On the Road Day 2 - Rapid City to Gillette, WY

I know I said I wasn't going to blog until Tuesday because we were going to camp tonight around Mt. Rushmore, but due to 102 degree and 100 degree temps today and tomorrow and the chance of a thunderstorm, we opted to not camp and to visit Mt. Rushmore and Custer State Park then head to Gillette, WY a day early. Tomorrow we will head to Casper, WY to visit with my sister Kimberly and her fiancee Todd, Tuesday and Wednesday and leave Thursday morning for Yellowstone.

So last night I left you with everyone tucked into their beds fast asleep. Tonight I start off the same way - but that's not how the day started off. We got up extra early, ate breakfast and got on the road to Mt. Rushmorw which is only about 25 miles from Rapid City, SD. You could feel the excitement from the boys cause they had been looking forward to seeing it in real life for awhile now. When we got there it was already hot and crowded, even though it had only been open for about 45 minutes. Owen is very light sensitive and bright lights can cause him to have instant migraine type headaches (me too), Tony swears he's read where people with blue eyes are more light sensitive, but I don't know that for sure. So he was hot and complaining that he felt like puking cause his head hurt so bad. We walked around and took pictures and went in the gift shop and bought each kid a keychain for a souvenier and ended up being there for about two hours. By the time we left, Owen was crippled with pain and I had a headache too, so we both took some headache medicine and drank a bunch of ice water.

As we came around the curve...Bam...there they are!

 This was as we were entering the walkway.

 The kids found the Nebraska flag and we wanted to take a picture.

 I wish I was as photogenic as Mt. Rushmore is. There really is not too many bad angles for pictures.

 Good pic, but not nearly as photogenic as those four studs.

Tony and the kids needed their picture in front too.

I am excited about this picture because mine and Tony's engagement photo was at Mt. Rushmore, so this

shows how far we've come in nine years!

My cutie patootie Judd. He was the happiest kid ALL day. Through the heat, hunger, potty breaks, and all the crowds and walking, he did not complain. When we got back in the car, he whispered to Raymond that mommy and daddy liked him best. Stinker.

This little stinker had us cracking up today. He followed in Owen's footsteps of not feeling well after we left Mt. Rushmore. First he threw tantrums in the gift shop because he wanted something else, something else, something else besides a key chain, then cried when I wouldn't give him the money to pay for it cause of all the crowds. I think his getting sick though was due to car sickness. He started complaining that he felt like throwing up when we were driving curvy mountain roads on Needles Highway through the Black Hills and Custer State park. He never threw up then, but on our way out of Custer State park, he threw up in one of my plastic mixing bowls that I had luckily brought for camping (3 of them in fact) and it was about a half gallon of vomit. We pulled over and got it all cleaned up out of the bowl and I got back in the car and he says, "Mommy, what's for dinner tonight?" Tony and I busted up. He's such a character. That was the only time he got sick and he ate every bite of dinner. ha ha.(Note to self and all parents...NEVER go on a road trip without a puke bucket of some sort, unless you enjoy cleaning up car seats and changing clothes, etc., which I don't) I never leave home without one!

This poor guy was crippled with a painful migraine headache the whole first half of the day. After we left Rushmore, he was then feeling sick in the car like migraines do and from the winding roads. Luckily we had a puke bucket for him too, though he only had a couple spit up type pukes. But he didn't want to eat lunch and I made him eat some of his sandwich and a few chips, and though I don't let my kids EVER drink soda, I let him have a good swig of my Diet Mt. Dew, because from migraine experience, caffeine can help. Even though he didn't eat much lunch, about 10 minutes after lunch and we were back in the car, he was playing with his brothers. So the combination of Children's Ibuprofen an hour earlier, a little food, and some caffeine finally kicked in and he's been fine the rest of the afternoon.

Finally this beauty queen diva is too funny also. she has been amazing for being a one year old on a long road trip full of hours of driving time. She has really only had her quick tantrums when she was acting like a "princess" of the family....like when she doesn't want to ride in her stroller at Mt. Rushmore but screams and pushes Judd out when we tell him he can.....or when she says drink and I hand her her sippy cup full of water and she screams because she wants a cup with no lid like her brothers, the list goes on. But she's so cute, her drama only adds to her cuteness....most of the time. Here she totally posed for the camera and said Cheese as loud and big as she could.

My fav. pres...Honest Abe

What a great family picture, if I do say so myself! Maybe 2011 Christmas card??

Some of the beautiful "needle" rocks on Needles Hwy in Custer State park. The scenery is so beautiful, my pictures in no way do it justice. Definitely a must see family trip!

Our picnic lunch in Custer State park. Great pit stop!

Hole in the Wall picnic area...that is where we ate our picnic lunch....

The kids literally standing in the Hole in the wall...ha ha.

We brought some cherries on our trip, and they must of been yummy if you can't tell by the red stain on Raymond's face...by the way, this is why when Raymond throws up later as I mentioned earlier, Judd yells out that Raymond threw up blood. ha ha.

And do be careful when walking around your picnic areas, you wouldn't want to accidentally step in this buffalo pie. At Wall Drug, they were selling frisbees, shaped like buffalo pies!! I almost bought one.

I made it!!! I'm finally home!!!

After we got to Gillette, I gave the family a tour of the entire town before we decided to eat dinner at Humphrey's Bar and Grill - a local restaurant that has since gone on to open a ton of Sandford's Grub and Pubs. The one in Gillette is named Humphrey's instead of Sanfords, because Gillette was it's starting point and Humphrey the camel is the High School mascot - hence the purple and gold (high school colors) and the camel in front. It was really good, but I was hoping to maybe recognize someone there but didn't.

Standing in front of my old family home...41 Edison Avenue, where we lived for almost 11 years. It is for sale, and looks like it's been vacant for awhile, cause sadly the paint it peeling and the yard is overgrown horribly. I walked around and looked in the windows, and the decks are falling apart. So sad. I want to buy it and fix it up and move there with my family. So they can experience Scream and Silver Bullet, Semi's, neighbors staring in the house from the hilltop...my sisters will understand, but really I miss that old house.

Driving back from my old house back into town, the sunset was a typical GORGEOUS Wyoming sunset. But unfortunately Tony couldn't get a good picture cause the hills kept popping up. One of the other many things I miss about our house in WY. You will almost never see as awesome of sunsets as the ones we used to see from our deck.

So we got back to the hotel and once again setteled in for the night....or at least the family is asleep without me again. I've discovered that posting on my blog from my laptop is not nearly as easy as it is from my home computer, because it will only let me upload 1 picture at a time, then add 1 picture at a time and it's very slow. I hope you appreciate my lost sleep over this...:)

Today we ran out of time after driving Custer State Park too, so we decided to skip Devil's Tower which was on our way to Gillette. Since we have no timeframe for being in Casper tomorrow at my sisters house, and she needs to work anyways, we decided we will get up and back track an hour to hike around Devil's Tower, then head on to Casper which is about 2 1/2 hours from Gillette. Once in Casper we will hang out with my oldest sister and fiancee for two days. So sometime in Casper, I will do one final post before heading to the dark side of the moon with no communication for three days while in Yellowstone. But don't go to far, because Sunday night I will be back in a Hampton Inn in Laramie, WY and will be excited to post our Yellowstone pictures for your enjoyment! Good night all. We are having an awesome time!