The Final Days

Rain and rainbows followed
us into South Dakota

We spent the last few days of our trip driving across South Dakota, Minnesota, the corner of Wisconsin, and Illinois. Not the most exciting places to drive through, but we made them fun by staying with awesome people.

Libby and Kim in Art Alley

The first night was spent in Rapid City, South Dakota, at the house of Kim’s friend from camp, Libby. After a delicious pizza dinner, much hilarity ensued as the two girls skyped all their former camp worker friends, and many camp songs were sung. Alexander was eventually dragged into the shenanigans, and wound up being just as silly as the girls.

Robbing a bank
in a stagecoach :)

The next day, we drove across the South Dakota, driving through Mount Rushmore and visiting one of those crazy gimmicky illusion places called the Cosmos. Many old people asked us two science folk to explain the illusions, but don’t worry, we did not ruin it for everyone! We also stopped at Wall Drug (the signs every 5 feet along the road really convinced us that we must visit!) and spent some time feeling like we were in the WILD WEST!

The second night was spent in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, spent with a lovely couch-surfer and her couch-surfer friend, along with the other folks that were surfing with them. We went to a small micro-brewery and it was delicious!

MILK FIGHT!

From there, we drove across the bottom of Minnesota to visit Kim’s amigo Jimmy at his college. We went to his farm, milked cows, and tricked Alexander into climbing up the silage ladder…whoops! That night, we went out and celebrated the best bars Platteville, Wisconsin has to offer-i.e. country music galore!

Rob!

After we woke up the next morning, we called Kim’s mother and told her we were in northern Minnesota and would be wandering back to McHenry in a few days.  Little did she know that we would be surprising her later that afternoon!

On the way to McHenry, we stopped at the camp (Camp Kupugani) Kim worked at, and she was briefly reunited with her friend Rob. She was full of joy. After a quick camp tour (as well as doing some archery), we were on our way to McHenry. Two short hours later, we were home J

 Did we like the smell of adventure? Yes, yes we did.