Dogs vs. No Dogs?

Another day in South Dakota, another pre-6:00 a.m. wake up. Today's beat yesterday's by at least 20 minutes. Which just means more time to have fun, right? Uh, sure.

But first, let me back up. I actually awoke for the first time long before my daughter woke up. 3:15 a.m. to be exact. To a whining 90 lb dog standing 6 inches from my face. If you know me at all, you know that this dog and I have a, shall we say, tumultuous relationship. I actually haven't gotten a solid night's sleep in, oh, about 2.5 years thanks to my 4 legged "friend," because he wakes me up EVERY SINGLE NIGHT wanting to be fed. No joke. In addition to knowledge of U.S. history, I also lack patience, so it's a flipping miracle this dog is still alive, really. However, despite my irritation over last night's 3 a.m. wake up call, I am VERY glad that I convinced my hubby to take him outside despite his protests that the dog just wanted to eat because we nearly avoided a MAJOR incident. The kind that smells for days or weeks on end. And not an easy one to clean up, if you know what I mean. Can you imagine riding in an RV that a dog has crapped in for over a week? Let's just say that this isn't our first rodeo with this dog's bowels acting up in a moving vehicle. Which leads me to my first tip of this road trip:

1) If you can avoid it, DO NOT take dogs on a long RV road trip with you!!! Think about it. You have to take them outside to go to the bathroom. You have to clean up their grossness outside. If they're anything like our dogs, they will beg for your breakfast/lunch/dinner about an inch away from your face. They will get ridiculously dirty in the 30 seconds you take them outside and then bring all that gunk into your living space. You will have way less stress without them, trust me.

After waking up before any of our camping neighbors, we cooked breakfast, showered, and got on the road. We fought the crazy South Dakota winds - drifting up to 4 feet on either side the whole way - to a place called Bear Country USA.  To be honest, I am not sure how such a place exists without making each guest sign a life insurance waiver because this is what you encounter at this wildlife refuge:

That's right...those are BEARS in the first picture literally 2 feet outside our RV. No fence containing them, nothing. It was incredible. I think my husband was amused that I found the whole concept of wildlife so close to us so exciting/scary-as-hell, but I grew up in the suburbs, so what can I say? It was exciting when we saw a raccoon on our porch. 

Next up: Mount Rushmore! Which, as you can imagine, was breathtaking. My only regret is that I didn't read more of the placards in the Exhibit Hall about the construction of the monument, but I was too busy trying to keep my 3 YO from climbing onto the glass display cases and tearing book covers off of books in the gift shop to pay attention to those kind of minute details. That's what Wiki is for anyway, right?  Olivia was clearly losing her marbles at that point and probably screamed, "I WANT CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM!" about 56 times on the drive to our campground after that (despite having eaten a Drumstick ice cream cone approximately 45 minutes before we got to Mt Rushmore). It was time to go. 

The evening ended with a visit from one of Pat's nephews and his fiancée. They live in Spearfish, SD and stopped by our campsite tonight for a drink and to catch up. It was great to see them and made me wish that we could stop by Deadwood to see their place before driving to Wyoming tomorrow...next time. Devil's Tower tomorrow...here's to a good night's sleep.

How to keep your kid from ever watching Barney again

Aha! I knew the title of this post would get your attention. This one's for all of my mom friends out there.

In my last post, I poked a little fun at the tourist attraction called Wall Drug, SD. There was one thing, however, that I thought was pretty cool there: this dinosaur.

Not only was this T Rex extremely "real" looking (or at least it looked a lot like what I remember the dinos in Jurassic Park looking like, which obviously is exactly what real dinosaurs looked like, right?), it also roared and attempted to "feed" every 12 minutes! Alarms went off, smoke came out, and it made a lot of loud, scary noises. It was great. Well, at least Pat and I thought so. Olivia, on the other hand, was absolutely terrified. She started screaming and crying and when Pat took her out of the room but I stayed in to videotape the whole ordeal, she kept screaming, "Mommy! Noooo! Get away from the dinosaur!" While I thought it was touching that she was worried for my safety, I started to feel bad after she continued to cry for the next 5 minutes straight. Every time Pat or I asked her during dinner if she wanted to go see the dinosaur again, she emphatically shook her head no and said "No see dinosaur again! No see dinosaur again!" But after a few more hours of feeling like a semi-horrible parent for scaring the bejeezus out of my kid, I started to wonder...will she now be afraid of all dinosaurs? Even on TV? Maybe even...wait for it...Barney? Because that would be FREAKING AWESOME!!!

I will let you know if this sort of behavioral conditioning works when it comes to everyone's favorite purple dino. Because if it does I'm pretty sure I am going to copyright this technique and make a million bucks off of it.

Other things of note that happened last night were the water running out during the middle of Pat's shower, then him cutting his hand open trying to fix the valve (no ER visit required, thank goodness), and our 12 year old waiter at dinner asking to see our IDs when we ordered beer with dinner and then saying, "Haha, just kidding!" as we reached for our wallets. Bastard.

