*This post is part of my “passion project” series where I’m slowly going back to recap our old family trips (pre-blog). I never made photo books or anything so this is my way of going back and documenting these fun times! I also just really enjoy doing this, as a hobby. 🙂
Also, blog friend Emily is headed to the Black Hills this summer, so I told her I’d write up this trip before they go, to possibly spark some inspiration, or at least, some excitement!
June 2017: South Dakota!
This trip was one of our first bigger road trips as a family, not counting to Florida. It was also one of the boys’ favorite trips of all times. They call it the “OG family trip”. 😆
In the years following this trip, we did many similar trips (road trips, nature, national park type destinations) and I have to say, THEY ARE SO FUN. We made the most amazing memories on those trips in the most beautiful places. (We are so lucky to have so many gorgeous and uniquely different places- and national parks- in the U.S.!)
Ethan was 8 on this trip and Asher was 7- they were PERFECT ages for the whole “out west” thing.
Day 1- Friday, June 16, 2017: Mitchell Corn Palace
Our classic road trip pic!! 😉 Look how little and cute they were!! Here we are, on our way.
I will admit, this photo makes me very nostalgic for when my boys used to read non-stop. NON-STOP. We always had a huge box of library books in between their seats and they would read and read and read and read…..
Our plan for the day was to make it to Chamberlain, South Dakota – about 8 hours west from our house.
About 7 hours from our house, along the way, is the World Famous “Corn Palace”! I am sure many of you have heard of it?? It’s an entire “palace” made out of corn kernels. It’s quite impressive! AND they change the whole design periodically.
You can go inside and walk around, where there’s a video of the history plus a Western themed gift shop. I cannot remember right now why they ever built a palace out of corn?? I presumably learned that from the video, but I guess my brain did not deem that save-worthy for the past 9 years.
They also have big photos of all the different themes they’ve done over the years.
The Corn Palace is a unique place, and I think worth a stop off, if only because it’s famous and the art is impressive!
After our stop off, we drove another hour to Chamberlain, South Dakota. A nice thing about driving to the Black Hills from the Midwest is that the drive is so easy. There’s never traffic, most of it (except for this section by the Missouri River) is flat, wide open spaces… it’s so peaceful to drive through.
Made it to our hotel for a 1 night stopover- pretty sure this was just a nice Super 8, with our requisite hot tub and pool.
I oddly distinctly remember where we had dinner, even without any photos. We ate at a little pizza place right along the river called “Upper Crust Pizza and Wings”. I remember it was very good and perfect for the boys after a long day in the car. 🙂
Then, back to the hotel for swimming and hot tub, and that was Day 1!
Day 2- Saturday, June 17: The Badlands + Wall Drug
In the morning, we continued on. Next stop, the Badlands National Park.
The Badlands were just under 2 hours from Chamberlain, not bad. The Badlands are awesome and honestly deserved even more time than we gave them. But, just given the rest of our itinerary, it worked best to just do a partial day here. (Note- the Badlands are apparently particularly spectacular at sunrise or sunset; sadly, we missed those times.)
They are like another world though! So cool.
Great shot of my parents!
Love this one! My little boys!!
The boys were in 7th heaven in the Badlands because there are endless rocks that they could climb on. At that age (and honestly, probably still), they loved climbing on stuff.
There’s a driving loop through the park with various places to stop. My memory is fuzzy on specifics but I know we did at least a couple shorter hikes + some stops at lookouts only.
I love this pic of my dad on one of the hikes we did:
We are always “visitor center people”! Have to check out and enjoy the National Park Service’s hard work! We were always the people that made our kids learn some things on trips, too. 😉 I have no regrets about this, either- learning at least something about the history of places we go makes travel so much more meaningful. 🙂
It’s so pretty there.
Eventually we had to move on…. we weren’t to our final destination yet and had more on the itinerary for the day.
On our way out of the park, there was a big field full of prairie dogs! Haha. The kids were excited by this and we watched them poke their little heads up and down out of the ground. Like at the zoo, but in real life.
We also spotted our first mountain goats of the trip.
The next stop was very close by- the famous Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota.
You know, the Wall Drug of these infamous bumper stickers??
Have you ever seen those? Apparently Wall Drug did some kind of massive highway billboard campaign back in the 1930s where they’d advertise “free ice water” (ha) and this is a spin-off. I have personally seen Wall Drug bumper stickers all over the place throughout the years, so I think it’s still alive and well.
