Last night, Nathan and I got home from a quick trip to South Dakota. It was a fun and quick little road trip to add more national parks to our list.

We started out on Wednesday morning and drove to Devil's Tower in Wyoming. Devil's Tower was the country's first National Monument and was pretty impressive. We did the short trail around the tower...enjoying the massive boulder field, the prayer flags/fabric strips, and the amazing geologic formations. We saw climbers in the distance and wondered about what must have been a massive wind storm that had snapped many trees recently. (We'd have asked a ranger but couldn't find one while we were there.)

From there, we drove into Rapid City, SD, found our AirBNB, and walked a couple blocks to a great brew pub where we ate way too much. Seriously. It was delicious but just too much.

Thursday morning, we enjoyed the wonderful coffee shop literally on the other side of the building from our AirBNB then set out for the South Dakota Air & Space Museum, which was an unexpected surprise that we discovered on a billboard while driving into Rapid City. We didn't take many photos but enjoyed their extensive collection...

From there, we continued on to Badlands National Park. We were sad to discover that the Notch Trail was closed (for our protection?) but went ahead and hiked a portion of the Castle Trail before continuing on to lunch at the Cedar Pass Lodge Restaurant (we recommend the Famous Indian Tacos on fry bread), some time learning at the visitors center and then some more wandering in the park.

Mid-afternoon, we ventured out of the park to Wall Drug, where Nathan tried their famous 5 cent coffee (it was not to his standards, lol). We browsed a bit before heading back into the park. (We'd actually been to Wall Drug when we moved from Washington to North Carolina back in 1998. It hadn't changed much, lol, but we appreciated all of their many roadside signs for miles and miles.) 

Throughout the day, I joked that I needed to get pictures of all three boys' college mascots...ram (for Noah and CSU), bear (for Asher and UNC) and buffalo (for Micah and CU Boulder). We saw actual buffalo and rams but had to settle for a stuffed bear at Wall Drug. :) We did see plenty of prairie dogs (which we decided to dub the "bears of the rodent kingdom" or "dirt bears"), lol. Does that count? And. On Wednesday, at one of our stops for gas, Nathan found a toy T-Rex that I adopted and brought along on our travels. 

After sunset, we got dinner in Wall, SD (at the Salty Steer) then drove back to our AirBNB in Rapid City.

Friday morning we checked out of our fabulous AirBNB (top three photos below) and hit our favored coffee shop, Harriet & Oak (bottom photo below). 

We took a scenic drive through Custer State Park and stopped in Wind Cave National Park. Unfortunately, the cave tours aren't going right now (which I knew in advance--they're replacing the elevators) so we hit the visitors center exhibits, saw a natural entrance to the caves and did the Cold Brook Canyon hike.

The hike was lovely. We appreciated the utter quiet and having the trail entirely to ourselves...aside from the plentiful prairie dogs and the bison waiting for us at our car when we got back. (The antelope photo was from inside Custer State Park.) We were also quite impressed by the information we read at the visitors center and may have to make a repeat visit to actually do a cave tour in the future.

(Side note to say that we've been to Mt Rushmore years ago with the boys and years before that while we were moving cross-country, so we didn't bother stopping there on this trip. We'd also opted to tour Jewel Cave with the boys on that trip but hadn't been to Wind Cave (my guess is that we chose Jewel Cave due to maybe a shorter tour, more appropriate for the boys' ages at the time).)

We then drove into Hot Springs, SD and had a late lunch at Two Cows Creamery before getting on the road for home. Along the way, we stopped for Nathan's afternoon coffee (at a coffee shop in Chadron, NE that was apparently "out" of coffee, lol) and made an attempt to see Scotts Bluff National Monument. We knew the visitors center would be closed by the time we got there but thought maybe we'd still be able to drive the loop. Nope. We settled for this photo...

From there, we stopped for dinner in Kimball, NE and made it home finally around 9pm. Whew. 

So, that was our quick trip. It was lovely.

Clearly I had a lot to share yesterday so I didn't get to my Thankful Thursday post. Since I definitely *am* thankful...here's my list a day late:

1. My haircut. Very thankful that I went ahead and had as much hair chopped as I did just before our trip. It was lovely not having to keep pulling it out from behind my backpack or worrying about it in the San Francisco wind.

2. Normal sized sinks. Not complaining but I just want to say that I appreciate normal sized sinks. The sink in our hotel was a quite small pedestal sink. ;P It was tricky not splashing water everywhere when washing my face, lol. Let's just say that I put an extra bath mat down below the sink during our stay.

