Summer just wouldn’t be complete without what is becoming an annual cross country trek home to the motherland. I’m not lying when I say this trip was the most relaxing and enjoyable one we’ve had in the 3 years since we’ve been driving.
Unlike our Spring Break rental “van” debacle our rental company (Enterprise) was wonderful! I 
had booked a minivan months in advance and arbitrarily chosen Noon as the pick up time. As our vacation approached however, I realized having an earlier pick up time would actually work a lot better for our first day of driving. I called the local Enterprise office and they promised to let me know if the van was ready earlier on Monday. Well, it wasn’t just ready early on Monday, they called me on SATURDAY and let me pick it up 2 days early for no additional charge! This gave us a whole 2 days extra to scope out all the space and features of our rental before hitting the road. Win!
Packing with the little ones is interesting. Andrew was so excited he was underfoot the whole time. The older two aren’t much help with packing the essentials yet, but they did willingly select and pack the toys they wanted to come along. I’ve found the easiest time for me to pack is the evening before the trip when all the kids are safely stowed in their sleeping containers. Kiki always seems to know when we are leaving and made sure to supervise from the middle of it all.
We managed to get on the road at 10:55 Monday morning. The excitement was high (and noisy). Soon everyone settled into playing Kindle or taking a nap and we worked our way out of Utah and across Wyoming to our first hotel stop in Casper, Wyoming. The best part about our earlier-than-planned departure was that we got to actually enjoy the hotel pool and decompress instead of falling right into bed. It was great to let the kids burn off some noisy energy before quiet/bedtime.
Day 2 we loaded up from the hotel and were off to see Mt. Rushmore! This is the first time we’ve taken 3 days to make the drive instead of 2. I think I liked taking 3 days to drive on the way there because it gave us time to stop along the way and play a little so it felt more like our vacation had actually started instead of just the drudgery of 2 straight days of nothing but driving.
At the end of day 2 we reached our hotel in Chamberlain, South Dakota. The hotel wasn’t anything special other than it was right along the Missouri River and had a fairly nice view. It was HUMID when we arrived and overnight we were awoken by storm warning sirens. Thankfully the kids slept through the whole ordeal, but it’s a little unnerving to wake up to sirens and not know for sure what they mean. Although the storm warning indicated there could be large damaging hail, we happened to luck out.
Day 3 was a windy but otherwise uneventful drive through mostly Minnesota and then down to the farm. Andrew had been waiting to see Grandma for months! He was excited to grab a finger and go check out where we’d be staying on vacation.
Vacation itself was all the things we’ve come to expect from WI. There were friends and family, tractor and 4-wheeler rides, playing with cousin Clara, throwing the ball for Mike, food, fun outings, and some time just to hang out. A big highlight for the kids was that Grandpa Bruce and Uncle Jim refurbished the old tire swing. Christopher rode until he puked (no joke–my poor motion sick camper). We also got to celebrate Grandpa Bruce’s 64th birthday, hit up the Henry Vilas Zoo with Aunt Ellen, and Jim and family spent an extended weekend with us. One difference maker this trip was that we took advantage of the great-Koenig-grandparents’ house being empty and slept up there. It was nice to have the extra space and a place for the kids to decompress when they needed. (Click picture for full-size photo and caption).
This year we spent 3 days driving out, 8 days visiting, and 2 days driving back. It seemed like we finally struck the right balance between driving days and trip duration. The kids are also getting a little older, so they settled in better and weren’t as homesick as on previous trips. Another big help this trip was that on our last visiting day we drove down to stay with my brother, sister-in-law Jen, and cousin Clara in Dubuque. This gave us a chance to see their new house and let Clara show us around, it also gave us an almost 2 hour start on our first day of driving back.
It’s amazing how much better 10 1/2 hours of driving feels versus 12 1/2. The only downside of this driving day is that after an entire trip filled with thunderstorms the hail finally found us. We’d been watching a beautiful storm cloud on the horizon most of the way through Nebraska–it was nice to have something to look at on that stretch of I-80. Jason was watching a spot on the map thinking we’d likely miss it but we drove into the tail end of a little spot of insane hail. Hail is always loud, but when you’re pulled off the side of the interstate in basically a rolling tin can it is deafening! Thankfully we were safe and the rental van was not damaged, however we drove past a trailer which had overturned during the storm. Scary!
Needless to say we were thankful to arrive at our hotel about 30 minutes later. Another splash though the hotel pool and we were ready for our last day on the road towards home.
There’s always something that feels great when you get home from a long vacation. We arrived back at about 5:00PM on a Saturday and have learned it’s always nice to have a recovery day before heading back to work. Kiki was ridiculously excited to see us and the house was in better shape than we’ve ever come back to before (Thanks Rebecca and Lisa). Sometimes it’s a trip I dread, and at other times I wish we could make the trek more than once a year. This year was a great one. We’ll look forward to next time!
S.~