Day 6 - Road Trip 2015

MORE GREAT SIGHTS AND TRAVEL TIME!!!

We took The 1880 Train Ride from Keystone, SD to Hill City, SD.  It was really neat!   We loved the open train cars!   We spotted a few places that we thought we take up residence... haha!
Said good bye to our favorite little town in South Dakota (Keystone) and headed to see the Crazy Horse Memorial Monument.  

Wow!  I highly recommend that you take the time to go in and watch the video about the making of the Crazy Horse Monument.  We almost skipped it and it would have been a disservice to the memorial to have left with out understanding it.   

"They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they kept one; they promised to take our land, and they did." - Red Cloud

Then hours on the road to Laramie, Wyoming!

We have come to the conclusion that we could be a mountain family!
I have a feeling much much more time will be spent in the mountains ... long stretches of time!  Maybe we should just load up the whole ranch and head North West 😃

Road Trip Song Of The Day

Rockin' Down the Highway

The  Doobie Brothers

Day 6 - Road Trip 2015

Day 5 - Road Trip 2015

AMAZING and AWESOME
HAPPY SUNDAY

WOW!  If you ever get the chance to come to South Dakota...COME!!!

We started the day at the Black Hills Bagel Shop.  Kenedy had never had a bagel and was not overly excited to try them.  Tonight, on the phone with Daddy she proclaimed her new found love for bagels :) We had the best bagels ever!  
The coffee could give Starbucks a run for their money!!  
Great start to the day 😋

Good thing we had a great breakfast because we needed it at the Black Hills Maze! 

 It took us an hour for all 4 of us to get our cards stamped.  

Probably the slowest family ever!!! HAHA!  😆

Bear Country USA has to be the best animal enclosure in the USA!  Especially for bears!  We could have watched these bears all day!   Just AMAZING!  The big Pooh Bear was our favorite.  You will know which one I am talking about when you see him in the pictures!  
He was very entertaining :)

Mount Rushmore...WOW!!  It really was breath taking!  We loved the hike up to the top and reading about the Hall of Records.  Then, we came back to watch the lights come on at night! Words do not do it justice!
 I took an amazing video that I will try to post at some point.  
The internet is not the best at our hotel tonight.  
We are literally 2 minutes from Mount Rushmore!!  
 Slow internet is a small price to pay for what we have been blessed to experience today!

The local pizzaria here in Keystone, South Dakota is GREAT!!!  
It is called Pie for the People :)
It ranks right up there with great the pizza we had last summer in Washington DC :)
We met a really neat couple in Hill City today.  You will see them in our pictures with their dog Doc.  They are from New York traveling to California.  Their trip is for 2 MONTHS!!!  Whoa...
My kids said they are game for 2 months or a whole summer if Daddy & Bexar are with us!!!
Daddy says that would be awesome!  WOOHOO!!
I will keep you posted when we head out...hehe! :)

We have met so many nice people.  
People from all over the world are such a great part of our travels!  

God has blessed us in so many ways!!

ROAD TRIP SONG OF THE DAY
AMAZING GRACE
BY RONNIE MILSAP

Due to the amount of photos there will be 2 links tonight :)

Day 5 - Road Trip 2015

Day 5 - Road Trip 2015 #2

Day 4 - Road Trip 2015

Highway!

Lots of open highway ... I love it when we get to see God's ultimate creation!

Gorgeous open country.

We made it to The Mount Rushmore State.  We haven't seen it yet but we are here :)

We have seen and grown very fond of prairie dogs!  

We saw an old prairie homestead and all I have to say is I sure wish I could buy 160 acres for $18.00!!  Whoa...how awesome :)  Of course, the kids loved the animals...pony, goats & chickens! Ha!  I love that they love seeing animals like they have never seen any before.  We have 13 horses and they went nuts over the little pony named Polly.  We have 9 chickens and they just had to go in the chicken coop and hold the chickens.  This makes me smile!!  A simple life is a good life :)

Wall Drug Store was just awesome!  We ate a late lunch and hit the soda fountain for a malt on our way to Sturgis...

We made it to Sturgis in a flash from Wall.  I found a great trading post to stop at.  Pulled up in amongst all the motor bikes and Sterling announces "Umm ... this is a saloon." Yikes...we had to leave! HA!  Took a picture of "Sturgis" on the side of the mountain and Carson announces "It is just like Hollywood!"  BAHAHA!  Yes, just like that :)  It was time to move on down the road!  Although, I did see a sign that said "Rally Help Wanted - apply with in"  I almost filled out an application!!! giggle, giggle!!!

Now we are enjoying room service and catching up on a few episodes of Heartland!

The Gattis Family - everyone of us - LOVES this show!!  We are very thankful for Netflix :)

ROAD TRIP SONG OF THE DAY
HOLIDAY ROAD
LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM

Day 4 - Road Trip 2015

Day 3 - Road Trip 2015

Deputy of Dodge City

Newly was a gunsmith in Dodge City and a deputy when they needed him.  

Today my kids became deputies! Hehe!

We are so glad we made it to the Boot Hill Museum this morning!  

Buck Taylor starred in and was the narrator for the video and again the Gattis kids were thrilled to see Newly!  It just makes me smile that they love him like he is our neighbor. :)

One of our favorite Buck Taylor prints hangs in The Long Branch Saloon.  

 Some day I hope we have that print hanging in our house!  We had A LOT of fun!

We saw gorgeous sunflower fields in Kansas!  

They were the big sunflowers like the ones you see in flower arrangements.  

We saw massive feed lots! 

