Last year, we headed up to the Never Summer Forest in Colorado. This year, we headed up to Mount Rushmore for the 4th of July. Before the start of each summer, the neighbors convene to discuss which weekends would work best for two or three weekends of camping. This meeting typically takes several hours as there are beer-ritas and other libations involved.
In June, they got together for a Saturday or horseback riding. We didn't think that would be good as Jack was still in diapers and just thought less of it. The long weekend of the 4th was it...South Dakota!
The boys were stoked and helped to prep and pack. Jack even had his tourist goggles on - - who knows what he was trying to convey.
Off we went (with a doggie sitter at the house with the furballs) and on the way, I swear we went through a tornado in the middle of Wyoming. You could see the swirling gray clouds in the distance as they neared the highway. I took picture after picture to document the storm as it was so crazy. Eban and Jack were soundly sleeping in the back when we entered the storm wall/tornado (seriously, can you see the tornado in the below picture?). Literally, things were hitting us at a horizontal force that was impressive. Eban started crying/wailing while Jack laughed and said it was SO cool. I couldn't believe their reactions.
Of course the crazy weather stopped and out came the sun and the gorgeous vistas. 
We plowed through and found the KOA campground after 5 and a half hours of driving and passing Crazy Horse (the monument) for the first time. Talk about packed...um...this may be my first and last KOA experience due to the huge volume of masses. Each campground is 2 feet apart from the next and they informed us we were on a creekbed thus had no one behind us. Sure, there was a small creek behind us (2 feet in width) but backing up to that were these large RVs and their tail pipes. Nice. We couldn't change our site. We sucked it up and chalked it up to a learning experience and did have a good time. More adventures in camping to come...
