On My Way

I’m on my way to South Dakota to spend a week with my friend Kathie Ball. We’re going to visit Mount Rushmore, The Badlands, Deadwood and Sturgis. The visit to Sturgis is for my brother Beau. The yearly motorcycle rally is there and I promised him I would stop and get him a shirt. From what I understand, we’ll be there right in the middle of 100,000+ motorcyclists. Not exactly my idea of fun, but I think I can endure long enough to make the purchase!

I’m not sure what our schedule will be. We’re “camping” at KOA campsites. They have cabins you can rent and the one we have sleeps 4. It’s actually pretty cool. There’s a set of bunk beds, and a full size futon, a table, small counter area and a bathroom with a shower. It’s pretty stinking small, but big enough for the two of us. I found out the other day that it has a/c and heat. I was a little worried about this as I wasn’t sure what kind of blanket to try and pack. The lows while we’re up there are supposed to be in the upper 50’s and for a girl from Houston, that’s a tad bit on the chilly side. That’s winter weather where I’m from!!! Yes, laugh out loud and make fun. I can take it! :D I decided on my little Navy fleece blanket that Arlene made for me for Christmas a few years ago. That and the sheets I brought will hopefully keep me warm enough. If not, I’ve budgeted for a few trips to Wal-Mart!! I have to go there anyway to get a pillow. I tried packing as lightly as possible, but still didn’t have the room for a pillow.

As I type this, I’m on the plane heading to Denver for a layover. I’m typing this up in Word first and then will post when I get to a hotspot. There’s gotta be wireless somewhere in South Dakota!! :) I’ll try the airport in Denver, but my experience with airport wireless is that it’s pretty dang expensive. Granted, it’s usually good for a month, so maybe I’ll splurge and be able to access it on the layover back home.

I meet Kathie in Denver and we’ll travel together from there in Rapid City, SD. From there we rent a car, drive to our first campsite, settle in a bit (make our bed) and take a nap!! We both are on EARLY flights. Mine took off at 6:30am. On a good day, I’m up at 6:30 to get ready for work. This morning I woke up at 4:36 – THANKFULLY!! I’m not sure what I was thinking when I set my alarm clock for 4:45. I should have left the house at 4:45. As it turned out, I left at 4:54, parked my car at around 5:30, caught the shuttle to the airport, stood in a long security line, made my way to the gate by 6:15, boarded and took off a few minutes later.

Can I just interject here my *love* of airport security and metal detectors? Because of my hurried departure from the house this morning, I got dressed without really thinking. I made sure I knew last night what I was going to wear and had it out and ready, but for some reason I forgot about which bra I should wear. You may be asking yourself, why does it matter which bra you wear when you travel. Well, in my case, it makes a lot of difference. I buy my bras from Omar the Tent Maker because he carries my size (none of your business!! LOL) and uses plenty of rebar, I mean underwire, to keep the twins somewhat stationary. This steel reinforcement affords me a great amount of stability, but sets off metal detectors. I’ve grown accustomed to having my boobs patted down by a TSA worker.

The flight so far as been uneventful. Each seat has a TV you can pay to watch and I was willing to shell out the money, but the card swipe wasn’t working. Guess it worked out anyway, I wasn’t really all that excited about the selection of movies. The previews showed Prince Caspian and I was all set to watch that, but it wound up not being available.

The guy sitting next to me is very nice. Talkative, but not overly so and he shared his breakfast with me! :)

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I'm at the Denver airport waiting on my connecting flight into Rapid City. I bumped into Kathie at the arrival/departure monitors. We're both exhausted from the early flights. Both of us can't wait to get to the KOA and nap!! At this point, I don't care if the rest of the day is spent sleeping!! Hello!, this is vacation after all!

No pics yet. The Denver airport looks much like any other airport. I thought I would try getting a pic of the mountains, but much to my surprise, they are pretty far off in the distance and shrouded in haze.

One funny note: The airplane had individual little TVs that displayed a map of the US, current speed and altitude. As we descended into Denver I was watching our speed and alt, but couldn't see much out the window. All of a sudden at 5336ft the airplane touched down. For almost a minute I thought the map/altitude thing was broke. Um hello, we touched down, we should be at 0 elevation.

Yeah, took me a second to realize Denver isn't called the mile high city for no reason.

Yes, go ahead, laugh at me! I come from a particularly flat part of the world!!