June 18,2012: last night we made some headway and drove for a few hours after dinner. The kids watched a movie then went to sleep. We got to Halsey, NE around 10:30pm and set up camp at the Nebraska State Forest. We moved the kids into bed and it was easy. The big freight trains went by all night and blew their whistle a lot. The kids slept fine. I was hot, it was probably in the 80's all night. We were up at 6, packed up and underway around 7:30. We drove thru the beautiful sand hills region of Nebraska north up into South Dakota. Great little old western type towns, lots of prairies and cattle. We arrived at Badlands National Park and set off on a hike. We chose one of the more difficult ones but the kids were champs and had no trouble. It is really a unique and beautiful landscape. Such a change from the prairies coming up. The hike had us walking thru a canyon, then up a log ladder and along a rim trail which was great. It ended at an open area where you can see out over the valley. We had a picnic lunch and started to head back. We paused for a moment before beginning the walk back and while standing still Julia fell down and whacked her head on the ground. It was bleeding a lot. Some other hikers gave us band aids and we hoofed it out of there at high speed. We drove to Rapid City to the hospital. James took Casey and Molly to play at a water park and I am here with Julia waiting for her to get stitched up.
Part 2: Julia got 3 stitches to close up the divot in her head. She was so brave, the worst was when they put the numbing medicine right into her cut. Afterwards we were starving and celebrated her bravery with some sonic. We then headed down and checked out Mt Rushmore. We felt a little like Clark Griswold when he looks at the grand canyon. To get to the mountain you have to pass thru a hideously touristy town that reminded us of Hampton beach. After checking it out for awhile we drove north to a state campground. The place was very empty and we had a nice quiet sleep. It rained a little and there was some thunder and it was cold at night, probably in the 40's. We were all exhausted and slept well.
