Devil's Tower and a Night in a Hotel

I know my posts are out of order, as I have not yet posted about our trip to South Dakota. But, here I am going to talk about our trip home from SD. We decided to take it slow and play tourist, stopping at places we've always meant to but have never taken the time to visit. We left mid-morning from Gramma and Papa's house, and headed to Devil's Tower in Wyoming. Gramma and Papa flew over Devil's Tower a while back in their airplane, and had taken a picture. Papa printed it out for Reder. Reder was so excited about seeing it, he was giddy. He took this picture to be his map for getting us there, and he took this quest very seriously. It was adorable. I hope he does not lose this excitement and zeal. He talked our ear off the entire way there. Here he is with his "map":

Devil's Tower really is impressive. We loved hearing Reder squeal with excitement when it came into view. Of course Ruby squealed too, as she does everything he does.

We took the hike around the base of the tower - it was maybe just over a mile. Ruby hiked most of the way, the little trooper....or should I say run. Reder was so excited he was leaping and bounding over every log and boulder he saw. He was one sweat hog by the time the hike was done.

They found a "cave" and are pretending to be bears here, though this isn't the best picture.

After the hike we found a nice spot in the shade to have a little picnic:

After our fun at Devil's Tower we hopped in the car for the drive to Sheridan, Wyoming. Both kids napped on the way there - I think I did too! We checked into our hotel in Sheridan, then immediately went swimming in the cool hotel pool (sorry, we were dumb and got no pictures of this, but I won't apologize too much b/c sometimes I find it annoying when people get too wrapped up in taking pictures and forget to just live in the moment, for heaven's sake). That was FUN for the kids - of course they preferred the hot tub, which I was fine with. I thought the pool was cold!

After our swim we went to downtown Sheridan for dinner at the Pub and Grub. We stopped here before on our way home from Colorado. The food isn't necessarily the best thing we've ever had, but it's kid-friendly, and a fun place to eat.

We then took the recommendation of Reder's old babysitter Sarah, and visited Kendrick Park. This was a wonderful end to our day. The equipment was awesome:

The city Rec Dept even had a little hut where they sell giant ice cream cones for $1! What a treat! We stayed out late and enjoyed the warm evening.

Back in the hotel, our little angels had plans other than going to bed:

Looking back, it was comical, but at the time Jason and I just wanted to go to sleep so bad we could hardly stand it. Reder was in one of the beds, and Ruby was in her portacrib. They both knew the other was there, and couldn't stop jumping in bed, giggling, squealing, etc. We would try to get them to calm down but Reder said they couldn't because they were playing "Silly Sissy". Eventually we took Reder into the bathroom so Ruby could fall asleep. That worked great. Then poor Reder got jealous that Ruby was asleep and he wasn't, and was pacing the room, obviously unsure of what to do with himself. I was trying to sleep and he shook me one time, telling me he was going to clean up a little and was wondering if he could take my dirty shorts. Jason finally got him calmed down and he went to sleep. Phew, long night!

We would definitely do the hotel thing again, but might approach "night-time mimis" a little differently. Or, we could just not worry about it and say that the kids thought it was great fun and will definitely remember it more than if they had just gone to sleep right away.

The next day we drove over the Bighorn Mountains to Billings, then to home. The drive was absolutely gorgeous. Boy were we glad to be home when we got here though. Overall, a great trip!