  I almost bought a set of Corn Palace salt and pepper shakers, and now I kind of wish I had...

The cool thing about the corn palace is that it is decorated every year with a different theme.

4. Wall Drug

I want to pause a moment and elaborate a little bit about Wall Drug. Most of you have probably heard of it, and if you've traveled anywhere west of the Mississippi you may have seen bilboards enticing you to visit. It's located in the little town of Wall, South Dakota, about an hour west of Rapid City and just north of Badlands National Park. I knew that Wall Drug was famous for its donuts, but other than being a quirky roadside attraction I didn't know much else.  We had reserved a motel room in Wall, in order to visit Badlands the next day. After checking in, Chris met us there and we had some time to explore the phenomenon known as Wall Drug.

If you're ever driving West on I-90, I highly recommend stopping by this iconic location. You can't miss it, because of the enormous green dinosaur on the side of the highway near the exit. We were there in the off-season, so we saw very few other tourists. It houses many stores, perhaps dozens of them (I wasn't able to figure out exactlly how many), where you can buy just about anything from cowboy boots to jewlery to kitschy souvenirs. There is an actual pharmacy and even a chapel.  Of course, there are some cheesy displays that looked as if they have been there since the 1960s and may be animated during busier times (think Disney's Country Bears), but it's really a unique and fun place to visit. And yes, I had a donut and it was delicious.

5. Badlands National Park

Nick said this was his favorite part of the trip. We had planned to do a little hiking there, but the day we visited there were 40-mph wind gusts and we decided to forgo that and do a driving tour instead. What a spectacular place!  We did stop at many of the overlooks though, and walked around to take a closer look at the formations, which were different at every viewpoint. We saw quite a few bison, one bighorn sheep, and lots of prairie dogs.  

6. Rapid City

Many people think of Rapid City as a bland place in the middle of nowhere. Nothing could be further from the truth! It is right on the edge of the Black Hills, and a stone's throw from both Badlands and Wind Cave National Parks. It has a vibrant downtown with many great shops and restaurants, and a busy event venue called The Monument, with several event spaces including a theater and ice arena. Our rental house was within walking distance to both The Monument and downtown. We enjoyed some of the restaurants, attended a hockey game, and hiked on some of the local trails. We also visited the Crazy Horse Memorial and did some hiking at Devil's Tower.

We hiked on "M Hill" where we got some nice views of Rapid City.

We hked on two trails that circle Devil's Tower. On the 2.8 mile Red Beds loop we saw very few people. The 1.6-mile paved trail that circles the base of the tower is the more popular one.

On our last morning with Chris we hiked to a place called Buzzard's Roost in the Black Hills before getting lunch at a great little Mexican restaurant and heading East.

We took a different route on the return trip, partly for the change of scenery and partly so I could find the oldest geocaches in Nebraska and Missouri. We had also planned to spend a night in Louisville and visit some distilleries and find the oldest cache in Kentucky, but by the time we got there we decided to push on through and arrived home a day early. 

Of course I went geocaching and went for runs whenever I could!

Miles run: 20.4

Miles hiked: 11.5

Geocaches Found: 21, including some virtual and Earthcaches. I got 3 new states in my geocaching stats, too: Missouri, Minnesota, and Wyoming.

This may be my last post on this site. I am thinking about starting something new somewhere else, and I will let you know what and where once I've gotten started. (Who knows when that will be, haha!) Meanwhile, keep moving forward and saying yes to your dreams!

Just Say Yes to Spring Break in Colorado

 Almost every year for the past several years, Ray's brother Bill and his family have spent their kids' spring break skiing in Vail. They rent out a group of rooms for themselves as well as various friends and family. This year, they invited the boys and I to come along since Nick's and my spring break happened to coincide with theris. How could I say no? Chris had recently returned to his station at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota from a six-month deployment in Qatar, and decided to come along too. 

On Saturday we flew to Denver, where Chris picked us up in his little Toyota Yaris after making the six-hour drive from Rapid City. There was barely enough room in the car for the three of us and all of our stuff! Our first night in Colorado was spent at my sister-in-law Pamela's dad's house in Lakewood, where we all had a nice dinner with him and several members of Pamela's family.  His house is only a couple of blocks from the Catholic church, so Sunday morning before heading out to Vail, Chris and I walked over for Mass.

After arriving in Vail and settling into our room, we explored our little corner of town.

The views from our room. I loved how the town looked like a Christmas village!

What can I say about what the next few days were like? I'm secretly hoping one of the boys will move to Colorado someday so I can move there too. Or at least come visit A LOT.

That's me in the yellow suit. I got it in 1994, on my first trip to Vail. Ray and I were engaged at the time, and we came the week after Christmas with his parents and some of their friends. For my Christmas gift, I got to pick out any ski outfit I wanted from any shop in town. We spotted William Shatner in that same shop. Princess Diana was in town that week, and at the end of our trip, she ended up on the same flight out that we were on. 

Anyway, I got a ton of compliments on my vintage ski suit!

One thing I will say is that I felt like my skiing was improving every day. That is, until Thursdady morning when I took a hard fall and hurt my shoulder. Pamela, who knows the mountain well, helped me get back to the hotel. Of course I cried--not because I was injured, but because I wouldn't be skiing anymore! After resting and concluding that nothing was broken or dislocated, I decided not to go to urgent care and made an appointment to see my orthopedist the following week. (It was found to most likely be a strain to my rotator cuff, and trauma-induced bursitis.)  My legs felt fine though, and since there happens to be a Geocaching Adventure Lab highlighting the artwork around town, I took a nice slow walk.

The beautiful creek that runs through town!

Friday it snowed. Nick and I stayed back at the hotel to play games and relax while everyone else went out for one last day of skiing.  At lunchtime we hopped on the gondola to meet the others for a nice meal on the mountain. I was glad to get to see these views one more time.

I'm happy to report that Chris' little Yaris got us back to the airport safely and on time, despite the snowy road conditions! (Did you know that I-70 between Denver and Vail passes over the highest point on the Interstate Highway System? Yeah. I just plugged in my headphones, looked at the scenery, and tried not to think about it.)

Pamela says that their kids' school system is changing its calendar and moving spring break to the week after Easter. They may have to forego their annual trip for a few years.  Me? I have no idea what I'm going to do for my next spring break. I guess it's time to start planning.