It’s so hard to chose one vacation as the best. Every vacation has a high point, a sight or event that makes it special. Some have several but as I sit back and review the places I’ve been so far I keep going back to one particular vacation. It may come as a surprise to you when I tell you that my #1, absolute favorite vacation so far was our trip to South Dakota.

Maybe it was because I had no expectations for it so it couldn’t fail to live up to anything.

 As Sandy and I prepared for the trip my friends all asked me, What’s in South Dakota? What could I say at that point? Mount Rushmore? I really had no idea.

 We stayed in Rapid City. I remember that even though we were tired from the time zone changes and plane travel, I insisted we start exploring right away. We were burning daylight and thus started a jaw dropping adventure where each day was better than the one before.

 Our first view of the Badlands was as an afternoon sun was dropping toward the horizon. The lower angle brought out the colors and made the whole scene surreal. Throw in some animals, deer, rabbits, pronghorns and it was magical.

Wait, was that a Unicorn?

The vacation continued like that.

Buffalo herds in Custer State Park along with some silly wild “beggin'” burros.

More pronghorns, prairie dogs, wild horses, big horn sheep even dinosaurs.

We laughed ourselves silly on what we named “the longest dirt road in the world” when we got lost on the reservation looking for a Pow Wow.

We passed through beautiful land and saw more animals and very few people.

We road an 1880’s steam train and went deep underground in Wind Cave National Park.

And oh yes, we did see Mount Rushmore. That was pretty awesome too but not the main event by any means.

So you see, I get excited just reliving that vacation. Even though I love Hawaii and Florida and so many other places I’ve been,  this one is still the #1 Vacation.