Last Few Days of the Grand Journey

South Dakota, between Rapid City and Sioux Falls, is sparsely populated.  Originally (before the flat tire) we had hoped to make it to Sioux Falls to spend the night.  That wasn't going to happen.  It was after 7:00pm when we left Keystone, SD so we decided to stop in Murdo which was a little over 2 hours away.

I first called the Days Inn in Murdo and they didn't have any suites available.  The lady I spoke to highly recommended a place called Landmark Country Inn.  She thought that it would be perfect for us.  I'd never heard of it but took the phone number from her just in case.  Next up, I tried to call a Best Western.  The cell service on the section of I-90 we were on was spotty at best and I kept getting cut off.  They didn't have a suite either and their regular rooms were a little pricey for the location and the fact that we just needed a place to sleep.  I was frustrated so when we pulled off at a rest area, I took over driving and let Papa find us a room.

He called the Landmark Inn and was on the phone for close to half an hour.  While he talked to the lady who had answered, she talked up the place.  The room we were to have was L shaped and spacious.  There were 2 queen beds, a futon, whirlpool in the room, 2 TVs with one of them in the bathroom, a pool heated to 90 degrees that was open until midnight, breakfast in the morning...it sounded like a great place.  He gave them his credit card info and booked the room. 

Around 9 pm we arrived and just from looking at the place, I had my doubts.  We hadn't had dinner yet so we headed into town to look for a place to eat.  Murdo is a very small town.  I'm sure it has it's charms but at that time of night, I wanted a chain fast food restaurant so we could quickly feed the kids and head to bed.  Were there any?  Nope.  And all the "restaurants" in town closed at 10pm.  We stopped at the Star Restaurant which was kind of like a diner.  It was okay.  Slow service and expensive but at least everyone got something to eat.

We headed to our room.  Papa tells me we have to open the door (that's ground level) and go down the stairs.  What!?!  Yes, our room was in the basement.  I opened the door to a small room with 2 full beds with purple satin comforters and pillows.  The carpet is a black, funky floral and the futon is a wicker love seat.  ???  The room was damp and musty smelling and our whirlpool tub was smaller than our bathtub at home (I didn't know that was possible).  I was not happy one bit.  Kakes started shrieking that the hotel room looked like one she saw in a nightmare of hers and asked to sleep in the minivan.  

Our "futon"

Good thing we had the air mattress 'cause there was no way I was going to let the kids sleep on that floor.  In attempting to use the remote control, we noticed it was chained to the wall.  As was the alarm clock.  We went to bed and set the alarm for 5:00am.  We left our room to check out breakfast...stale donuts.  It was no surprise that when we headed out there weren't many cars left in the hotel parking lot.

 

The only neat thing about the hotel

On the way to our stop for Friday night (Rochester, MN), Papa saw the signs for the Corn Palace.  He remembered stopping there with his family when he was a kid. 

 

The kids and I

It's interesting that they redo the Corn Palace every year.  The pictures they create are impressive.  I had noticed a fabric and textile warehouse as we drove into Mitchell, SD so I headed that way with Kakes while Papa took the other 3 kids and my camera.

 

We had originally planned on being in Rochester, MN around lunch time so that we could meet a friend of mine, Jessica, and visit Oxbow Park.  The zoo part of the park closes at 4pm and unfortunately, we didn't make it into Rochester until around that time.  Instead, we ended up meeting Jessica and her 3 kids at Foster-Arend Park. 

 

Jessica's oldest, N and Malone playing together

Bsaurus

Kakes by her "fish habitat"

My oldest 3 and N having a good time

It was a nice break at the park and I enjoyed spending a little bit of time visiting with Jessica.  This is the third time we've met in real life and each time it's been great.  She's one of those people that you can pick right up where you left off and it's like no time has gone by since the last time you saw each other. 

After time at the park, we headed back to our hotel.  Papa took the kids (minus B who had passed out in the car on our short drive to the hotel) into the pool.  Having pools for the kids to swim at has been great.  It exhausts them so much that falling asleep in a hotel room is no problem.

We left Rochester, MN at a decent time and headed towards home.  Saturday, wasn't the easiest day.  Papa was pushing to get us to Dayton, OH for the night and wasn't too keen on stopping.  After 2 kids wetting their pants, you'd think he'd have caught on that pushing it wasn't going to work.  It took Kakes almost getting sick in the car for him to realize that sometimes you have to give up your timeline and take a break.  I'm not sure what got to Kakes, maybe food poisoning?  We were at a rest stop for close to 2 hours before she felt well enough to ride in the car again.   

We hit Dayton around 10pm and he, once again, took the kids to the pool.  We didn't set an alarm this time for the morning as even without one, we'd been getting up around 7:30am.  I guess we were all tired though because it was 9:36am when one of us woke up.  We had to rush a bit to get breakfast as the hotel stopped serving at 10am.  It wasn't until 11 that we started on our last bit of driving to reach home.