4th of July Vacation 2010 - RV Trip to Mt. Rushmore

This RV road trip was a vacation I had been wanting to do for years! I LOVE RV's! And, I love the open road (well, as long as it's not too long of an open road). So, this was the perfect vacation! Like usual, I'll let the photos (and a bit of narration) tell the story (the notes are BELOW the photos). This vacation was so wonderful that we are already thinking of our next RV vacation....Yellowstone in the summer of 2011 maybe?

Eric, Sara, Davis and I picked up the 31' RV (with a slide out - smile) at B&B RV in Denver. They gave us a quick run-down of the vehicle and handed over the keys. The great thing about an RV is you have your car and house with you at ALL times. The challenging part (at least for those people who can't travel without one of EVERYTHING) is packing for such a trip. Two carloads of bags, groceries, equipment and "necessities" later we were on our way!

Friday, July 2nd - we're off!

Captain and co-captain.

The Wyoming border.

Lusk, Wyoming. They still have pumps like this?

The South Dakota border.

Dinner in Custer, SD. Almost there!

We've arrived! Palmer Gulch KOA in Hill City, SD!

Our RV spot - backed up to cabins, open space and the horse pasture.

Our home for the next week.

Lots of fun stuff for kids to do - playground, splash pad, two pools, bounce pillow, putt-putt and more!

July 3rd -all you can eat pancake breakfast for $2.50!

Sara and I enjoying some putt-putt in the sun. Surprisingly half the days were sunny and hot, the others were cool and rainy.

July 4th - we went back to Custer to see fireworks. Unfortunately, this year the pine beetles cause so much concern for fire danger that they canceled the fireworks show at Mt. Rushmore. Left photo: hanging out in the RV waiting for it to get dark. Middle photo: playing at the park waiting for it to get dark. Right photo: the view from where we pulled over to watch the fireworks...STILL waiting for it to get dark. After all the waiting Davis couldn't have cared less about the fireworks.

July 5th - Mt. Rushmore! We took lots of photos and "hiked" the Presidential trail where we saw the museum and the artist's studio and original sculpture. The only great photo with all four of us doesn't even have Mt. Rushmore in it.

After our visit at Mt. Rushmore we wet to Keystone, SD (only 5 miles from Mt. Rushmore) and took a ride on the Alpine Slide! We weren't sure what Davis would think of it - but he LOVED it. And, why not? It's a huge SLIDE!

Our last tourist stop on the 5th was to Bear Country USA. It's a drive-thru wildlife area (more like a reserve or a zoo) with elk, mountain lions, reindeer, big horn sheep, and, you guessed it, bears! We were in our RV and this bear was just a few feet from us. Incredible!

A typical evening for us at the campground - dinner outside at the picnic table, s'mores and card games. It really doesn't get any better than that! Oh, remind me to tell you the story about Eric setting off the firetruck siren (see the firetruck in the background of the first photo?) at 6:30 am our first morning there.

One of my favorite things about this vacation - the horses. Every morning and evening at about 6:00 the cowgirls would call the horses from the pasture to corral them into the riding stables. It was incredible to see over 50 horses run less than 10 feet from you. While I love looking at horses, riding them isn't really my thing. Lucky for Sara (she loves to ride) Eric was up for a ride, too. Oh, and Davis loved petting them and feeding them every day.

Our last night in South Dakota - dinner at Desperado in Hill City, SD.

July 8th - On the road again (can you hear the Willie Nelson song in my head?), just can't wait to get on the road again. That's actually not true. I didn't want to get on the road again. I could have stayed another week...or two. The photo above left was of Crazy Horse. We just took a photo as we drive by. The middle photo is at the Cheyenne KAO (Sara and Eric had daily putt-putt tournaments so we were excited to see this KOA had a course). The photo on the right was our "camp site" - nothing to write home about but it served it's purpose for getting us closer to Denver since we had to turned in our keys to the RV the next morning.

For me, this trip was sort of about recreating the RV trips my grandparents took us on when we were kids. I treasure the nostalgia of the RV, open road, and a simpler way of life. I am so grateful for the memories that Sara and I had with our grandparents and I hope someday Davis will look back on his childhood adventures and have his own nostalgic moments. Okay, maybe not this one, after all he's only two, but you get my point.