The Badlands Part Deux: BioMom Guest Posts!

I offer you, dear reader, the below guest post from BioMom. It marks the first real presence of her in this blog. I had originally intended her to be like Norm's wife in Cheers--there, but not really there--but I thought it'd be fun for you all to hear her perspective on our little family vacation.

Enjoy!

I guess we spoiled the kids. We didn’t really mean to. It’s just that the only vacations we have really taken as a family have been to the North Shore where we have rented beautiful homes through Cascade Vacation Rentals (check them out at cascadevacationrentals.com). You know what I mean… Open kitchens with granite countertops into great rooms with big fireplaces…Cute moose dishwear with matching knickknacks to boot. In fact, I am sitting here guest blogging on a newly constructed king suite in Custer State Park. Blogauthor and I are sitting on our king sized bed with its 400 plus threadcount sheets while the kids sleep comfortably in this air conditioned room. Each of us has a computer warming our laps with a gin and tonic (diet tonic) on our bedside table and a bag of Cheetos (baked) nestled between us…Now THIS is vacation.

So, I guess it is no surprise that our night in the Badlands was a bit of a bust. The brochure described the cabins as “quaint” which I actually really liked. I read lots of reviews from people that said it was perfectly located to view the spectacular scenery. Believe it or not, a lot of research that went into the selection of that lodging…Well our kids wouldn’t have it. Both of them complained in their own special way.

We arrived in time to attempt a nap with Big. Blogauthor was kind enough to take Eight to go climbing some Badlands hikes while I looked forward to a quiet afternoon of reading People and catching up on some email. Big would have nothing of it…He cried and screamed from the minute I put him in his pack-n-play. I tried more milk, more books, more snuggles…Nothing worked. Until, after a half-hour struggle, he hoisted himself out of the portable crib and walked into my room stating “I got me out”. The next three hours of waiting for the girls to return consisted of me chasing Big around the small cabin circle on his Skuut and climbing all over the housekeeping golf cart pretending he was a police officer saving me or taking me to jail. It was actually very fun but interminable.



When Blogauthor and Eight finally returned from their escapade, we ate dinner and then moved onto bedtime. Our rigidity around bedtime ended up backfiring as the kids were not very comfortable in our “rustic” cabin (which still had the last tenants coffee in the coffee pot and dirty cups on the window ledge when we arrived).We decided Eight should sleep in a separate room because she wakes up so incredibly early. Needless to say, she wasn’t having it… She was allegedly terrified of the rattlesnakes and sobbed for hours while we became more and more frustrated, neither of us having had a break from childcare for the past 24 hours. As you can imagine, being at work most of the time, I am simply not used to this 24/7 parenting…Man, is it exhausting. Anyway, we all finally collapsed into sleep by midnight and slept a good 8 hours.

We woke up, packed our stuff and got the H. E. Double-toothpicks out of the Badlands, and I had never left our quaint little accommodations

The entire time we were there, Eight kept asking why it was called the Badlands. I kept my reasoning to myself.