Friday, July 22, 2016

Chapter 16: The Longest Day

7:00a. Best Western

There's a complimentary breakfast that the Musial boys are tearing into. Loading up and into the car goes a lot faster when you aren't folding up tents or packing away gear. We have a lot of things planned for the day so I'm glad we are getting an early start.

9:00a. Mount Rushmore

Thank goodness we didn't try to get to the KOA last night, because we would probably STILL be trying to set up the tents.

11:30. Mount Rushmore

The Mount Rushmore monument IS definitely a look-at-it-for-five-minutes-then-you-can-go attraction. But there's an interesting museum on site with lots of historical descriptions of how the monument was created. Plus, there's a chance for the boys to earn another Junior Ranger badge, so they spend a good deal of time working on the qualifications for their patches.


This would be a good time for me to talk about the Park Rangers we've met over the past week. Between Rocky Mountain National Park, Yellowstone, and now Mount Rushmore, we've probably talked to two-dozen or more Rangers. And I have to say, they've ranged in temperament from friendly and helpful to EXTREMELY friendly and helpful. Honestly, I want to get a look at the Park Ranger Human Resources training and development guide, because I've never met a more consistently positive and agreeable group of people in my life.

1:00p. Wind Cave National Park

We're on a mission to visit every national park, forest, or monument that we can possibly fit into our schedule. Wind Cave National Park was less than an hour from Mt. Rushmore, so here we are.

My oldest is pretty excited that after only ten days of growing a beard, you can start to see it.

3:00p. Wind Cave National Park

Apparently you need reservations to tour the caves, so we couldn't actually go underground during our visit. Yet somehow we've spent two hours exploring the small (but interesting) museum that abuts the caverns. I suspect the yearning for Junior Ranger badges is at the bottom of all of this. And the kicker: although my boys all "passed the test" for being a Wind Caves Junior Ranger -- THERE ARE NOT ANY ACTUALLY PATCHES YOU CAN BUY AT THIS LOCATION.

On the bright side, I did get to catch a short nap in the movie room.

5:15p. Some jackass dirt road in South Dakota

Our last stop for the evening is Badlands National Park.

Before we left Wind Cave National Park, I asked the ranger for the best way to travel between the two parks. He asked me, "You don't mind driving on dirt roads do you? I mean, tractor trailers drive on them."

It sounded like an innocent thing to say, but I feel like the underlying tone was: "You don't mind driving on dirt roads, do you? Or are you a big East Coast baby?"

I responded, "Oh yeah, dirt roads sound great!" and he gave me the directions.

Now I'm on some rutted washboard gravel-and-mud road, winding through random South Dakota backyards at about twelve miles per hour. Cell service is essentially non-existent, so I don't even have my phone-based GPS to tell me how much time I am losing. All I know is that the van and all the equipment packed onto the tailgate rack are being covered in inches of dust and dirt.

Also, it's almost 100 degrees outside, and despite the air conditioning, people are starting to get hot and cranky. (Probably mostly me.)

6:45p. Badlands National Park Visitors Center

We've finally made it. The Visitor's Center closes in 15 minutes, so we just have a few minutes to check it out. There's no chance the boys can earn their Junior Ranger badges in such a short time, so now they are kind of irritated. Nevertheless, we get a quick education on the geology and history of the Badlands, and we get to fill our water bottles with clear, cold water.

7:15p. Badlands National Park Overlook

After the Visitor's Center closes, we drive back towards to the park entrance, checking out the scenery as we go. My wife asks to stop at an overlook to take in the view and get some pictures.



I'm happy to oblige. Earlier today, we made a reservation at a hotel in Sioux Falls, which Google Maps tells me is four hours away. If we're back on the Interstate by 8:00, we should roll into our hotel by around midnight -- kind of late, but not outrageously so. So of course we'll stop at the overlook!

7:20p. Badlands National Park Trailhead

Here's a surprise. The overlook parking lot also serves as the launching point for a series of trails.

"Hey Dad! Why can't we take a hike through the Badlands? We never know when we'll be back!"

