Road Trip! A South Dakota Adventure (Thursday, September 15th, 2016)

We were up early this morning, and met Steve's parents, his brother and our sister-in-law for a little adventure.  We are heading to South Dakota!

Now you might be wondering what South Dakota has to offer, so let me tell you...it has the Black Hills, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and even Sturgis!  But we weren't going to see any of those national treasures.  We had a much more important trip planned. We were on our way to visit the land that Steve's family homesteaded in the late 1800's. 

Steve's mom planned this trip and was sponsoring it for all of us. She wanted her boys to better understand this part of their family heritage, and was gracious enough to include us wives!

So we all piled into the minivan (where there isn't a bad seat...all were very comfortable), and off we went into the great unknown.

Steve's mom just got her coffee at McDonalds, so she is a happy girl!

As we left the Denver area, we encountered a lot of fog out on the eastern plains.  

Sorry if some of the pictures are a little blurry. That's what happens at 65 miles per hour from the third row seat of a minivan.

The landscape throughout our drive varied between different kinds of agriculture.  The land is vast in South Dakota, with views for miles in every direction.

Hay bales in the field

Pasture land

Millet or some other type of grain

Sunflowers zooming by!

As we started to drive through the small farming towns of South Dakota, we noticed that every town (no matter how small) has their own farm equipment dealer.

We stopped for gas in one of the small towns, and as I was standing in line for the ladies room, I noticed these on the shelf of the convenience store.  Very interesting! Another thing we had never seen or tried before....oh what fun!

We stopped for lunch in the small town of Valentine, South Dakota, at a place called Runza.  It appears to be a chain and it appears to serve some sort of fast food, so we decided to give it a try.



Even when we ordered, we didn't realize that their specialty is kraut burgers (which they call runzas).  They are beef, onion and cabbage on a homemade bun.  If I had known this, I would have ordered differently.  I had an Asian chicken salad, which was probably healthier than a kraut burger, but not nearly as fun.  But I did enjoyed trying a bite of Steve's mom's runza.

Steve's dad enjoying his kraut burger.

We drove through the town of Redfield where Steve's mom spent time in her childhood.

Since we're from a bigger city, we never see grain silos in the middle of town, so this was interesting to us.

There are a lot of ethanol plants in the area.  Ethanol is a fuel made from corn that is added to gasoline to cut down on emissions. This gas mixture works fine in modern cars.  One strange thing we found was that most gas stations in South Dakota offer unleaded gas with, and without ethanol.  The gas with ethanol is about $0.35 per gallon cheaper, so we assume that the farm equipment must need the gas without ethanol.....again, just strange to us as we had never seen this before. 

When we arrived in Aberdeen, South Dakota, we checked into our room at the Holiday Inn Express.  Our room was nice, with two queen beds.  Since we are members of the rewards club, we get the best room available when we check in, so we gave that room to Steve's parents, so that they could host the cocktail hour in their room.

Our room with two queen beds

Cocktail hour in Steve's parent's room.  They had a suite, so there was plenty of room for all of us!

Steve's mom knows that I prefer to drink beer out of a glass instead of a bottle or can, so she even brought me my own glass, all the way from Colorado to enjoy my beer in.  She is so sweet!!!

When cocktail hour was over, we all went out for a nice dinner, then Steve and I came back to enjoy a soak in the hot tub. This felt so good after a day of riding! We were amazed at what a nice pool the hotel had, with a slide, two pools and two hot tubs.  We ended up learning that the town uses the pool for birthday parties and other like functions...very cool!

With our long day of traveling behind us, we had two days to explore South Dakota and the farmland that was homesteaded by Steve's family.  

Stay tuned for more of our South Dakota adventure!

Atlanta, Georgia (Tuesday, March 29th, 2016)

Our daughter headed off this morning for work as usual, but had her bags packed for a very important trip to Georgia.  Her husband is graduating from Ranger School on Friday!

Steve and I spent the day packing and getting ready for our week long trip.  So excited to see our son (in-law), and watch him graduate!

