Thanksgiving on the Rez

We have now returned. Laura and I are catching up on our emails and facebooks that we missed over the Thanksgiving week. We were unable to use the internet for gmail and Facebook...It was actually kind of nice! Here's the short version of our trip:

We arrived in Vermillion, SD around 4:30 on Tuesday evening. I took Laura on a tour of the town until Uncle Dave and Aunt Diane got home from work. It hasn't changed too much since I was there last May. Dave and Diane took us out for supper to The Pub, where Jacque used to work. Then we had some nice conversation until bedtime.

We woke up and hit the road around 9am Wednesday morning. Jacque told us to give her a call when we reached Winner, SD. When I did, she said "Look around you. This is your last look at civilization for a while." It was true. As we left Winner, the houses came few and far inbetween. The landscape began to change from flat prairies to beautiful rolling hills however. We arrived at Jacque and Whoopie's a little before 3. Our first night was spent conversing, taking a trip to Springcreek (where the South Dakota Smidt's had lived for many years), eating, and drinking!

Thanksgiving day was so nice and relaxing for us. Jacque did a wonderful job cooking (and cleaning up the entire meal...) She's a wonderful hostess. Her friend Brooke also joined us for the meal! Delicous! Laura and I spent the morning before we ate on the computer. Jacque introduced us to pinterest.com, and we're both addicted!! So much fun....Then we went out onto BIA 5 and had saw some beautiful scenery. That evening we went to bed in preparation for our early departure on Friday.

Friday morning, we were on the road by 4:45 am CST. We went to see the sun rise over the Badlands. Just a little sidenote: It is incredibly creepy to be driving through Badlands National Park when it is pitch black out, but once the sun started to rise, it was a breathtaking site. We then went along to Wall Drug. After looking around there, and seeing my childhood hero Annie Oakley, we made our way through the Black Hills to Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse. We ended our day with a stop in Rapid City for supper/lunch at the Firehouse Brewery and a shopping trip at Target. We were back to the Rez by 8:00pm CST. We switched timezones to Mountain Time for a good part of the day. It was strange to wake up in one timezone, travel to another, and come back to the original timezone. Maybe it's because Minnesota isn't close to another timezone, but it just felt strange!

On the way back from the Rez, Laura and I calculated how many hours we had been in the car. Overall, it was at least 29 hours! Yikes! It was so worth it though.

Tony and I stopped by and had a Thanksgiving after dinner drink with my parents last night, and tonight we're having dinner with Tony's parents. Thanksgiving family time continues!