Sunday, July 5, 2009

Driving Day #2

We woke up Tuesday morning to an extremely hyper Jacob. First there was cranberry juice on the floor, then hot chocolate on himself and on the bed. Justin started singing the Dora song, “Jacob spilled on himself and he spilled on the bed and he spilled on the floor, yeah! He did it! He did it! He did it! Yeah!”
The kids and I hiked on an island called La Frambois. It was a nice walk. The kids liked to explore the shores on the Missouri river. Jacob was fascinated with these sand funnels things. I need to figure out what they’re called, but a bug will get caught in one, then the bug in the ground can eat it.

*****
Randomness:
  • Isaac: Allison kicked me in the shin and it made my mosquito bite start itching.

  • Jacob: I couldn’t sleep very well, cause of Ammon. He was rubbing his blankie on my cheek. "I thought it was a hairy spider."

  • Allison woke up at the feet of all the boys.

  • Hiking back, Ammon came up to a sign and said, “and this says…” waiting for someone to fill in the blanks.

  • We hiked after a downpour so we got quite wet. The next morning everyone needed to put on wet socks and shoes. Ammon seemed to have walked right in the stream because we were able to ring water out of his socks. He woke up touchy and didn’t want to put on wet short, socks, and shoes. When I was putting his socks on he cried, “they’re weeeeeet.”
*****



We ate some of the grossest pizza at Wall Drug. Allison got soaked in their water play area and got the giggles. Ammon was freaked out by a Jurassic style looking dinosaur that came alive and growled.



We love this picture of Ammon. It makes us laugh.


After much deliberation with our gps unit, we decided to drive through the Black Hills because it said it was the shortest drive. We got to see Mount Rushmore driving by. Then we stopped and swam in horsethief lake. Justin cliff jumped a couple of times. It’s funny to me how he was too scared to jump from the higher cliff. He’s always up for crazy stunts like that. Maybe if he had someone to egg him on .
We noticed a trail head called horsethief and decided that we would backpack in and camp for the night and pound out the last 8 hours to Lander, WY tomorrow. There were no camp sights on the Wyoming map, so we thought it would be more fun to camp somewhere beautiful, and we weren’t disappointed.
Everyone got their packs on and started on the trail. There was a small gurgling creek to make it even more scenic. Up a little farther on, Jacob and Isaac found a small cave that they wanted us to camp in. We had to convince Isaac that is wasn’t a good camping place: right on the trail and not big enough for two tents. We ended up camping across the creek next to some majestic rock formations.
Some of you might know my aversion to ticks and bugs in general, so be prepared to be amazed. I saw a dark spot on Allison’s leg and sure enough, it was a wood tick. I didn’t scream or anything. I told Justin and he grabbed it and skewered it with his pocket knife. So far, we’re up to Tick Man #5 (meaning we found 5 ticks so far). I was calm at every sighting. Now, I didn’t sleep well because every tickle on my skin, I had to inspect and make sure it wasn’t a tick, plus there was more thunder and lightening in the middle of the night.
We were able to get our tents set up with about 30 minutes to spare before the rains descended. The kids were in their tent, Justin and I in ours. I love the sound of rain on a tent. It’s one of my favorite sounds.
After the rain, Justin pulled out his pocket rocket and boiled us up some Velveeta Shells and Cheese. We had to share sporks and plates, but no one complained. We also did a little more hiking, which proved to be wet wet wet and muddy. The earth smelled so clean. I love a good rain storm.Notice all the kids squished onto one side of the tent...
Justin’s watch alarm went off at 6:30. Of course I was out cold and not wanting to get up, but we were on a schedule. We actually got packed up and back to the car by around 8:30. Not too bad for us Dittmers.

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