The Trip Begins - Day One, July 11th, 2009

My original plan was to leave the house at 6am. But I knew that wouldn't happen, with getting two pre-schoolers up and out of bed 2 hours earlier than usual. Dave's dad arrived at our house at 6, and we piled everything into the car (all neat an organized... I should have taken pictures of the car when we left vs. when we arrived!) Anyway, we actually got on the road shortly after 7am. Not too bad. The kids were excited (Sofia got her very own Leapster 2, and they both got a few new games), we had more than enough snacks to make it through the day, and off we went!

And they each had a new 'car pillow' - which I bought to help them keep from having the sleeping kid bobbing head issue. Alan never slept in the car the entire drive and Sofia decided that it was best used to hide her eyes during parts of movies that she thought were too scary. She did fall asleep in the car on nearly every long stretch of driving, and I would try to put the pillow under her chin to keep her head up, and usually she just ended up nuzzling into it instead.
I'm not going to pretend I know how long we were driving in each section of this trip... I was pretty engrossed in my book (finishing up New Moon at the time). But before long we entered Wisconsin!

And before I knew it we hit the Mississippi River. I was all excited to tell the kids about the 'big bridge' over the Mississippi (like on I-80 into Iowa) - but turns out I-90 crosses the river in a strange place where it's not one 'big' river, but looks more like 4 small rivers. So it wasn't nearly exciting as I had lead them to believe.

And then we were in Minnesota!
And, got to see something that I wish we would have seen A LOT more of on the way.... a wind farm!
And, the thing that Dave thought would make the 'coolest' scrap book page...
OK - are we going the wrong way, or did that truck just come on the exit ramp?
Uh, Dave... really... might want to move out of the way!
Seriously!
Whew! Dodged it!

OK - it was just a semi being towed. But I'm proud of my back seat/zoom photo skills for these. (And that the camera didn't focus on the bug splats instead of the truck!)

And, Minnesota also brought the first chorus of "Cows, cows, cows! Mommy, I see cows!" by Sofia!
And, again before I knew it... South Dakota!
Our goal was to make it to Rapid City on the first day (14 hours from home) - but we didn't quite make it that far. So we stopped for dinner at a Culver's. And saw some crazy art in a field...
And we crossed the Missouri River... which was almost more impressive than the Mississippi!
Some scenic rolling hills...And, sunset... before we checked into the worst motel ever!
We stopped in Kadoka, SD at the Dakota Motel. Certainly the nastiest motel I've ever experienced. I wished I would have packed my own sheets, and wouldn't put my toothbrush on the counter. Although I wish I would have taken a picture of the (I'm assuming) owner. He reminded me a lot of my Grampa that I remember from when I was little. So, we vowed that we would only stay in National Chain motels for the rest of the trip... Motel 6 became our friend!
This was actually in the morning, the beds were made when we arrived. Note the fly swatter on the mini-fridge. Yay, a mini-fridge... but it wasn't plugged in, and when opened had a horrible smell, and was all blackened in the back. I didn't dare open up the microwave. Oh, and the smoke detector was present in the room, not on the wall, but sitting on the shelf next to the TV... with no battery. And there was the largest daddy long legs spider behind the curtain we'd ever seen. Who knows how long it'd been since someone had even stepped foot into that room.

But there was a heated pool... that over looked I-90!
So, if you're ever driving through South Dakota, and need a place to stop for the night, skip the Dakota Motel in Kadoka and drive a little longer!

But, we got sleep and headed off to Rapid City/Keystone and Mount Rushmore in the morning!