I can't argue with that, but I negotiate a compromise: We'll hike out 10 minutes, stop, then turn back around. We should be on the interstate by 8:15.

7:28p. Badlands National Park. 'The Notch" Trail

We've hiked eight minutes and now things are different.

Directly in front of us is a 150-ft wire-and-log ladder built into a hillside. We had agreed to hike out and hike back in a timely manner. But apparently you can't show a group of boys and teenagers a wilderness-style ladder and NOT let them climb it. So here we go.

One does not simply walk to the end of The Notch trail. You have to climb a ladder.

7:40. Badlands National park. "The Notch" Trail.

That wasn't too bad. It only took about 10 minutes for all of us to climb the ladder. We take a few pictures and get ready to head back to the car.

8:00p. Badlands National Park. "The Notch" Trail

Fun fact: climbing DOWN a wilderness ladder takes twice as long as climbing UP a wilderness ladder.
Climbing down the ladder requires some fancy footwork

I'm in the perfect position to be of no help if my four-year-old stumbles.

8:15p. Badlands National Park.

We still need some photos for some reason? Anyway, here are a few.





8:30p. Interstate 90. South Dakota

OK. We are back on the road. It's four hours to Sioux Falls, but a 12:30 arrival wouldn't be the worst.

The problem now is that everyone is starving. (Climbing Desert Ladders makes people hungry I suppose). A quick check of the internet tells us that we are about 1 hour from a town called Murdo, SD. According to the same internet, Murdo has four restaurants open until 10:00p. We should arrive in Murdo at 9:30, so no worries.

9:05p, er. 10:05p. Interstate 90. South Dakota

WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED!

We were just tooling down the interstate, happy as can be, 25 minutes from Murdo, when suddenly a sign came out of the darkness reading: "Welcome to the Central Time Zone."

Confused, we glanced at our iPhones, then stared bug-eyed in horror as they switched from "9:05p" to "10:05p."

ALL OF THE RESTAURANTS IN MURDO ARE NOW CLOSED!

I have six starving boys in the van behind me and I have no idea what I am going to do.

11:00p. Murdo, SD. The Parking Lot of Prairie Pizza.

It's an hour later. Here's the good news: we found ONE RESTAURANT in Murdo that was still open: Prairie Pizza.

Here's the bad news: the proprietress of Prairie Pizza did not necessarily appreciate a raggedy band of easterners coming into her establishment twenty minutes before closing. She was nice enough, but made two things perfectly clear: (a) we couldn't order anything from the menu besides pizza [which is fine] and (b) she had already cleaned the dining room, so we had to order everything 'to-go.'

That's why my family and I are sitting in a high-plains parking lot in South Dakota at 11:00pm, eating pizza and trying to keep the paper plates from blowing away. This is not exactly how we planned for our vacation to go.

Completely random and bizarre fact: immediately next to the Prairie Pizza parking lot in Murdo, SD (Population 475) is a Tesla quick-charge station.

11:30p. Murdo, SD

Pizza is eaten and we've snuck into the hotel down the street to use the restroom. Everyone is back in the van and we're ready for the final leg. We are 200 miles from our reservations in Sioux Falls. I ask my wife to get on the internet and find 200 trivia questions to keep me awake for the next three hours.

3:00a. Sioux Falls, SD

I thank my lucky stars for such a wonderful family. My boys all kept it together and my wife fought through her own exhaustion to help keep me awake as we barreled through the South Dakota night. We arrived at the hotel a few minutes ago. I pleaded with the desk clerk to let us stay until noon instead of the normal 11:00am check-out time and she acquiesced to my sad sack entreaties.

The last four hours have been frustrating and trying, but we're safe and sound and piled onto various pieces of furniture in our Residence Inn suite. As I try to fight-off the tension and ease myself to sleep, I have only one remaining thought:

SINCE WHEN THE HELL DO TIME ZONES CHANGE IN THE MIDDLE OF A STATE?

Today’s stats:

  • States visited: SD
  • Miles traveled today: 528.2
  • Miles traveled on the trip: 3,883.3
  • Today's travel time: NINETEEN HOURS