Steve's parents are taking us to the airport to avoid having two cars there.  Our daughter will leave straight from work, and meet us there.  We will be on the 5:15 flight to Atlanta.  When our daughter arrived at the airport, she gave us a call and asked us to meet her at the USO.  Most large airports in the US have a USO, it is an organization that strives to make the travels of active military and their families more comfortable.  When we walked into the USO, they had cubbies for our bags, a free snack bar with donuts, muffins, hot dogs, etc.  They had tables and internet as well as loungers and a TV.  It isn't fancy, but it is the perfect place to spend your time if you had a long delay, or even for our half hour wait before take-off.  Steve, being the gentleman that he is, left our daughter and I to enjoy the USO, while he went to pick us up some dinner and then meet us at the gate. 

Hanging out at the USO before our flight to Atlanta.  What a great place for military families!

When we arrived at the Atlanta airport, we had to pick up our rental car.  We usually use Avis, since we are preferred customers with them, but this time we could not get good rates with them, so using our IHG rewards program (linked to Holiday Inn Express), we were able to get a good rate at Hertz.  We also got a lot of IHG points to use in the future, so you can't beat that!

When we landed at the Jackson-Hartfield airport in Atlanta, we took the train to the rental car building, which was the last train stop.  Our daughter and I waited with the bags while Steve went to the counter to get the car that we had reserved a week earlier.  We had reserved the car with Hertz, and although we usually reserve our car with Avis because we are Avis preferred customers, we are also Hertz preferred members, so we assumed that we would be treated well.  When Steve got to the counter, they explained that they did not have any full-size cars available.  We needed a large car as we were taking one of our daughters friends to Columbus with us and we all had a bunch of luggage.  Steve worked patiently with them while our daughter and I waited with the bags.  Apparently they were not happy with the rate we got, so they kept stalling, and offering him "upgrages" at an additional charge.  Steve was not willing to do this since he had been guaranteed a full-sized car at the rate quoted to him.

Finally, after 45 minutes they "found" a brand new Toyota Camry for him which was big enough to accommodate all of our passengers and bags, so we took the car and headed out of the airport.  It was now 11:00 pm, and we were tired, and tired of fighting with Hertz.  It was not a good experience, and one we hope to not have to go through again anytime soon.

Our hotel reservation was at the Holiday Inn Express, Airport location.  When we arrived, the woman at the front desk was extrodinary!  She was so friendly and helpful.  She gave us our room, which since we arrived so late (around 11:45 pm) was one of the last rooms they had.  We went to our room, and at first glance, it looked great, but very soon, we realized that the heater had a constant banging noise.  We figured that we were tired enough that we could sleep through it, so we all jumped into bed with hopes of a good nights sleep.

A 30-hour Adventure (Sunday, March 6th, 2016)

We all woke up yesterday morning, in a rush to get out of the house, but for a few different reasons. Our oldest daughter had a recruiting commitment at the University of Colorado, Boulder Engineering School, and Steve and I were on our way to Fort Collins to see our youngest daughter and her boyfriend for breakfast.  It has been exactly a month since we have seen our youngest daughter, and much longer than that since we have seen her boyfriend, so it seemed like the perfect time to make a quick trip up there.  

We picked both of them up at her apartment and headed into old town to the Silver Grill.  They always have a huge line on Saturday mornings, but they have a cute patio out back with a free coffee bar, space heaters, blankets and a fire pit.  So even if it is cold outside you can stay nice and warm on their back patio.  We put our name on the list, and sat out by the fire pit drinking coffee until our name was called.  Then we headed inside for a nice warm breakfast with two of our favorite people!  It was so nice to see them and catch up on their lives and school.  Once again, it did my heart a lot of good, just to see them and enjoy some quality time.  

We left Fort Collins by 10:30, planning on being home around 11:30 or so.  Our oldest daughter would be home from Boulder by then, and we would head out on our adventure.

Our oldest daughter's life has been very busy and stressful for the last few months.  Her husband is in the military and has been gone for the last nine months, she is in the throws of her new "big girl job" after recently graduating from college, and she is still very engaged with the University of Colorado Engineering School, and Business Minor program.  And in addition to those miniscule tasks, she and her husband are also in the process of building a house!  So believe it or not, we felt that a small get away might be in order.  

