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Almost Home Adventures, Yamacraw Hill Road, Nassau (2026)

30/09/2026

🏁💙 ALMOST HOME ADVENTURES
Episode 56:
Back to Real Life… and Back to Racing 💙🏁

Wellllll… it’s been a minute. 😂

We’ve been home from our big Western adventure for a few weeks now, and I think we’re finally getting adjusted to normal, everyday life again.

But we’re home, we’re getting settled back in, and around here that means one thing…

WE’RE BACK TO RACING. 🏁

Last weekend we headed back to one of our favorite tracks, 67 Speedway in Texarkana, with Travis in the and Dakota in the #40.

And apparently Trav just needed a month long vacation from racing because when that green flag dropped in his heat race…

HE WAS GONE. 😂🔥

Travis started on the outside of the front row and took off. He led the entire race and at one point had almost a full straightaway on the rest of the field.

I don’t know if touring half the western United States reset him, if he just needed a break, or if the woke up that morning and chose violence…but he were FAST. 😂

Then came the last lap.

Because this is racing, and apparently we aren’t allowed to have nice things…

The rear end broke.

On. The. Last. Lap. 🤦🏼‍♀️

And somehow…HE STILL WON THE HEAT RACE. 🏁🏆 Unfortunately, that was the end of his night.

Travis was supposed to start the feature outside the front row beside Justin Whitehead in the 36J, and after watching what that car had just done in the heat, we REALLY wanted to see what he could do in the feature.

But the couldn’t make the call. And y’all…That one got me.

I’ve always supported Travis and Dakota racing because they love it, but I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t always been 100% sure the whole racing thing was my thing. 😂

But the more tracks we go to, the more people we meet, the more I learn about the cars and the more I actually understand what the heck is happening out there…

Apparently something has happened to me. Because when Travis couldn’t make that feature, my heart genuinely hurt for him. I wanted to see him race that car SO badly.

And somewhere in that moment I realized…Well, crap. I think I’m officially invested in this racing thing. 😂🏁❤️

Meanwhile, Dakota had himself a GOOD night in the #40!

He started his heat race third row inside, drove his way forward three spots and finished SECOND! 👏🏼🔥 Then he started the feature second row inside and brought it home 7th.

We were so proud of him. Every time he gets behind the wheel, he’s learning, getting more comfortable and getting better.

So even though the night ended way earlier than we wanted it to for the , it was still a pretty dang good night for the Broach boys. 🩵🩷🏁

And I was already ready to do it all again this weekend… Except Mother Nature apparently said, “Absolutely not.” 🙄🌧️😂

With rain in the forecast and races getting canceled, we’re getting an unexpected weekend off from the dirt track. Soooooo…

Almost Home is actually headed back to ALMOST HOME. 💙😂

Travis and I are headed to Lake Ouachita this weekend to spend a few days on the houseboat at one of our favorite places in the world.

Maybe the rain will hold off and we’ll get a boat ride in.
Maybe we’ll go fishing.
Maybe we’ll sit on the houseboat, listen to the rain and do absolutely NOTHING.

And honestly?
That sounds pretty dang good, too. 💙

BUT THENNNNNNN…

🏁🔥🏁🔥 THREE WEEKS, Y’ALL. 🔥🏁🔥🏁

If you don’t have plans for October 23 & 24, I’m about to give you some.

Because 67 SPEEDWAY IN TEXARKANA IS THE PLACE TO BE.

And this isn’t just another weekend at the dirt track.

🏁 Friday, October 23: The Jason Johnson Classic

🔥 Saturday, October 24: THE 39TH ANNUAL SHORT TRACK NATIONALS, featuring the WORLD OF OUTLAWS SPRINT CAR SERIES!

THIRTY-NINE YEARS OF SHORT TRACK NATIONALS.

And this year, some of the best Sprint Car drivers in the country are coming to Texarkana with the World of Outlaws.

Y’ALL. THIS IS GOING TO BE A SHOW. 😳🔥🏁

If you’ve never seen Sprint Cars in person, THIS is your chance.

If you’ve never spent a big race weekend at a local dirt track, THIS is your chance.

Bring the kids. Bring your friends. Bring the family. Grab your tickets, get a camping spot, bring your camper… or rent one… and make an entire weekend out of it.

And here’s the part I really want to say…

❤️🏁 SHOW UP FOR YOUR LOCAL TRACK. 🏁❤️

Local dirt tracks don’t survive because everybody says, “We really need to go out there sometime.”

They survive because people SHOW UP.

They’re where local racers get their start.

They’re where kids fall in love with racing.

They’re where friendships are made, families spend their weekends and memories are made year after year.

67 Speedway is one of those places for our family, and we want to see that place PACKED.

Not kinda busy. Not a decent crowd.
PACKED. THE. STANDS. 🙌🏼🔥

So Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and wherever else you’re coming from… COME TO TEXARKANA OCTOBER 23 & 24!

Come watch some incredible racing.
Come see the World of Outlaws.
Come support the local drivers.
Come support 67 Speedway.
Come be part of the 39th Annual Short Track Nationals.

Grab a camping spot and make a weekend out of it.

And come find the Broach crew because you already know we’ll be there somewhere covered in dirt, yelling at race cars and having entirely too much fun. 😂🏁🔥

Let’s PACK 67 Speedway.