Kenedy kept saying Y'ALL ARE GONERS! Bahahaha!! 

These lots covered acres and acres.  

I had to turn around and take a side road to just see how massive the one in Decatur County Kansas was.  I stood on the roof of my suburban and took a panoramic picture.  

I could hear Kenedy again letting the cows know - Y'all are goners!  Cracked me up!  

Our line at home when we smell cow poop is "I smell money!"  

Well, we smelled a lot of money today :)

Then we topped a hill and there it was!!!

Zion Lutheran Church

It was the most precious church you have ever seen.  

We stopped took some pictures, held hands and prayed!

We rolled into North Platte, Nebraska and headed to Buffalo Bills Ranch.  Wow!  It was gorgeous.  The kids said if we could have a ranch like that then they would moved to Nebraska.  Whoa...

We knew about Buffalo Bill's ranch called Scouts Rest Ranch from our visit to his grave site and museum in Golden, Colorado a few years ago. 

One thing Kansas & Nebraska have in common is the speed limit thru town...small towns.  

And on our drive all of the towns were small :) 

Try 20mph!!!  

At first I thought man that is slow ... wonder what happened in this town.  

Then...4 more times!  I just wonder what the speed limit is in the school zone!

We topped the day off eating BEEF!  Hehe! :)

It is whats for dinner!  Y'all are goners :)

ROAD TRIP SONG OF THE DAY

I'm a Small Town

By Kenny Chesney

"Where everyone knows everyone....either I hold your heart or I hold you down"

Day 3 - Road Trip 2015

Day 2 - Road Trip 2015

GET YOUR KICKS ON ROUTE 66

We saw "The Largest Mound in the World" in OKC (who new) and then headed West!   

We did get our kicks on Route 66!  We stopped by Lucille's Famous Gas Station and then to the Route 66 Museum in Clinton, OK.   It was really awesome!  Small but full of great information - not very time consuming.  

We hit Dodge City, Kansas in time to burn off lots of energy in the pool!  

We are all big Gunsmoke fans at our house so it is only fitting that we are here.
A few years ago at the Ft Worth Stock Show & Rodeo an announcement was made that Buck Taylor was in the audience.  Sterling quickly proclaimed, "That is Newly!!".
Later, we all met Buck Taylor (Newly) and had pictures made.
He was impressed that our kids knew who he was on their own accord.

Hardly a day goes by without an episode of Gunsmoke running in our house.   We love it!
We even have a yearling filly (one year old girl horse) named Miss Kitty and a new colt (baby boy horse) named Matt.

We have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Taylor a few times since then and every time it feels like we are meeting the Queen of England!!!  Haha!!! He is a wonderful man and an amazing western artist.   

We plan to visit the museum here on our way out of town tomorrow...handing to Nebraska!  

I bet you have a particular song in mind for our road trip song of the day....Route 66??
Sorry to disappoint but the drive really brought on a different tune.

Road Trip Song Of The Day

Wide Open Spaces

By the Dixie Chicks

"Many precede and many will follow

A young girl's dreams no longer hollow
It takes the shape of a place out west
But what it holds for her, she hasn't yet guessed

She needs .... wide open spaces"

Day 2 - Road Trip 2015

Day 1 - Road Trip 2015

And we are off ... LIKE A HERD OF TURTLES!!

My Dad use to say this so many times growing up.  

Every time I say it my kids laugh.  I think they are starting to get it.

I35 North = Herd of turtles! Haha!

Even moving in slow motion we are right on schedule!

Our goal was to go to the only drive-in movie theater in Oklahoma City and we made it!!

We saw Inside Out (great movie)!  The girls had already seen it with Nana but certainly did not mind seeing it again and we all really loved the drive-in. 

  

The last movie I saw at the drive-in was Footloose!  Whoa...

On our way, we stopped in West ( of course)!  The kolaches are always AMAZING!!! We stopped in Frisco to see one of eight Big Boy Locomotives on display in the USA.  We saw it thru the fence kinda behind another train...they offered to give us a walking tour tomorrow at 11am.  I had to tell John sorry we will be in Kansas tomorow!  He laughed :) We saw a VW bug transformed into a spider in Lexington, OK.  It was built by Leroy Wilson in 1979.  We checked into our hotel and headed to the drive-in.  Oh and had ice cream at Braums'! :) 

We are now the family on vacation that has a selfie stick and uses it.  

Dan got it from some kids from China that toured our ranch.  It is awesome!  

The last time I stayed in OKC was 2 days before the OKC bombing.  I was a flight attendant with Continental at the time and stayed about a block away from the sight.  Wow!  

Seems like a life time ago...  

Road Trip Song of the Day

Drift Away

by Dobie Gray

"Give me the beat boys and free my soul I wanna get lost in your rock and roll an drift away"

Day 1 - Road Trip 2015 (Click on the picture for a link to all of the pictures)

 

Eddie

We want everyone to meet Eddie!  

He is so very special to us.  

He was born on April 1, 2015 to Lady X Eddie.  

Lady coliced shortly before Eddie turned 2 months old.  She had emergency surgery and our fabulous vets did everything possible to save her for 2 weeks.  

She passed away on June 12 and Eddie came home to us!  

It was a very bittersweet day.  

Eddie is so sweet and is now trained to be a dog.  

He is doing great and growing like a weed!

We gained two more new foals this year Matt & Sis. 

We now have a total of 13 horses!!  I have stopped counting cows...

PawPaw has started construction on the horse barn.  The kids are thrilled that they can get to it in about 2 minutes...3 if they are running slow!  

Life is good!

Eddie