Vacation!!!!

Hi Family and Friends,

I stopped to look at the calendar last week and realized that summer was quickly escaping. It wouldn't be long before Christina and I were moving in five directions at once. I had to do something and fast! I called Crooked Creek, the old campground in the Black Hills of South Dakota my family used to stay at when we were kids, to see if they had any openings. When I found out they did I booked two nights for the family and planned a weekend get away. We invited a family we've grown close to over the past year to join us and on Friday night we left for a weekend adventure.

Ryan and Anne Carson have three kids including 4 year old twins and a little boy who was born a day after our little girl so including our two kids our caravan included two minivans, two portable DVD players, one pop-up camper, five car seats, three strollers, and two coolers full of milk and cherry Pepsi...Nothing is simple when you try to get out of town but we did it!

Upon leaving Denver we ran into one of the most intense rain storms I've seen in a long time. Christina was nervous as waves of water poured over our windshield...(Don't tell her but I was pretending to be brave!!) "No problem honey!" "This is nothing!" "Just Relax!" About 20 minutes into the storm I started looking around for a train of animals boarding a big boat... We kept driving and about an hour north of Denver we began to see open sky.

About two hours north of Denver we came into God's country. Wyoming...beautiful Wyoming! I just felt stress leave my body as we crossed the border into my home state. The traffic....what traffic? To some, the plains of Wyoming are barren and cold...in my mind I can see ancient herds of buffalo running wild, native Americans camping by the North Platte, antelope grazing in the distance...peaceful! (About this time in my mental wanderings we get a cell phone call from Ryan and Anne behind us singing Home on the Range. After the song Ryan asks..."Dave, when did the bomb go off up here?" Not funny Ryan!)

The drive was a bit longer than even I thought...about two more hours north of Cheyenne we came to the turn off heading to Lusk. It was about 10:00 p.m. and I knew we had a way to go...sorry guys! A lot of people fall asleep and die on the lonely roads in Wyoming so we made sure to pull over and rest as much as possible. At about 11:30 p.m. we crossed the border into South Dakota. I must admit this stretch of road should never be driven late at night...the deer were everywhere and I was afraid they would decide to meet me in the middle of the road...no thanks!

At 12:40 we pulled into our campground and by 1 a.m. we were in bed ready for the sights and sounds of the Black Hills the next day. (At this point I must confess that my idea of camping is a bit tame...Christina, the kids and I spent the weekend in a little "hotel room" on the campground property...Ryan and Anne still had to spend an extra hour that night setting up the camper for the night...)

On Saturday we had breakfast, visited Bear Country USA, Storybook Island in Rapid City, had Ice Cream at Dairy Twist, relaxed back at the campground, had beef stew and hotdogs and hid from a rainstorm inside the camper, and finally ended the day with the lighting ceremony at Mt. Rushmore. I love the Black Hills!

Sunday we had a big breakfast and headed home...What a great break from the big city!

Here are a few pictures of our adventure. God is good...Hope you had a great week!!!