Yeehaw!

We got an early start to head up to South Dakota. Driving through Iowa we saw lots of corn fields and noted how the plains have far fewer trees (mostly cottonwoods and willows) and the trees don’t grow as tall until you are close to the river or other water. The land is so flat you can see far, but there are hills in the distance. Aaron said some of the hills are loss created when flood waters push river sediment into piles.

We gave it another try finding a DDD restaurant and this time we were successful. We ate at Urban Chislic in Sioux Falls. Chislic is a South Dakota thing with influences from German and Russian immigrants. It is meat that is cubed up, rubbed with spices and pan fried. They offered different sauces as well. It was pretty good! A good break from burgers or chicken. 

SG was pleased to be at a DDD restaurant and she found plain, white rice!

Traveling through South Dakota Aaron spotted antelope, and Charlie heard it as, “Look at the cantaloupe!” We also saw a number of wind turbines, cattle herds, and sunflower fields. The wind is steady and lots of hills now.

This has been our longest driving day and the kids have been great. I always feel joy seeing the two of them playing together in the backseat. So grateful they have each other as friends.

Driving for nearly 8 hours felt LONG and we were all ready to be out of the car.  We didn’t realize that South Dakota is on mountain time and we gained an hour. That gave us quite a while to check out Fort Hayes before the cowboy chuck wagon show. 

Our first stop was the Buffalo ride, a roller coaster type ride that swings you while you shoot at Buffalo targets. That was a highlight for Charlie!

The kids snagged these bracelets and the owner gave them each a pressed penny to go in it!

Dances with Wolves was filmed near here and there was a lot of movie memorabilia around. There was also random stuff from pioneer and old west life. We spent time walking and looking before the dinner and show.

Having never been to a Chuck wagon dinner, I didn’t know what to expect. There were long rows of picnic tables with assigned seats. When it was time to eat, we got up row by row, a little like going for communion at church. They gave you a tin plate and served you baked potato slammed on the plate to flatten the bottom, beans, beef/chicken, and apple sauce. Then, they put wax paper and placed a biscuit and a piece of spice cake on that. You got a tin cup of lemonade and they told you to put the plate on the cup to keep from spilling on the way back to your seat. Quite the serving line!

Sis only took the biscuit and cake. I had the lady give her 2 biscuits and Sis looked mortified. 🙄 Charlie tried baked potato and sort of liked it, but did not care for the beef at all - yay that he tried new things!😄

The show started after dinner and I was pleasantly surprised! There was a band playing covers of all sorts of music, encouraging the audience to clap and sing along; and telling jokes. 

There was an Elvis impersonator who even got on the table to sing to us!

They finished with a patriotic medley. 

We headed to our motel, the Battle Creek Lodge. The kids have been curious about motels and that curiosity has been satisfied! The room was small and no frills like I expected. The part we didn’t expect was sheets that are tissue paper thin and feel like sandpaper. Motel 6s have gone out of business with better sheets than these! The other drawback was the air conditioner doesn’t really cool the room. It was not hot, but felt humid and not cool. Aaron found the mattress miserable and was up most of the night.