After we said good-bye to family and Cody and started journeying back home, it was easy to feel a little let down, but we still had a few fun stops planned so we couldn't get too down.
First, we drove by Mt Rushmore...
And now I can check that off my bucket list. But seriously, not as cool as I thought. The Black Hills of South Dakota were beautiful, but I was a little disappointed I spent $10 to see this.
I love this picture, doesn't it just express traveling with kids so well? Ha!
We spent the night in Wall, SD, yes, home of THE Wall Drug. Had to get our free ice water and tell the kids no, we weren't buying any of the tourist trap junk there!
The next day we drove through the Badlands, which were really cool!
Ate smushy peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches for what felt like the 7th day in a row, but it sounded way better than McDonalds. Seriously, PBN sandwiches are one of my favorite road trip hacks so we can save money to eat the good stuff. But also sometimes you just have to eat to survive so McDonald's it is! The drive through the Badlands ended up adding a lot more time than we expected but we were not giving up a stop at DeSmet, SD.
What's in DeSmet? Well as any good fan of the Little House on the Praire books knows its the homestead where the Ingall's family settled in
On the Shores of Silver Lake. Also where Laura met Almanzo and they started their family. After the very long amount of time we spent in the car, I was beginning to feel doubtful that this was really going to be worth the extra 2 hours out of our way.
Well it totally was!!! Not only was it magical for us fans of the books, but the whole family had a great time traveling back in time.
the barn full of little kittens was also pretty fun.
I highly recommend making the effort to visit the Laura Ingalls homestead in DeSmet, SD. It might not sound like much to say it's the best thing we saw in South Dakota, but it was really fun and I wish we had about another hour there. Unfortunately, we also misjudged how long it would take to get to our final stop of the trip: LaCrosse, WI. It ended up being a very late night, but we made it, snapped a picture of the Mississippi River on our way out of town and made it the 6th state we took a picture in on this trip.
The last drive home was about 7 hours, and it was a little rough after being in the car for so many days. We were all ready to be home and sleep in our own beds. Yet even though we spent upwards of 50 hours in the car, we saw a lot of really incredible things and made wonderful memories. The kids have become really good road trippers since living in Indiana means we take a lot. There is nothing like a road trip to really appreciate the diversity of America--both in landscape and people.
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