South Dakota-Day one/Tuesday is travel day!

Day One of our trip is pretty boring. We started out very early...3:30 a.m. for the alarm clock and up and in the shower for the 3 of us. Savannah woke up and got dressed and she was ready to go. She is a really good traveler.
The airport shuttle came and had already picked up a guy so when you add 7 more plus a driver guess what?.....yep, not enough seats so I used my butt muscles to sort of surf to the airport while holding on to Clark. Funny stuff and then the airport shuttle driver must have been related to Clark....we went on 3 freeways to get to the airport. We made it and got Great Grandma a wheelchair which gave us access to a special check in line and a fastpass thru the TSA security line. We went to the family lines once inside and it was a breeze thru. I can't imagine the number of families who must leave some stuff when they go thru the security check points and you have your shoes, watches, belts, electronic junk and so much more floating thru the xray machines. Scott did not catch up to us in time to jump the line but he met us at the gate 40 minutes later!

Pretty much flying until Minneapolis and then the run thru the airport to the next gate. Yep, they moved planes on us so off as fast as you can to catch the next one. While we were waiting to board our entertainment was an information lady who kept yelling, "There's a monitor behind me!!!" We don't know why this was so funny but it was and if we could only come close to her midwest accent it would have been better. Scott, Kyle and I had our line for the next few days. If anyone was looking for something we would yell "There's a monitor behind me!"

Made it to Sioux Falls and got the rental cars. My mom and dad got a minivan and we got a Nissan Armada. Checked into our hotel. The Holiday Inn Express and walked over to Tailgators to get a bite to eat for lunch. After lunch and unpacking, we checked out the waterpark/pool area and chilled out for a bit. Mom and I headed to the grocery store for water & juice and soda and a couple of snacks for the kids. Nice that we had a good size frig and wet bar area in our room. Also a microwave for popcorn!




After our relaxing time we headed back to Aunt Alice's to catch up some more and have dinner. Nancy and Rich had been in town a little while and they were so helpful in making sure we knew what events were planned for the week. We were watching the hot air balloons in the distance and hoped they might fly over but sad to report they stayed closer to town.



Savannah and Great-Grandma were playing some games and checking out the South Dakota tourist guide. We were off on our across state visit to catch up with Michael and his family in Rapid City.

Easy for us to go to sleep tonight ---the time change helped and we had all been up since 3:30 our time and we planned to be on the road by 7:30 the next morning. (5:30 CA time but who's counting!)