Day 3

The sun finally came out this morning which made our trip over to Mt. Rushmore GREAT. We all enjoyed seeing Mt. Rushmore (even more that we thought we would) This was more than worth the 'side trip' and we ended up staying longer than we had planned.

We had lunch in Keystone, SD which reminded us of one of the old wild/wild west towns.

We spent the rest of the day in the car traveling to our next "sleep-over"...Billings MT.
The boys spent the evening relaxing in the pool and hot tub and are now getting ready for bed so that we can start the car excursions again tomorrow morning.

Day 2

Well, we said there was a chance of bad weather last night and at 11:30pm, the hotel called our room & advised us to come join the rest of the guests in the lower level linen closet due to a tornado warning. At 12:10am we went back to our room having avoided a tornado by a mile or so. However, within 10 minutes it started to Hail (Baseball Size). The hail busted our hotel room window and beat up our car. The damage was so bad, we had to file an insurance claim.

Because of our late, exciting evening - we left the hotel a little later than we would have liked.

Connor & Spencer started giggling at the amount of cows we kept seeing, but no farms or houses. Very boring drive until we finally got to the Badlands. We took a small sightseeing tour on the Badlands Loop only to have the rain return when we stopped to look around. Arriving at the hotel in Rapid City, SD. We were all glad to be out of the car for the day. We hope our weather luck is better tomorrow.(Spencer's Rest Stop)

Day 1

We left Oklahoma this morning & after 598 miles arrived in Kearney, NE. Connor thought we were kidding when we pulled over on the interstate to get their picture in front of the various "Welcome to" signs.

The last hour of the trip proved interesting as we dodged Tornado Warnings (listening to Weather Emergency Alerts & following our maps) - We even had a dirt devil come along side of the road which shook the car. We thought it may have been the beginning of a tornado.

Now, we are at the hotel & more storms are coming. Should be an interesting night.

Vagabond (noun)

To wander from place to place

Well, the movers have come and gone & now we will have to wait & see if the items designated for storage actually get there or if we end up with it at the apartment. We loved the semi-trailers that they used...they actually had beautiful Alaskan murals painted on them .

Now a few days of getting caught up on our sleep (in Oklahoma) & then we will begin our Journey.