3. Quiet. While I enjoy visiting new places and loved the convenience of our hotel location in San Francisco, I'm not crazy about city noise. Our hotel room was right on the street and I'm a light sleeper...so all of the boisterous conversations, street sweepers, garbage collection, cars playing loud music, emergency vehicles, etc were rather annoying to me. (The hotel actually provided ear plugs right on the night stands...which Nathan used...but I'm too paranoid about not being able to hear things.) So thankful for our beautifully quiet little neighborhood here. :)

4. Phone photography & editing. I'm often thankful for technological advances. Today I'm thankful for the quality and ease of taking photos and editing them with just my phone. I remember when I used to take photos on trips with my big camera and then had to wait until I got home to upload them to my computer so that I could go through and edit them. These days, I can just use my phone for both taking the pictures and editing them...so I can have most (if not all) of my photo prep done before I even get home. Nice.

5. Public transportation. Sometimes on trips, we rent a car. San Francisco, though, suggested that renting a car wasn't the best option. (Yes, the city, itself, told me this, lol.) I'm thankful, then, that our location made it easy to just walk or take public transportation for everything. (Yes, we did take an Uber a couple times for speed, but we knew that public transportation would also have worked.) We also appreciated how easy it was to use the app to track buses/trains and the ability to use our phones to pay for everything.

6. Travel partner. I love Nathan. :) Beyond that, I'm so very thankful that Nathan and I travel so well together. We've done it enough now that we have our routine pretty well down...and that makes travel considerably nicer. 

7. Asher's ankle. Unfortunately, Asher sprained his ankle Wednesday night (landing badly while flipping during taekwondo practice). A trip to Urgent Care yesterday verified that nothing's broken, but it's a decent sprain and Asher headed back to campus yesterday in a boot and hobbling. Hopefully he'll heal up okay and quickly...it's not the most fun way to end the semester. Thankful, though, that this happened after Nationals and not before. Also, thankful that it's his left foot so he can still drive just fine.   

So that's my list for now. :) Happy Friday to you all!

So, Saturday was our "parent" day. We took the metro from our place in San Francisco over to UC Berkeley and spent a very loud day in a very crowded fieldhouse. (In case you're wondering what a taekwondo tournament smells like, by the way, it's feet. It smells like feet, lol.) We helped video and photograph things for the UNC team (particularly when all four of them were required for each board breaking competition...those not competing held the boards to be broken) and cheered everyone on. And then we took the metro back to San Francisco and enjoyed a lovely dinner...switching back to our "traveler" mode. :)

Let's backtrack a moment...

Thursday, after about 4.5 hours of delay, we finally made it to San Francisco. We'd helped arrange lodging for the UNC team and our flight delay meant that they weren't able to check in to both of their rooms until we got there. Fortunately, one of the rooms was in Asher's name so they were at least able to chill altogether in one room for the afternoon/evening after their long road trip. 

Friday, Nathan and I took ourselves on a walking tour of San Francisco. (The UNC team did their own sightseeing and practicing and also had to go over the UC Berkeley for sparring weigh ins.) 

We started just down the block from our hotel at the Dragon Gate...entrance to Chinatown. We wandered Chinatown and stopped at the famous Good Mong Kok Bakery for some sesame rolls, steamed pork buns and other things. We also visited the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, saw them making fortune cookies and bought some to take with us. From there, we wandered Little Italy and then walked up Lombard Street. We ventured down to the wharf, with stops at Ghirardelli's and the Frisco Legendary Waterfront National historic site museum. We had a wonderful chowder lunch at Blue Mermaid then continued to Pier 39 where we saw the sea lions and I rode the carousel on a beautiful green dragon. 

From the waterfront, we climbed the hill to Coit Tower and climbed the 234 stairs to the top (lots of climbing in San Francisco, lol) before climbing back down and heading to Little Italy for some gelato and chilling. We then had a fabulous dinner at the House of Nanking in Chinatown...a favorite spot of Keanu Reeves after the Matrix movie crews ate and filmed there. (Serious yum!)

On the way to dinner, we spent some time at City Lights Bookstore (finding a book for the plane ride back since I finished the one I brought for the plane ride out) and stopped after dinner to photograph some of the murals just outside the bookstore. And then, on our way back through Chinatown, we chanced upon a huge street festival that apparently happens every second Friday of the month. There were soooo many people and booths. We particularly enjoyed the musical performances and watching the little grandmas reading tea leaves.

So, that was Friday. And then we did the parent thing on Saturday. 

