Whirlwind Summer Part 4: The Trip to California

I am determined to get this Whirlwind Summer series done by the end of September ... end of October... today.  Mike asked if he could help, so I assigned him this post (and he did it a lot more thoroughly than I would have.  It just took him a month to get it done.)

After a few weeks of relaxing, playing, goodbyes, and packing, we were on the road to California. Because we were already driving across most of the country, we decide to take our time and see friends and family along the way, breaking up the drive and getting to see people we love, many of whom we likely won't see again for quite some time. 

ILLINOIS.
Our first stop was to visit some good friends just a half day's drive away.  We attended church with the Krauses back in Provo, and were so excited to see them again when they moved out to the Midwest.  We've met them in Nauvoo several times over the last few years, and it's always like it hasn't been months since we last saw each other.

We spent the night there, and the next morning, the kids were playing outside while Stephanie and I were getting ready to pack up and head out.  Just as I grabbed one last pancake for breakfast, their little boy came in and announced, "Caleb threw a rock and broke the glass."  He said it in perfectly even tones and with a complete lack of fanfare, so instead of panicking and running outside, we were curious and asked for clarification.  "He threw a rock and it broke the window," he said.

That was enough to get us outside.  Was it a house window, the windshield on the Krause car?  Was anyone hurt?  Was there really anything broken?  How bad was it?  After imagining the worst possibilities for three and a half seconds, it was something of a relief when we ran outside and saw Caleb, unhurt, standing by our van watching the glass on the sliding door as a sheet of spiderweb cracks grew from a small hole in the lower right corner of the window.  I've seen the aftermath of car crashes, with all the little rectangles of glass on the ground, but I had never before been there to watch while the cracks expanded over the whole pane and tiny pieces of glass started popping out of the window onto the driveway below.  We could hear the cracks moving as they grew; it sounded just like when you step on a frozen river that's not quite thick enough and the cracks go shooting out across the ice, and you know you'd better get your foot back on the shore or  you're going to be very cold and wet very soon.

And that was that.  In about a minute, the window was completely destroyed, although much of it was still held in place by the other glass around it, held in by glue around the frame.

It was one of those times that I feel like the sheer unexpected ridiculousness of the situation made it pretty easy to handle.   Did my nearly-three-year-old really just throw a rock at our van and shatter the window, on day 1 of a 10-day trip across the country?  Really?

There was no way that Caleb was going to help clean up all that glass, so his consequence was that while I cleaned up the glass, he had to sit at the edge of the driveway and watch.  The other kids played tag and ran on the hill and played in the sandbox and seemed to be even louder than usual in their glee, and he had to sit there and didn't even get to help clean up.  Sitting there is one of the hardest things you could ask Caleb to do, so he sometimes took a break and stood there instead.

Eventually, we got all the glass out of the window and the car, and off the driveway.  One tender mercy of the trip was that the Krauses have one of the only paved driveways we used on our trip, so cleanup was relatively simple.  I can't even imagine trying to get all that glass off a gravel or dirt surface.

We were free of glass, but needed something to keep the 65mph wind out of Joshua's face, so we used some cardboard, a black plastic trash bag, and lots of duct tape to create this fashion statement of a replacement.

After putting our cardboard replacement window in, we had kind of lost our get-up-and-go, so we stayed for a while longer and let the kids, including Caleb, play.  It's hard to be upset with the little guy, who is just two years old after all, for not thinking of consequences, but we've reminded him many times on the trip and since then that we never ever throw things in the car or at the car.

As it turned out, that wasn't enough duct tape.  We needed vertical stripes and more horizontal reinforcement to hold up to the load of strong winds.  After a few stops at the top of Iowa freeway exits to add load-bearing capacity, it was good enough.  It still flapped in the wind when we got up to the speed limit, but it was bearable, if not fashionable.

IOWA.
Our next stop was to see our good friends the Nelsons in central Iowa.

They live just far enough out that we had only visited once before since living in Illinois, and it was great to catch up.  One of the highlights for Stephanie and I was learning all about Paul's bees.  My dad kept bees when I was young, and I've always thought it would be really fun to have some, but Stephanie was intrigued  far beyond my expectations.  Instead of playing a game after the kids went to bed, Stephanie interrogated Paul about the bees, their boxes, the honey-making process, and the business of beekeeping.  It was fun to see her so interested.  In the last two months since we visited the Nelsons, Stephanie spots beehives along the side of the road everywhere we go.

Eliza and Caleb loved playing with the big boys, and swinging on the tire swing,

and pulling the kitten's tail.

That night we called ahead to the Safelite auto glass shop in Rapid City to make sure they had or could get the right replacement window in by the time we got to Rapid City. They could, so we made an appointment.

SOUTH DAKOTA.

We drove from central Iowa to South Dakota and arrived at our camping spot in Custer Stake Park long after the sun had gone to bed. 

We set up in the dark, slept better than Stephanie expected, since it was something like 45 degrees, and we only had summer jammies and a few light blankets, and headed out early in the morning to tour the wildlife loop in the park.  There's a lot to see in the park, but since we had an 11am appointment at the Safelite shop in Rapid City to get our window replaced, we didn't have much time.  The wildlife loop was worth driving.  Not long after we arrived, we had to stop to let a herd of several hundred bison cross the road.  We were pretty up close and personal, as they didn't seem to even really notice us, except to swerve around the car to avoid a collision.

We saw also saw deer, antelope, and elk, a few prairie dog cities. The bison were certainly the most impressive in sheer size, but I like the prairie dogs too, standing sentry over their holes, playing with each other,and seemingly so random, yet highly organized.

There are a lot of really interesting places to visit in the southwest corner of South Dakota.  I've spent quite a lot of time there in the last few years working to encourage education and economic development on  the the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation with the Kola Foundation, a non-profit organization that I co-founded . However, it would have added five or six hours to the trip, so we skipped it.

