The Beginning of Our Vacation: Thursday Day 1

I planned a trip several months ago to run the crazy horse half marathon in hill city south Dakota. I got my mom, grandparents and Lily agreed and excited to go with us! 

on Tuesday I found out that the government shutdown and there would be no tour of national parks or monuments. Major bummer but I found plenty of other things to do! 

Wednesday got word of the impending blizzard but just 6 to 8 inches so figured we could make it there or halfway there.

so Thursday we left our house and headed to Columbus arriving at 11pm.

chocolate pretzels!
 we heard the snow forecast had increased to 12 to 18 inches so we got up at 4 a.m. and left by 4:45 in hopes of beating the storm.We were smooth sailing, driving through rain, until about Mitchell South Dakota and thats when grandpas passenger side windshield wiper flew off. the gas station did not have a replacement so we continued on to Wall South Dakota where we stopped at Dairy Queen for lunch and it was pelting ice. we continued on for quite a while until the blizzard conditions appeared. 

we were 20 miles from our destination when we decided we could go no longer. 
visibility was 0. 
I saw a red sign that said motel something, it was an RV park so after missing the turn and having to drive down a gravel road to turn around we pulled in the parking lot and chasen announced he had to poop so my mom took him around the side and he pooped outside in the blizzard while Ean & my grandpa tried to find someone......there was a sign that said manager at office but we couldnt see an office so we got in our cars to head back 5 miles to Rapid City but grandpas car would not make it up the big hill he made mom get out to try and push (jokingly) so we turned around on the wrong side of the highway and drove back to happy holiday RV park around 3pm. this time we saw the office and they had 2 rooms. we unloaded put on a bunch of layers and cranked the heat in our rooms, got out the crackers and few drinks of water and milk that we had then decided to walk up to the little mini mart that they had to see what we could buy for food. I took my macaroni and cheese cups that I brought so I could use their microwave, not 40 seconds after we stepped in the door the power went out and it never came back on. no mac and cheese:-(  so we bought peanut butter, crackers, beef jerky, a deck of cards and a couple muffins and headed back to the room for supper.
 for the next few hours we all sat under covers in the two beds and played cards and did crossword puzzles and secretly discussed with our bed mate who we would eat first. chasen overheard us and yelled "they never eat the kids" lol
darkness started to settle in around 630 so me and my boys headed to our room with a king size bed for the 4 of us. 

We used the last of the battery on the DVD player and let the kids watch a movie to fall asleep by 7. it was probably 40 degrees in our room. and I slept in short one hour increments because I kept waking up to cover my kids heads. we were all wearing most of the clothes we had packed....... morning couldn't come soon enough....so we thought...