Journey to South Dakota

Day three of vacation took us from Uncle Pete's in Billings to Rapid City, SD. We were not in a big hurry so we stopped to do a few Geocaches on the way. Marc isn't a big fan of Geocaching, but when we are traveling he tolerates it since we would need to make stops along the way for snacks/gas/potty...etc. I had taken some time and really got lucky with the caches we decided to grab.

Our first stop was at a really cool Historical Museum in Hardin, Montana.

The Museum has many buildings that the kids could explore. They loved that the church and school had bells that they could ring. There was a large shop with many old cars and farm equipment.

Our second geocache site was Taryn's favorite: The Vore Buffalo Jump in Sundance, Wy. You can click the link if you want more information. There was a natural sink hole that the Native American's used to hunt buffalo. The scouts would run behind and herd the buffalo to the sink hole up to 300 at a time. The herd would be going so fast that death was immanent. The site was found when a highway was being built. The land owners acted quickly to protect the site. There is a small interpretive building, a port-a-potty, and two volunteers that help explain the site and answer questions.

Marc's favorite & least favorite route stop for the day was at Gillette, Wy. It was his favorite stop because we were able to gas up for $3.83 a gallon. Our highest gas prices were right here at home in Pendleton. Kinda pathetic that we could gas up cheaper in remote Eastern Montana than here at home.

The unfortunate part of this stop was the major road construction and lunch incident.

We had pulled in to get lunch and gas up. The second we were off the ramp we realize we had pulled into MAJOR ROAD CONSTRUCTION...at a major intersection (imagine Southgate construction at 7:45 am when they were working on the new lights.) It was too late to change our minds.

We went through the drive though and I was passing out food to all the kids...the co-pilots main job. I neatly wrapped Marc's sandwich so he could eat it. He had his Mt. Dew nestled between his legs. Any way, just about the time we accidentally pass where we are supposed to get back on the freeway Marc takes a bite of his sandwich which gets stuck part way down in his throat.
Simultaneously, Marc is trying to merge with a blue-haired old guy while opening his Dew. He swallows...hoping to dislodge the bite gone bad. Unfortunately-for all of us-the Dew goes down the wrong tube and Marc starts puking! EVERYWHERE! Dew flew out of his nose-chunks of sandwich hit the windshield-I was grabbing a sack for him to barf into-as he got us back onto the road.

Now with the excitement over (after I have wet-wiped everything in sight) I decide I can begin to eat MY lunch. My duties of feeding everyone else were finished. It is then that I realize, not only did the restaurant give me the WRONG salad and the WRONG dressing, but my fork kit is in the BOTTOM of the bag that Marc had just hurled into. Oh well, I had lost my appetite anyway.

With the big excitement over, we continued, uneventfully to our destination, Rapid City!