We would have loved to visit Wind Cave, but maybe not so much with three kids in tow or in arms.  We wanted to visit the Badlands, and actually intended to after our trip to Rapid City, but we were so excited to have our window back we got right back on the freeway afterward and only realized later we had forgotten to see the Badlands.

Before our auto glass incident, we were also planning a visit to Crazy Horse Memorial, which I think is a much more interesting site than Mount Rushmore, just on the other side of the mountain.  The monument is or will be several times larger than Rushmore and will be displayed in full three dimensions, like a giant marble statue, in contrast to the flat faces of Rushmore.  The Crazy Horse subject matter seems a lot more appropriate to the Black Hills as well.  Rushmore is an impressive work of art, but what do the presidents have to do with South Dakota, or the Black Hills?

Crazy Horse is also unfinished, as you can see above by comparing the finished scale model to the mountain behind it.  It's been something like 50 years since work started, and the face of Crazy Horse is completely carved, but the rest of his body, his horse, and the inscription that will eventually appear, are all to be completed.  The delay is due primarily to the fact that the entire thing is funded by donations and the admission fee for visitors.  The creators refuse any assistance from federal grants, since the monument stands for the pride and independence of the Native people even after their defeat by the government of the United States.

At the base of the mountain you'll find a  fantastic visitor center, with an introductory video about the Lakota, Crazy Horse, and the monument itself.  There's also a museum of Native American art and local artisans making and selling their products, places to eat, and a gift store that also helps fund the continued work on the monument.  If you're ever in the area, I strongly encourage you to visit, even if you have to skip Rushmore to see it.

Speaking of Mount Rushmore, we did see it, because you can see it from the road.  It looks just like the postcards, only maybe a little bigger.  We didn't stop there or at Crazy Horse because we had to get to Rapid City to get our window replaced.  Thanks Caleb.

After our tour of the Custer State Park wildlife loop, we drove to Rapid City and I dropped Stephanie and the kids off at the much advertised "Dinosaur Park" ten minutes from the auto glass shop, while I took the van to the shop.  The dinosaur park ended up being the same sort of attraction as the famous Corn Palace of Mitchell, Iowa (which has the dubious distinction of being "the World's Only Corn Palace!") or Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota.  All three are well advertised, and when you get there, you end up wondering how you ended up there with so many other suckers, but you force yourself to see the place because you did make the drive, and you're determined to experience the whole thing, no matter how unspectacular the experience.  (As a matter of fact, I have never been suckered into stopping at the Corn Palace, but the reviews are unanimous.  I did have the misfortune of giving in to the hundreds of billboards pointing me to Wall Drug once.  Let me save you the trouble... it's a drug store with lots of touristy knicknacks to purchase.)

The particular unspectacular experience of the Dinosaur Park consisted of one steep, treeless hill with a walking path to the top, interrupted by several large concrete creatures, shaped more or less like the dinosaurs in Caleb's dinosaur books, all painted the same unfortunate shade of green.  There was one stegosaurus low enough to the ground that the kids could climb on it, but with no shade on an exposed hill on a hot August afternoon, the family soon retreated down the hill and across the street to a little gift shop and cafe.

The highlight of our visit to Rapid City?  Corn Dogs!  At the cafe, the kids tried their first corn dogs, and fell in love.  Shortly after finally making it California, we bought a case at Sam's Club and we repeat the special occasion now and then when the kids are especially good (or we are especially time-constrained for lunch preparation.)


WYOMING.
From Rapid City we drove to Sheridan, Wyoming to spend a wonderful few days with my brother Dan and his family.  My folks and sister Allison met us there, so the house was more than full.  We appreciate Dan and Brenda letting us invade their home and their lives.  We loved seeing them, and we will guiltlessly invade again the very next time we're in Wyoming.

It's hard to pick out the kids' favorite part of this visit.  We spent a glorious day at the water park, where we especially enjoyed the water slides.  Jumping off the side of the pool into Daddy's arms never gets tiring, at least not for the kids; I get plenty tired.  It's an impressive water park for a Sheridan-sized city.  All of our kids are half fish, so it was a great place to play.

Caleb and Eliza spent every second possible riding their cousins' bikes.  It was nice for them to get outside, since we had spent most lot of the previous few days in the car.

They also got to watch a move with their cousins, and got popcorn to eat during the show, a luxury they rarely enjoy at home.

UTAH.
We drove from Wyoming to Utah, where we spent Sunday with my brother Tim, his wife Jen, and their dog, Mokey.  It was great to see Tim and Jen.  I used to see Tim all the time when we both lived in Provo, and it was great to catch up.  The kids thought Tim and Jen were ok, but they were smitten with Mokey.  I apologize if that's spelled wrong Mokey/Moki/Mokee... I never did check your tag to see the correct version.

The next day we drove up to visit Noreen and Dave and their kids, some of my other cousins in Utah.  We topped the day off with an amazing dinner at Auntie Ruthie's.  Of course, at Auntie Ruthie's, dinners only come in amazing.

From there, we went to visit Stephanie's brother Derrick and his wife Anika.  By this time, the kids were starting to melt down, so we spent another day at the water park in Provo to let them play off some steam.

CALIFORNIA!!!
Finally, our final day of driving took us from Utah to California.  This trip used to take what seemed like forever.  After more than a week on the road, the final day seemed not much longer than a quick trip to the other side of town.  We passed the Great Salt Lake, then a lot of sand and salt, then sand, then dirt, sagebrush, and brown mountains.  Finally, just as we entered California, we hit the base of the Sierra Nevada mountains, with their enormous pines, beautiful lakes, and curvy roads, and I felt like I was home.  Within a few hours, we really were.