A train ride from history

 

A train ride from history

By Allan Olson

Well my vacation has been over for nearly a month already and after four weeks and my third column I will share my final few days of our six day family vacation to South Dakota.

It was Friday morning our last day in South Dakota before we started making our way north again and on the agenda was Custer State Park and the 1880 Train. In truth while we talked about Custer State Park it was a little bit of a last minute plan. We decided that since we didn’t have to be at the train station until 1:15 p.m. we should take a drive through Custer on the way to the Hill City to catch the train.

We got to the park, asked where we would see some critters and were directed to a road with the majority of bison on it. As we were driving we started to see a few bison and then a large herd of them. We were driving through the park taking pictures of the some of the bison and pulling off on some of the scenic overlooks for some photos of the landscape. We toured a small visitor center and then headed on the road again – our time was ticking fast and we still had a drive to get to the train ride. If we weren’t in line to claim our pre-paid tickets by 1:15 p.m. we had the chance we could lose our seats. There was one more scenic overlook that my brother decided to pull into and we followed but only briefly. My wife and I decided that there was very little margin of error left for reaching our destination and decided to head out ahead to claim our tickets. There were several other roads we could’ve traveled in the park one of which was supposed to have some wild horses and a chance to see some other wildlife but it wasn’t in the cards. We arrived at the train depot at 1 p.m only 15 minutes to spare before boarding. The rest of the passengers in our party arrived about five minutes later and we were all set to go on the ride in an 1880 Train from Hill City to Keystone and back. The ride was truly an experience sitting in the car and hearing the chug of the engine and feeling the lug of the train as it pulled us up the first hill and many more after that. Despite the noise of the engine and the thrill of a train ride, my youngest three children all fell asleep on the first leg of the trip and missed the first half of the ride. In truth, I think I could’ve fell asleep if I would’ve let myself. On the way back they all stayed awake and enjoyed the experience and we moved one more car closer to the engine and got a face full of smoke (we were warned) and a better look at the large iron machine chugging its way down the track.

After the train we looked around town, did a little shopping had lunch/supper and then parted company. My brother and his family went to do the zip line at the Rushmore Caves and we headed to Wyoming  - for some geocaching. We were only 45 minutes from the border town of NewCastle, Wy and it was too good an opportunity to pass up. So we headed out and about an hour later attempted our first geocache – I couldn’t find it and then the kids informed me that we needed to find a place to stop with a bathroom – so we gave up our first attempt at a geocache in Wyoming. After our break we resumed our geocaching adventure and quickly found our first one. At our next stop I walked right by the cache and Abigail located the treasure, I guess I should’ve paid a little more attention. In the end we found a total of five caches including the first one we stopped at and couldn’t find which then ended up being our last one. We headed back to our campsite about an hour away and then started packing in the dark as we were leaving early in the morning and needed to be ready for the road.

Saturday evening we had arrived at Theodore Roosevelt National Park and were touring one of the roads when the realization was made to us that our next stop at Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park was in the central time zone, it was also two hours away and we needed to be checked in by 10 p.m. Since the time was about 6 p.m. Mountain Time it was time to get moving. So we left the park cutting our tour way shorter than we intended and headed towards Mandan, ND. We arrived at the park about 9 p.m. Central Time and then checked out our lodging for the evening. The kids picked out which cabin they wanted to stay in and we unloaded a few items from the van for the evenings stay. One of the first thing’s we noticed was something that was missing from the first five days of vacation – the smell of the pine trees, at our new cabin the air smelled and felt like camping – it was glorious.

The rest of the party arrived shortly after 9:30 p.m. and by 11 p.m. we were all in bed and working on sleeping. Saturday morning was the first I felt like I really slept well in the last six days and for the first time I wasn’t the first one out of bed. After touring the park we finally left for home about noon, we made a few stops along the way home but no more tourist visits but a lunch and gas stop and a couple of geocaching stops. We parted ways in Bemidji for the last time during the vacation – they headed north and we headed home arriving about 10 p.m. We were welcomed home by our two-year old nephew wearing one of the girls tutus – it was very cute also waiting for us were our two nieces who house sat for us a couple of days, our youngest niece, another nephew and a sister-in-law it, oh and of course Bob was happy we made it home. My brother and his family had nobody to welcome them home but some friends made sure they were well greeted. They left a sign on their garage door, “welcome home you’ve been forked.” Their yard had plastic forks in it as well as some pink flamingos – it was funny to hear about it.

It was great to be home but it was nice to be on vacation.

Thanks for reading, and remember to be safe on the lakes while enjoying what’s left of the summer. Be sure to spend some time with kids! Thanks for reading, and have a great and safe weekend. For more of my columns visit: http://allan-crazykids.blogspot.com.