It used to be a pharmacy/ road stop type place- now it has morphed into a old Western themed mall/ attraction, mostly. Everything is wooden, cowboy themed, “out west” themed, etc. It is a great place to stop on the way to South Dakota to get in the “out west” frame of mind.
Haha. LOTS of fun things to play with and try on in the shops.
I had to get a picture of the boys with this guy; my sister and I had a picture with this exact same guy when we were kids!! He’s still sitting there, all these years later. lol.
There are lots of boots for sale. Ethan deciding if he wants a pair. 😉
There’s a playground area in the back with things to crawl on, like this old fashioned wagon.
The outside! It’s an iconic place in South Dakota.
Finally, we had to drive another ~45 minutes or so… This really was a pretty full day, but we knew that going into it.
We stopped in downtown Rapid City, South Dakota, for dinner at Firehouse Brewing Company.
I remember this place was super cool, though I don’t have great pics. Borrowing a couple from the internet:
After dinner, we still weren’t to our final destination!!! Told you it was a long day. 😉 The time stamp on the restaurant pics was 7:18 p.m.- and we still had to drive another 50 minutes to Custer, South Dakota, our home for the rest of the week.
I do remember this being a drag as it started to get dark, etc.. but it was fine. (We could have gone all the way and then eaten in Custer, but this brewery looked too cute to pass up.)
Finally, made it to our cabin, which you can see so well with this spectacular photo I took. 😆
This was a 2 bedroom, 2 bath cabin with a fun loft space (up a ladder!) where the boys slept (so, more like 3 bedrooms). I had really wanted to stay in Custer due its great location and the fact that it’s not as busy as Keystone (which is right by Mount Rushmore).
Day 3- Sunday, June 18:
We woke up to a beautiful day on our deck! This cabin was right on the edge of town, but still had that nature feel.
After our two long driving days, we had a fairly low key day on the agenda.
I believe in the morning we ran to a grocery store to grab a few things and settled in a bit more. We stayed at this same place all week.
Not far from Custer was a place called Four Mile Old West Town that had sort of mixed reviews. It was essentially an old ghost town that you could walk through. The boys were at the age where we had just read Little House on the Prairie, etc., and I knew they’d get a kick out of seeing things from the “olden days”.
I won’t lie- when we arrived, I was like, is this place open?! There were no other people! It looked rather…like a ghost town, for real, haha.
I think there was someone in the little office and we paid the small $7.50 fee and set out wandering around. There are over 40 old buildings- the Post Office, the Jail, the old School House, an old church, etc.
I actually had a lot of fun with this! A “must do” stop, no, but it definitely checked off my goal to get the boys an “old western town” experience. They learned a lot about what life was like long ago through this.
Having fun with the old cash registers in the shop.
In an old jail cell 😆:
The church:
Ethan in the Dunce’s Corner. They liked sitting in the old desks, too.
For kids, this place was great because it’s so interactive.
After this, I think we might have hit up a Subway in Custer for lunch, then back to the cabin for a bit.
We had some kind of random plans later that afternoon/evening to go see an old work friend of my dad’s. He and his wife moved to South Dakota and bought a bunch of land and built a pretty remote house. They had invited us to come for dinner and explore their property.
I did not know these people, and turns out, they were a little weird. 😅 Well, the guy was nice- the wife was… something. ANYWAY, it was a gorgeous evening and their house was awesome.
The big highlight was that my dad’s friend let the boys shoot his guns!! HA. Yes, that’s right. To clarify- we are not gun people, at all. None of us own guns.
But being out in the wild west as we were, this seemed like a fun thing to try. lol.
The guy had the boys help him set up some little pieces of wood to shoot at.
He gave us all a tutorial on shooting. Here’s my dad helping Ethan- obviously we didn’t let them loose with the gun!!
The boys of course thought this was all great fun. 😉 I think they each (with help) managed to hit the wood pieces. They brought home their “trophies” with the bullet marks as a souvenir and I think we still have them somewhere. haha.
After the shooting range thing, while dinner finished cooking, the boys, Ivan and I took a little hike around their property. It was very pretty and peaceful.
On their back deck chatting with my mom and the wife-
We were there until dark, drove back to the cabin, and I think either went in the hot tub or just relaxed with some TV.
I’ll stop here for now. The first day in the Black Hills was a little slow with this friend visit in the mix, but we ramped up quickly to the major sights and activities as the week went on. Stay tuned for a lot more of the beautiful Black Hills! 🙂
GRATEFUL KAE 