Shenanigans are back!

Badlands. South Dakota

What. A. Day. I don’t even know where to start with all the crazy that unfolded today, but it’s best to keep it in chronological order and pick up where we left off.

I am sitting here trying to remember where we even stayed that night at the Badlands and I literally cannot picture the campground. That is when you know you have just been traveling too much! I am sure it was fine and obviously didn’t keep my attention so not much to report. But in the morning, I do remember that we got up and after letting the kids run outside for a bit, we hopped back in the RV and headed out to see the Badlands. We had found a scenic drive that was somewhat on our way back east and would apparently give us a good view of what the Badlands were made of…it did not disappoint. I think we keep saying this as we go, but this might have been one of the most spectacular sights to date! Basically the Badlands are this group of mountain like terrain that literally look like massive sand castles right there on the sides of the road, and on the other side could be these massive prairie fields with prairie dogs running everywhere! There are multiple places in which you can get out and walk around and climb the mountains, so we popped into one of those and got out. One of our friends had described the badlands like walking on the moon. That’s a perfect description. The mounds are an ash like rock that falls away from your feet as you climb in many places, which is apparently why the area changes so much year after year with the various weather patterns. I am so glad we took the time to see them because they really were amazing.

We had a long day in the RV that day. I think about 7 hours in total and we finally pulled in to somewhere in South Dakota, right near the Minnesota border. South Dakota was a massive state to drive across! We got settled into our campground, cooked up some tacos (again) and with the time zone change, got everyone to bed around 10pm. Looooong day.

The next morning we hit the road around 11am and had another 6 hours to go to get to Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. We had reservations at a resort that had great looking water park (apparently this is what the Dells are known for) and were planning to stay there for two nights because shawn had to dial in to the snagajob board meeting for a good chunk of Wednesday am. So we had another long day in the RV. The fun part about the drives are how much we get to talk to the kids and hear what’s on their mind. I got to tell a little about Lukey and how random and silly his remarks are. Today will be macy. This girl loves love. Always has. Not in a way that she is boy crazy, but just in a way that her heart is genuinely full of love for the relationships in her life. And she LOVES babies. She would do anything to have one more baby in our family. A girl one specifically. So for about two hours we heard about babies and she had some great questions. “Mom, how will I know when I get a baby in my tummy?” Me: “The doctor will tell you.” Macy, “Well, how will I know WHEN to go to the doctor so they can tell me?” Oy. She’s a smart one. Macy, “Mom, I am going to ask God for only 2 babies.” Me: “Really? Why is that?” Macy: “Because there are only two parents and well, that is just easier.” Amen sister. Shawn, “Well Macy, what if Mommy and Daddy only had two babies and then we didn’t have our fun loving, sweet, silly Jude?” Macy, “Okay, I will have 3. But I only want one of them to be a boy. They are too fussy.” (This coming from the child that was basically born as a 60 year old lady so ANY child would seem fussy to her.)

So now we are up to last night, Tuesday night. We got to the RV park in Wisconsin after driving through Minnesota all day (shout out to my boy Tommy!) and quickly realized that this was a tight resort (small roads, loads of trees). We got to our spot and it wasn’t long before we knew this wasn’t likely going to work for us. We actually had to get maintenance to cut down a limb for us, and the kids were STARVING so I started cooking immediately as Shawn was hooking up. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that water was leaking from the cabinet under the sink and running forward down the RV. I say it was running forward because the spot we were in was not level. We have automatic leveling jacks and have never had a problem before, but we were on such a slope that our front tires were not even touching the ground. I told Macy to quickly alert Shawn to the water issue, to which he came running in and we saw that the pipe was completely disconnected in the middle. Shawn fixed it and I called for backup just in case we needed it. (see previous entry about shawn’s fixing skills) Turns out he did it perfectly and it was all fixed. However, we felt dizzy standing inside the RV with how bad it was slanted so we decided to reverse and back in to the spot behind us. Also slanted. Also a tire off the ground. Also feeling dizzy. We all went to bed and decided to deal with it in the morning.

