As we got closer to school starting, I had what you might call an end-of-summer crisis. I suddenly decided that we hadn’t had near enough fun this summer and we were approaching the day when I wouldn’t get to see my two oldest boys EVER because they spend so long at school. So I did what any panicked mother would do and planned a vacation.
The plan was to head off to the Black Hills of South Dakota. We invited Brian and Andrea and their kids along, and despite their crazy life right now, they agreed to join us.
No that I’m living the reality of never seeing my school kids, I’m going to write out the details and post all the pictures and relive the trip all over again. Whose idea was it to start school in August, anyway? Don’t they know that summer officially goes until almost the end of September? We should still be home in our pajamas playing for at least a few more weeks!
Anyway, here is the trip recap:
Day 1:
We started the day of by being the first to arrive at the mandatory school registration/meet-the-teacher day. The boys met their teachers, and when we found out there was an hour wait in the registration line, we decided we had done our mandatory duty to come and figured we could finish registering some other time. We hopped in the car and headed off to South Dakota!
Our first stop was the Badlands. Our boys thought this meant that as soon as we had entered the Badlands National Park, they could be as bad as they wanted to. Luckily, they were too awestruck by the scenery to cause too much trouble. After all, who feels like being bad when they look out the window and see this cute little guy standing there?
The view from the nicely paved path is beautiful.
But, unlike most National Parks where you have to stay on the designated trails, at the Badlands people are free to roam. The National Park Police are probably not too worried that people will go very far, since the landscape is full of dangers like sharp drop-offs, giant cliffs, prairie dogs who have the bubonic plague, and other perilous pitfalls.
They’ve obviously never met the Ropers. Despite all those dangers and against our better judgment, we somehow decided to go on a family hike through the badlands. It was terrifying (since our boys have no fear), but a lot of fun. It was kind of like hiking around on the surface of Mars, except probably more dangerous. Luckily Adam falling and scraping his face was the worst problem we had.
Pretty soon the sun began to set. We decided it was time to head to Circle View Ranch where we were staying for the night. Goodbye Badlands!
Day 2:
We decided to stay at Circle View Ranch because there aren’t many places to stay in The-Middle-of-Nowhere, South Dakota and I read good things online about this place. We woke up bright and early at The Ranch to a delicious home cooked breakfast of scrambled eggs (fresh from the chickens out roaming in the yard), homemade biscuits and gravy, berry smoothies, sausage, and even fresh-made blackberry butter for those who didn’t want gravy on their biscuits. It was so good!
The land was covered in fog, but that didn’t stop our boys from having fun wandering around and playing with the animals.
Derek in particular seemed to think he had died and gone to Heaven.
After all, it isn’t every day that you get to hold a baby frizzle chicken while sitting on a burro!
After being chased by a friendly goat, Evan felt a little bit less like he was in Heaven and didn’t want to have anything to do with any of the animals. He is so funny.
As sad as we were to leave the peaceful ranch, we finally managed to lure Derek off the burro long enough to force him into the car, and we headed off to Wind Cave National Park.
This is where we met up with Brian and Andrea’s family. We were so happy to see them!
After a brief picnic lunch, we headed into the cave where we went down 300 stairs (the equivalent of a 20 story building) to view part of one of the longest caves in the world. Did I mention that Andrea is 8 months pregnant? She is not a wimp, that’s for sure!
From there we headed off to the main attraction, the one and only Mount Rushmore. To be a true American, I think it is some sort of requirement to see Mt. Rushmore at least once in your life. We took care of that obligation for ourselves and our kids all in one shot (although Glenn is an American twice-over since he went when he was growing up).
The kids were obviously thrilled.
I think they were more interested in wandering freely with their cousins than appreciating the American masterpiece, but at least they’ve seen it, right? And I can’t complain too much when there is bonding like this going on…
We hiked the long and much-more-strenuous-than-we-expected trail (did I mention that Andrea is 8 months pregnant?) then stayed for the evening lighting ceremony. I somehow had it in my head that it was going to be a laser light show, so I had the kids all hyped up. It was mostly just a ranger program and at the end they turned the lights on so we could see the faces. I think the kids (and I) were all a little disappointed, but still. We have seen Mount Rushmore!!! And we were there with some of our favorite people, so that made it even better!
We went back to the Rocket Motel and fell wearily into our beds.
Day 3:
This day was planned to be slightly less strenuous. We woke up early so we could head off to the Wildlife Loop at Custer National Park while there were still bunches of wildlife hanging around. We wanted to catch them before the crowds got there. Once again I got the kids (and myself) all hyped up about the cool wildlife we were going to see. After all, they don’t call it the “Wildlife Loop” for nothing, right? And I had read many assurances online that there were tons of wildlife to be seen.
We drove and drove and drove along the loop, and saw nothing other than a few prairie dogs (who probably have the plague) and maybe one deer. Evan claimed that he saw some bushes moving once, so that could have been something exciting. Other than the beautiful surroundings, the landscape was pretty bare. After the laser light show disappointment the night before, my reputation was starting to sink. The kids were looking at me with sad faces and asking where the wildlife was. Just when we had driven almost the whole loop and it seemed that there was no hope, we came across a herd of over 1,000 bison.
I’m not sure if it made up for the hour of driving with not an animal in sight, but the kids were at least excited that they could finally break out their binoculars.
After getting our fill of bison-watching, we left the Wildlife Loop behind and took the Needles Highway headed toward Deadwood, SD. The highway is named because of some narrow rock tunnels you drive through on the way.
We briefly stopped to trade kids, and all the cousins immediately took off hiking through the rocks. 
It took us awhile, but we managed the get that unruly group rounded up and back into the cars. Well, 2 kids in our car, 5 kids in Brian and Andrea’s car. The cousins were gathered together in the Ludwig-mobile to watch a family favorite, “Calamity Jane.” After all, we were on our way to Deadwood- Calamity’s old stomping grounds!
Once there, we realized that maybe not every family grew up with quite as much love for Calamity as we did. Instead of streets full of children pretending to be Doris Day and Howard Keel singing our old family favorites, there was mostly just a bunch of saloons. Oh well, I guess Deadwood is still a bit of a rough town even all these years later.
We did get to watch a staged gunfight in the middle of the street, which made the trip a little more authentic feeling. We also went and paid 50 cents per person to go see the graves of Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok.
After saying goodbye to Calamity and Wild Bill, it was time for us to say goodbye to each other as well. Brian and Andrea headed back to Billings, and we headed home into the sunset to face the start of school (but at least we had a fun vacation under our belt).
It was a fun whirlwind of a trip!
