Sunday we woke up and had a nice breakfast of eggs, biscuits and gravy, ham, and another bowl of that great granola stuff dad had. I can’t find that stuff at the store down here, Dad may have to send me a box. Anyhow, very yummy.
We ate very well on this trip, thanks to Nelly, Telly, and Sarah. Props also to Dad and Tristan for doing the manly duties of making money to provide said food.
We went over to visit Stephen and Michelle for a couple hours while Chantelle studied. It was nice to visit with them, and yes be reminded again that I am, in fact, 5 days younger than Michelle. The boys played nicely with their boys and we just relaxed and chatted.
Back over to Dad’s house at about 2 oclock and the boys napped. Telly gave me a massage (she’s in massage school) and it was very nice. I especially enjoyed the massaging on my arm. “on your arm?” you say? Well, remember it doesn’t bend all the way due to it not reforming very well after my breaking it when I was like 8 or something, so the muscles don’t get used properly. So that really felt nice. A little while later, everyone was awake and we went to Tristan’s and Sarah’s house for games.
We played a game of “turbo cranium”. I especially enjoyed the “side show”, where you have to use a player as a “puppet”. They have to just be limp while you make thier arms move. It was great fun. We did such things as “throwing the bouquet” and “fly-fishing” (thanks for getting that one for AnnaMay dad). I’m pretty sure we lost, but it didn’t really matter…I had a blast. Oh yes, Tristan’s “weatherman” gesture was a riot as well. And lets not forget that if all gloops are goobers, and some goobers are gloobers, then are all gloops gloobers?
The next game we tried was called “Encore”. This consisted of being given a word or category and coming up with a song that had that word, or fit that category in under 30 seconds. Then if your opposing team got it as well, back to you to come up with ANOTHER song in 30 seconds. It was a fun game, but it’s amazing how your mind can just go blank sometimes. Days later we’re still going…”oh we coulda used THAT song” as we think of a different song.
Well, we said our good byes to Tristan and Sarah and the kids. And headed over to Dad’s house. The next morning we got up to leave.
I’d say we left at about 10 oclock, and after stopping at Walmart, McDonalds, and getting some extra fuel, we probably made it out of Rapid City by 11 AM. We drove to Wall, so Samuel could get a T-shirt at “Wall Drug” which is advertised in weird places around the world, and well known for it’s “free ice-water”. Then we decided it was such a beautiful looking day, we’d swing through the badlands.
Here’s Samuel over looking a crevasse at the Badlands.
The badlands are really cool, and I keep telling myself I’m going to spend a day there sometime instead of just “swinging through”. Lo and behold this time, we got to see the badlands for about 10 minutes and then fog, fog, fog, and hey…nope…more fog. What happened to the nice sunny day? I think we saw another 5 minutes more of the badlands in the patches coming out of the fog, but that’s about it. It was still worth it I guess. The badlands are a sight to see…although I’m sure the Grand Canyon is much more worthwile, if you’re in SD, it’s worth a “swing through” at least.
The rest of the trip remained rather uneventful. Samuel drove for about 4 hours after the badlands, while I read my book. Then I took over after some really good pizza in Sioux Falls, at about 8PM eastern. Across the state of Iowa, and into Illinois, at about 4:30 AM I was beat. We pulled off at a rest area and slept for about 4 hours. I hurt just thinking about how tired I was. Woke up around 8:30 and headed out. I drove another 2 hours I think, and I was beat. With as much complaining as I did about Samuel’s 1 hour out of 20 on the way out, he was a Godsend on the way back. He drove the rest of the way home, which was about 6 hours I think. This was really good, because I needed a nap, and my book was getting interesting too!!
We arrived home safely and happy to be out of the car. The next day I spent half the afternoon cleaning the sand/salt off the van that was picked up from the northern roads, and cleaning out the inside of both vehicles. You can’t even tell we took a long trip in them now.
It was nice to have 2 days off after returning home, and now it’s Friday and I’m at work.
Hope you enjoyed the run down of the SD trip. Hopefully it was interesting!
-Trevor
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