Throughout our married life, Steve and I have noticed that even the smallest of vacations can relieve a lot of stress, and make us ready to tackle the world again.  It doesn't have to be long, or expensive to make the world seem like a much better place.  So we made sure that she had a free weekend, and booked a night at the Holiday Inn Express in Colorado Springs. 

We felt that before our daughter could really enjoy the weekend, she would need to take care of a little business first.  So we headed over to her new house, and she met with the builders, and made sure that things are still moving along like they should be.  Once she was happy with the way things looked, and the important decisions were all made, it was time to go enjoy ourselves and help her relax!

    
We headed out for Colorado Springs at noon, with hopes of checking into the hotel as early as possible.  We are IHG members, (Intercontinental Hotel Group) which includes the Holiday Inn Express hotels worldwide.  Our membership, and frequent use of the hotels, gives us a few nice perks, one of which is receiving the best room available when we check in. So since we got down there early, we were able to get a nice queen suite.  Where we could all spread out and get comfortable!

On our way downtown, we drove by this great vintage McDonalds. It looked to us like a new building, but the vintage style was really fun to see. It reminded us of our past!

Steve and I have a little place in downtown Colorado Springs that we really enjoy, so we decided it would be fun to take our daughter there, and see what she thinks of it.  It is called Sonterra Mexican Grill.  They have a great happy hour from 3:00-7:00, with $3 wine, wells, drafts, and margaritas and a nice appetizer menu ranging from $3 to $6.  We showed up fairly early, and got the last three seats at the bar.  We all started out with a house margarita, and shared a ceviche.  

Their Ceviche was great, with just the right amount of spice

We also split some of their appetizer tacos, and then we split their scallops with sweet corn risotto.  Oh my!  It was so good!

This speaks for itself!

As the sun sets outside of the restaurant, it also sets inside the restaurant.....very fun!

And at 6:00, they have an acoustic guitar player named John Stone that wanders the restaurant and plays traditional Spanish melodies. We have seen him there several times and really enjoy his music. His wife is from Barcelona and they spend quite a bit of time there so it is always fun to hear about their travels.  Since he knows we really enjoy his music, he always comes to talk to us, and of course gives us a private performance.  John is an absolutely amazing guitar player and a very genuine and real person.  What a treat to get a chance to hear him again and to talk for a few minutes!  

Steve has one of John's CD's that he likes to listen to in the car when he's driving.  Our oldest daughter has heard it many times so it was fun for her to hear John play and get a chance to meet and interact with him. His website is www.johnstonemusic.net The website gives some info on John and very importantly when and where he will be playing.  There's also some sample music.  We encourage you to take a listen.   If you ever get a chance to hear him we guarantee you will be blown away!

When we finally left Sonterra, we made our way over to another little place we had heard of called The Rabbit Hole.  It's a trendy underground restaurant/bar with a small street entrance, and as it's name would suggest, it has the theme of Alice in Wonderland.

The entrance to The Rabbit Hole

The inside was very quaint, with tables in every corner.  It was cozy and fun, and we thought the prices were fairly reasonable.

Butterscotch cheese cake for three!

Our oldest daughters first martini, but probably not her last!!!

We took the hotel shuttle back to the hotel, and when we got there, our daughter got a call from one of her friends who is also a military wife, so they enjoyed a nice conversation while Steve and I headed to the hot tub to soak for awhile.  What a great evening!

This morning we slept in, and then enjoyed the complimentary breakfast in the dining room.  Breakfast was served from 7:00 to 10:00, so we were in no rush.  After breakfast, our daughter wanted to do a little shopping, so we headed out to At Home, to just look around and maybe enjoy their beautiful patio furniture for a moment.

Then back to the hotel to check out and change, and off to Garden of the Gods.  One of the most beautiful places in Colorado.

View from the Visitor's Center

Pikes Peak and the Kissing Camels

And then at our daughter's suggestion, we headed over to the Glenn Eyrie Castle for lunch and a walk.  And as we came through the gate, look who greeted us!

 Such a beautiful place to just look around and relax!

We had a quick lunch on the trunk of the car, something Steve and I do quite often when the view is right!

And as we were leaving Colorado Springs, it was cooling off quickly, and a storm was moving in over Pikes Peak

Such a fabulous 30 hours, and a totally relaxed girl....mission accomplished!

I think our trip was successful!