Day 13

We departed the campsite in the Black Hills somewhat early. A new family had moved into the next site and they were some friendly folks from Wisconsin so we burned a bit of time chatting with them. We decided to take it easy on the drive today and head into Custer for breakfast at a restaurant that had rave reviews on tripadvisor. It did not disappoint. I had a breakfast burrito and it was phenomenal. The kids wanted pancakes and each order was 2 pancakes. We had them split an order hoping it was enough food. Well it was. Not only was my burrito industrial sized, the kid’s pancakes were the size of hubcaps. It reminded me of a trip to Yellowstone in my childhood where I made a big fuss about only getting 1 order of pancakes. The waitress served us pancakes that were tire sized and I could not finish one and had to eat some crow that day. We packed back into the car with some pastries to go and headed out. There is always a sinking feeling when the beautiful hills give way to the barren prairie and the temperature begins to rise. It is a feeling of finality, that it is time to get back to life. The thunderstorm that we watched form and then engulf us out of the prairie seemed somewhat fitting. We drove through Denver and made it to the campsite in Colorado Springs we stayed at on the way up. We were all tired, but Amy and I stayed up to enjoy coffee and a delicious cinnamon roll from the morning’s restaurant.