It occurs to me that we have not informed you of our impending departure. Tuesday morning at 2:45am we will be leaving the barn with suitcases in tow, our destination the great state of South Dakota. I drove through it once on the way to North Dakota from Kansas City, but I was on a bus, and I think I slept through the South Dakota part of things.

Tomorrow we head for Rapid City on the Western edge of the state, our jumping-off point for explorations of the surrounding areas. We have no set agenda, but we plan to take in Custer State Park (where the Swanson family will be having a reunion this weekend) and might also see Mount Rushmore (Alden has been practicing the names of the persons there depicted), the Badlands, the Black Hills, Devil’s Tower, and some crazy alpine slide that Alden thinks she’s big enough to ride. Or we might just lounge in our motel room watching streaming Netflix and eating take-out pizza. It’s hard to say. South Dakota is our oyster.

It’s also hard to say what sort of internet connection we’ll be able to find, so this could be the last post for a week or so. Rest assured we will offer a full report upon our return.

Apologies that this post contained no photos. We haven’t taken them yet.