So this morning, Wednesday morning, Shawn had his 4+ hour phone call starting at 8. The kids didn’t even wake up until I got them up at 9:30 because Shawn’s phone was going to die and he needed to be able to come inside after sitting in the Tahoe for 90 minutes. I got everyone ready for the pool/water slides and off we went. I am not gonna lie. Going to a pool with 3 small children, ALONE, is not easy or enjoyable. Luke was a brave boy and went down a huge water slide, but he wanted me to wait in the water for him to come out of the slide. Jude, however, was not fond of that idea and screamed his special blood curdling scream at me from the side of the pool for 3+ minutes while I waited for Luke. I just had to ignore him. We made it through the next few hours and finally at almost 1pm, Shawn arrived, with wallet in hand (left mine in the RV and wasn’t about to try to drag all 3 from the pool to go get it) so we could order lunch. We were starving. Here is where the crazy of the crazy day starts.

The five of us are sitting there eating. Cheese pizzas for the kids and chicken sandwiches for Shawn and I. A sweet, quiet, 3 year old little girl starts inching closer and closer to us as we are eating. Just watching us. We talked to her and asked her some questions but she never answered. Luke declared that her voice must be broken. But I knew something more was going on. I asked her if she was hungry and she nodded quickly that she was. I asked her if she wanted some pizza and she nodded again. I looked around for any sign of parents, asked her where they were, to which she just didn’t respond, so eventually I just fed her. The poor thing was famished. It about broke my heart when she finished the pizza we had for her and she reached for my kids left over crust and ate that too. At this point almost 30 minutes had passed and still not one sign of a parent to this 3 year old girl, who has no sort of swimmy/life jacket on. We kept asking questions to which she really wouldn’t answer, other than that she was 3. She couldn’t point to anyone that was there with her. Naturally at this point I was incredibly disturbed and Macy was just beside herself that she was parentless. I told Shawn to take them back to the slides and let me figure this out. About then a little boy walked by and she started following him over to the other pool across the parking lot. Of course I followed. There were also no parents to be seen at that pool but she did appear to be “with” or at least know this boy, who appeared to know an older boy, about 20 years old or so. So I approached him and asked if she was with them. I won’t go into a ton of detail b/c this entry would be 90 pages long as there were many twists to this, but suffice it to say it was a super odd encounter and when I asked where her mother was and he muttered something about her being back at the campground, I knew something was amiss. Especially after he immediately left and found another guy, about 25 years old in the OTHER pool, whispered something to him, and the guy immediately turned to look at me. If you haven’t figured it out by now, he left the little 3 year old girl back in the other pool area. Alone. At this point I was highly disturbed and it became my mission to do SOMETHING. More odd things and encounters followed so I called the local police. They came out and actually went and talked with the “family.” This family consisted of 4 older Hispanic males, 1 African American girl about 16 years old, and the 3 year old Caucasian girl and 1 year old Caucasian girl. Shawn had wondered if the 3 year old was with the 16 year old b/c she was looking at us so odd when we were feeding the 3 year old, but she left the pool all together so we assumed no. Well, I saw them all together at their campsite later. I bring up the races b/c after the cop talked to them, he came and spoke to me and his first question was “Why did you think she was in danger?” I gave the entire explanation and his next one was “I just want to make sure you aren’t calling because you see a Caucasian girl with an ethnically diverse family.” I was really mortified and upset and frankly shocked that that was his question. I know that I know NOTHING about the law enforcement world or line of work, but it wouldn’t have mattered what color or race these people were. I have a bi-racial family. I have 3 children between 2 and 6. I know a scared, starved, not right child when I see one. They told the cop she was a friend of the family and he basically went on his way. Maybe I am a freak. Maybe I blew the whole thing out of proportion. Maybe everything was fine, but it certaintly didn't feel that way. Something was not right. I have never in my life done something like this before. And my completely opposite from an alarmist husband totally agreed. So even though we had paid to stay another night, we packed up and left. I was so upset by the whole situation and at this point, this family would know I called the cops on them, so we were outta there. We drove about an hour to Madison and we are SO HAPPY we did. The campground has wide lots, a great playground right outside our RV and best of all, we aren’t slanted!

I can’t get that little girl out of my head though. I don’t know what else I could have done but I pray that that whole situation isn’t what I think it is.

Madison is supposed to be a pretty cool city though so I think we will venture in for breakfast tomorrow and check it out.

Please pray for that little girl and that she is in a good situation. Macy almost got that sister she’s always wanted because I was about ready to steal her myself.

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