9 days of vacation…

unknown miles of driving (I’m actually going to work on this…at least a good estimate)…650 pictures exactly…12 attractions visited…11 gift shops visited…only a couple of tantrums, though, pretty good, I think…at least 4 hours of a thunderstorm at 3:00 am while 2 children slept and 1 child crawled in bed with mommy and daddy in the tent in the woods in Custer State Park…and these are just the highlights, folks!! For the next week or so, you guys get to relive my vacation with me. bwahahahhahaha <—evil laugh. I just need to get all of the writing done so when it’s time to do my vacation album, it will all be in one place. *grin* So, here we go!

Day 1-Travel to South Dakota. We got a late early start. We were going to leave the house around 6am, but finally hit the road at 6:20. We stopped to get ice and got on the road. We met our friends Robin, Jon, and Logan at Johnson’s Corner for breakfast. After eating and getting some cinnamon rolls to go, we prepared to get back on the road. We put Tyler in the car with Logan thinking that we would just trade a boy every couple of hours to give Logan some company. Sadly, it did not happen that way. Avery’s poor little belly ended up putting us an hour behind Logan’s van and we never made a trade off. Fun for Tyler, but a little sad for the other two. (We did end up making it a little more even on other parts of the trip.) Our 6 1/2 hour trip took about 7 1/2 hours with all of our pit stops.

When we got to Custer State Park, we found our camping site fairly easily. It was lovely! Nice big site, backed up to open space and some hills. The bad part…the bathrooms were more than twice as far away as the place we usually camp in Colorado. (Bummer for *me* in the middle of the night…) Somehow, we got it in our brains that South Dakota was an hour ahead of Colorado and started planning accordingly. We got the tent set up and got dinner going. All while trying to keep the boys out of too much trouble. It was nice that Logan brought his game boy…

Here is our tent/campsite…isn’t it lovely…

My lovely husband…I think nature is good for him…

Dinner the first night…burgers for the grown ups and sandwiches for the kiddos.

Benji was loving his dinner…

We got the kids in the bed at what we thought was 9pm. We were going to have an early morning the next morning and we wanted them to have a full night of sleep. Well, when the 9pm ranger program started at what we thought was 10pm, we figured it out. Oh well…the boys *did* get plenty of sleep, though. As we were trying to get the boys to sleep, we had a visitor at camp. We actually had quite a few sightings of wildlife while we were camping…

That concludes this installment of The Harrells in South Dakota: A Vacation of Black Hills Proportions. I hope you will join us next time for Day Two: Bison and Mammoths and Caves, Oh My!

5 thoughts on “9 days of vacation…

  1. Heather,
    The campsite looks awesome and we are looking forward to more adventures of “The Wilderness Family”.
    Wade’s expression is interesting. I’m waiting for the Jack Nicholson’s character from the “Shining” to say, “Heeeeeeere’s Johnny!”
    And who’s bicycle handlebars are you cooking over the open fire?
    I’m glad you are all back home and safe! I can’t even imagine a severe thunderstorm in a tent no less. Welcome to the “boy’s club”, you’ve earned a “pair”.
    Love always,
    Dad

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