Portland Bound (Kansas City to Wall)

That was the best hotel breakfast I have ever had. Pancakes that quickly dissapeared from the serving plate, but were just as quickly replaced with fresh ones, scrambled eggs, and sausage links. The kids really liked it, too. That Hyatt really was a jem.

After we packed up and got our stuff back in the skybox, we set off for Wall, SD. Around lunchtime we found a spot at a state park in Iowa. We tried to eat at a picnic table we spotted, but all of the ones we found were too far away from parking places to haul all of our food over to the tables. We spied a pavilion near a playground and decided to drive over to it. When we got over there, the pavilion had a reserved sign on it, but it was clear the party wasn’t happening for a bit. Some people were setting up for the party, but they kind of looked at us like we were crashing the party. We decided to just eat in the parking lot under the shade of a tree, since it was blazing hot.

One of the people at the pavilion was riding around on a mini bike on the park roads without a helmet. That should speak to the mental capacity of the people around us. Intelligence and progress are not held in high esteem. Why does so much of America accept the status quo and not want progress? All under the mistaken guise of a reality tv star whose actions and words don’t match each other.

After we got back on the road, the kids needed a potty break, so we stopped off of the side of the road in the middle of a lot of nothing, which was easy to find among the plethora of signs for Wall Drug. The smell was really interesting. Kind of like the ocean. Only one car came past us in the nearly five minutes we were stopped for.

It was beautiful rolling hills with grass swaying in the breeze. The vastness was awesome and the sky was huge and there wasn’t anyone around for miles. No houses, no streetlights, no electric poles, nothing but farmland, fences and cattle. We knew we were getting really close to Wall after we passed 1880 City and the signs for Wall Drug became even more dense. We also passed a sign for a Mexican restaurant that read, “Mexican food so good, President Donald Trump would build a wall around it.” After all this buildup for Wall Drug, it better be incredible, because I am really curious to see this.

Our cabin hotel is pretty neat. There is a playground the kids enjoyed, a fire pit for s’mores, a hot tub, and a sauna. We were all very happy to be there.

The store where we checked in had a ton of fireworks and a cute three month old puppy that the manager offered several times to give to us.

And we saw a great sunset:

We finished the night with dinner Jill had prepared, grilled chicken, broccoli, and rice, before everyone showered and we went to sleep. When we were eating our dinner outside of our cabin, we saw Jupiter in the sky and after very rough calculations realized the light reflecting from it left an hour and a half ago.