And now, day 2 begins with 45 mph wind gusts. Off to Mt Rushmore!

Wall Drug, SD: The place that has everything...except laundry detergent

(Pictured above: Excited at the start of our trip!; We made it to South Dakota!, and Ally sitting on my lap. For the. Entire. Car ride.)

Chances are, you've never heard of Wall, SD. It's a town in the middle of nowhere (which is pretty much all of South Dakota).  According to the free brochure we picked up at a rest stop today, only 824 people live in this town. It does, however, have a claim to fame: a drugstore. Weird, I know. Apparently this drug store started giving out "free ice water!" to travelers years ago, put up advertising billboards in other continents (although none in any of the 5 U.S. states I've lived in, which seems an odd marketing tactic) and somehow started convincing weary travelers that Wall, SD was a good place to stop on their journey across America. It is now the Tourist Trap of all tourist traps. You have never seen so many silver "collector's" spoons, shot glasses and souvenir t shirts as you will at Wall Drug. And I've been to many amusement parks in my day, so that's saying a lot. There are also a myriad of statues and mythical animals that you can get your picture taken with if you have to patience for it. We did not, so we only got a couple shots - I'll post tomorrow when my phone is being more cooperative.

But it is still also a drugstore. I mention this because while we would have gone to Wall Drug to solely to check out what I like to call the "trinkets & trash," I did in fact need a few drugstore-type items tonight, including deodorant, which I already mentioned that I forgot; ibuprofen, for the hangover I am almost certain to have at some point on this trip; & diapers (no I am not the type of mom who would forget to pack diapers on a 10 day road trip...more to come on this in a moment). All items which Wall Drug did in fact carry. But I was shocked and disappointed to find that they don't stock LAUNDRY DETERGENT. That's right, you can buy a bearskin rug and fine jewelry at this joint but you absolutely cannot buy laundry detergent. Go figure.

Why would I need laundry detergent on only the 2nd day of my vacation, you ask? Because my daughter peed through her diaper 3 times today. So doing laundry is my evening activity of choice tonight instead of the fun night of drinking wine and playing cards with my hubby that I had planned. Well, OK, obviously I'm still drinking some wine...just while I'm doing laundry. So I guess life could be worse.  And, ironically, this night WAS a whole lot worse exactly one year ago today, when one of people I loved most in this world passed away. One of her all-time favorite things to do was go camping. It seems fitting that I am on an RV road trip today. Miss you, Grammie.

"What did you say? I can't hear you!"

Have you ever traveled in a motor home-style RV? Do you know what it sounds like? No? Well, let me paint you a picture: go to your kitchen, grab two wooden spoons and a metal pot. If you have a kid, grab a rattle or two while you're at it. Then just start banging all that junk around. Hit the wooden spoons together, rattle the rattles, bang the pot occasionally. Now do this for 7+ hours. That's about right.

As annoying as those sounds are, there is a hidden benefit: all of a sudden, your toddler's whining is gone. Bonus!

2.5 hours to go today. 

And we're off!

So as not to clog up everyone's FB newsfeed, I decided to create a blog for friends and family to read about our 10-day journey to the wilderness that is South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. I have not been to any of these states before, and with a bossy 3 year old and two dogs who are always underfoot in tow (one with a severe gas problem and one who has skin allergies and is constantly scratching herself), this should be an adventure to remember!  Here's my first post.

We arrived in MN after a 9 hour road trip in fair spirits. After putting away all of the 12,926 items we brought along for our 10 day trip, we picked up some groceries, grabbed McDonald's for dinner (half of which Ally ate - one of the super fun things about RVs is that a small dog can jump onto any surface!), and then it was time for...beer! Thank GOD. Schell's had never tasted so good. Olivia went to bed pretty easily so Pat and I got to drink a couple with Uncle Mike while we told him about our plans for the first few days of our trip: Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, a place called Bear Park, and wherever Wild Bill and Calamity Jane lived. Or died? Or both?? I'm not really sure (thanks, Waverly High School history class). I told my husband that my knowledge of American history is on par with a 7th grader's so he will have to school me on what happened in the old west back in the day. And by school, I mean give me the Cliff's Notes version because my attention span is also about on that level.

Today, so far: We woke up bright and early at 5:45 ready to go! Er, not really. We woke up at 5:45 agitated that our toddler felt that that was an appropriate time to wake up on vacation. But we chugged coffee, took lukewarm showers and climbed in the camper. Luckily for my family, I forgot...deodorant! Probably the most essential camping toiletry ever. I'm sure there will be plenty of places to stop in SD (population 500,000), right? Right?? It also appears that maybe the most prized possession in our RV right now, the DVD player that keeps my TV-loving toddler happy, is on the fritz. Fantastic! We'll just pick another one up when we stop for deodorant. No biggie. And if that's not enough, I have eaten McD's 3 times in the past 24 hours. 3. Times.

As Willie Nelson would say, "I just can't wait to be on the road again..."