On Sunday, we headed for Golden Gate Park. We took the Muni train and found ourselves at a fun flea market that we wandered a bit before heading into the park. We enjoyed the Japanese Tea Gardens and ordered matcha and dango at the Tea House. Then we walked a good ways west toward the ocean (about 2.5 miles) and found ourselves at the Queen Wilhelmina windmill and tulip garden. (The tulips were a bit past their prime but it was still fun.) We then stopped at the Beach Chalet for a yummy lunch.

From there, we did a quick Uber to the Palace of Fine Arts, where we were entertained by all the figures with their backsides to us. We walked to Chrissy Field for a view of the Golden Gate Bridge then decided to go ahead and walk to the actual bridge (about 1.6 miles). We made it inside Fort Point (directly under the bridge) but were late in the day so couldn't go past the ground floor. 

From there, we walked the waterfront from the bridge back to the wharf area for dinner (about 3.6 miles). We then caught a bus back to our hotel because we were already at more than 30,000 steps for the day and I somehow injured my foot the day before so it was swollen and sore and had been bothering me all day. Bleh.

Monday, we all checked out of our hotel (us and the UNC team). Given that the team wouldn't get back to Greeley until Tuesday and that Asher had a morning class he needed to be at, he flew home with us. So, the three of us left our bags at the hotel for storage for the morning and made our way to Pier 33 to catch the ferry to Alcatraz. We had a great time wandering Alcatraz...particularly enjoying the very well done cellblock audio tour and the gardens outside. 

After that, we caught our ferry back to the pier (along with a bird hitchhiker) then did lunch at Pier 39 before walking back to Little Italy for gelato again. :)

From there, we Uber'd back to get our bags and continue to the airport...flew home...drove Asher to UNC...and finally got home to Fort Collins just before 11pm. Whew. I have more to say but it'll have to wait for another post...this one's gotten long enough, lol.

So, that was our trip to Vegas. It was good. Here are some random thoughts and observations to wrap up:

According to my watch, we walked more than 33 miles (more than 80,000 steps) in the just under 72 hours we were in Vegas. A lot of those steps were actual stairs...as we generally opted to take the stairs rather than the escalators whenever possible (since they were faster and since we were eating plenty, lol). (If walking The Strip, you have to cross the street at elevated walkways so there are escalators and stairs to and from each of those.) We had the option of taking a bus or tram or monorail along The Strip but found that, though the app made it easy, we were usually quicker just walking once you accounted for the time waiting for things and boarding them. Very thankful for our health and ability to just walk everywhere.

Americans are not great at being pedestrians, lol. Maybe it's just Vegas but we've been to other touristy places in Europe and the US and it was definitely the worst we've experienced in Vegas...people not understanding the flow of pedestrian traffic, people distracted by their phones, people just stopping in the middle of everything for no good reason, etc.

The choices of footwear were fascinating. (We were both happy with our good walking shoes but did decide that it wouldn't be the worst thing to bring an alternate pair to be able to switch each day for trips with lots of walking.)

Colorado's generally a health conscious state and we embrace that. We decided it's good for us to sometimes go to places like Vegas so that we can better appreciate our fresh air and good drinking water and ease of eating healthy. (It's rare for us to see anyone smoking in public where we live so walking through casinos and streets full of people smoking was a little crazy. Our drinking water here in Fort Collins is directly from the Rocky Mountains; we're a little spoiled. And there's definitely a focus on healthy eating here that was not present in Vegas. It was tricky to find healthier options in Vegas for sure.)

(To be clear, I understand that not all of Vegas is what we experienced on The Strip. For my purposes, I'm just talking about The Strip since that's where we were.)

We miss our mattress whenever we're traveling. We've gotten pretty good at traveling and have honed a lot of our little conveniences and such, but there's no way to pack a good mattress.

We packed a lot into our time there. We had a working list of options and decided on the Neon Museum, the Atomic Museum and the Cirque du Soleil "O" show as our main things and would recommend every one of those. 

Aside from our main attractions and our eating, we walked to and through most of the hotels/casinos on The Strip. It was interesting to see how they differed along with the commonalities. Also, having actually been to Venice and Paris and Rome, we feel safe in saying that the vibe in each of the properties modeled after those places was a very Americanized take, lol. 

Three days was definitely enough for us in Vegas. We'd go back for a few specific things (like to go to a BattleBots bout) but we'd stay fewer than three days. :) 

We decided that maybe a good tagline for Vegas would be "too much," lol. There was just too much of everything...too much noise, too much visual stimulation (screens everywhere!), too much indulgence, too much waste...just too much, lol. 

All in all, we had a lovely little break and enjoyed ourselves and our time together. And now we're happy to be home. :)