See y’all at the track! 🏁❤️

20/09/2026

🏁 IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN… LET’S GO RACING!! 🏁

We’re at Tri-State Speedway tonight and the boys are BACK AT IT … ready to sling some dirt! 🤘🏼🔥

🏎️ Dakota Broach #40
🏎️ Travis Broach
🏎️ Jeremy #19

Three cars. A whole lotta horsepower. And probably enough dirt to make me question why I ever bother washing anything. 😂🤦🏼‍♀️

🙏🏼 Praying for FAST cars, safe drivers, safe track personnel, and most importantly… that all THREE of those race cars drive back onto the trailers in ONE PIECE tonight! 🙌🏼🏁

Let’s get after it, boys!!
SLING SOME DIRT & BRING IT HOME! 🏁🔥💨

🏁

16/09/2026

🚐❤️ ALMOST HOME ADVENTURES
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10:
IT’S TIME TO GO HOME. 🏡✈️

Well… this is it. 🥹

I’m a few days late getting our final adventure posted, but maybe I just wasn’t quite ready to officially close this chapter yet. ❤️

After three weeks on the road, Thursday morning we woke up for the first time knowing there wasn’t another national park, mountain, trail, tiny town or crazy adventure waiting for us.

That day… we were going home. ❤️

And because apparently we couldn’t even sleep late on our LAST morning 😂, we were up bright and early getting Big Bertha ready for her new residents.

We stripped the bed, washed and dried the sheets, cleaned everything up, emptied out our stuff and tried to leave her looking somewhat respectable after she had been our HOME for the last three weeks.

Because while Travis and I were flying OUT of Rapid City… reinforcements were flying IN. 😂✈️

Travis’s mom and dad, Mary and Joe, along with his aunt and uncle, Sherry and Dwayne, flew into Rapid City to take over Big Bertha and the Jeep and bring them the rest of the way home.

Basically…we abandoned ship and called in another crew. 🤣🚐

And there was a VERY good reason we needed to get ourselves home.

The next day, someone we have watched grow up and love like one of our own…Dakota’s best friend, Pierce, was getting married. ❤️

And there was absolutely NO WAY we were going to miss that.

So once Big Bertha was clean and ready for her new residents, Travis and I loaded ourselves into the Jeep one last time and headed toward the Rapid City airport.

And thus began the least exciting portion of our entire three week adventure…

AIRPORTS. 😂

No bears.
No bison.
No mountains.
No waterfalls.
No geysers.

Just security lines, boarding groups and tiny airplane seats. RUDE. 🤣

We flew into Dallas, found ourselves some barbecue…because obviously 😂…then hopped on one more plane and headed toward…

❤️ LITTLE ROCK. HOME.

And after three weeks of sleeping in Big Bertha in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and South Dakota… we were finally back in our own house.

WITH AIR CONDITIONING. 🙌🏼😂

Because after waking up to temperatures in the 20s and 30s out West, Arkansas apparently decided to welcome us home with temperatures pushing 100 degrees.

Thank you, Arkansas. We missed you too. 🤣🔥

But what we had REALLY missed was waiting for us at home.

Zac and Dakota. ❤️

Three weeks is a LONG time to go without seeing your boys, even when they’re grown and perfectly capable of surviving without you. 😂 We missed them like crazy…and I think maybe, just MAYBE, they missed us a little more than they were willing to admit. ❤️

And of course there were Felix and Patron, our two ginormous Maine C**n house lions, who I’m quite certain wanted an immediate explanation as to where their staff had been for three weeks. 😂🐈🐈‍⬛

But there wasn’t much time for a quiet homecoming.

Because almost immediately, our house filled up with something else we love…

OUR BOYS’ PEOPLE. ❤️

The wedding party…the bride, groom, bridesmaids, groomsmen and all the excitement that comes with the night before a wedding…gathered at our house Thursday evening.

And later that night, the groom and groomsmen stayed with us before the big day.

And I absolutely LOVED it.

One of the greatest gifts that has come with raising Zac and Dakota has been getting to know and love the people they’ve chosen to surround themselves with.

Their friends have spent years coming through our doors, sitting around our kitchen, eating our food 😂, hanging out, laughing, making memories and becoming part of our lives.

Somewhere along the way, some of those kids stopped feeling like just our boys’ friends and started feeling a whole lot like our own. ❤️

Pierce is one of those.

So after three weeks of incredible places and once in a lifetime experiences, we came home just in time to have a house FULL of people we love and to be a small part of such an important moment in Pierce and his beautiful bride’s lives. Reagan has fit seamlessly into our hearts! (Pssst, Gueax Tigers!!!!) 🐯💜💛 😂

And now that the wedding has come and gone, I can say… I wouldn’t have wanted our trip to end any other way. ❤️

We were so honored to be included in their special day, even in the smallest way, and watching someone we love like a son stand beside the love of his life and begin an entirely new adventure of his own was pretty darn special. 🥹❤️

So yes…HOME felt really, really good.
But I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a little piece of me that’s still sad.

Because now we don’t wake up freezing in another state wondering what we’re going to discover that day.

We don’t throw on layers, grab the camera and binoculars, jump in the Jeep and go looking for wildlife.

We aren’t standing somewhere we’ve never stood before.

We aren’t learning another piece of our country’s history.

We aren’t looking at another mountain, waterfall, canyon, geyser, cave or endless stretch of road and saying…

“OH MY GOSH… LOOK AT THAT.” 🥹❤️

For three weeks, we got to explore this incredible country together.

We saw places we’d only ever seen in pictures.
We stood beneath mountains.
We watched the sun rise over the Tetons.
We watched geysers erupt.
We drove through herds of bison.
We saw bears, moose, elk, wild horses, bighorn sheep and approximately 1,037,852 prairie dogs. 😂
We hiked.
We climbed.
We got lost.
We took wrong turns.
We drove roads we probably had absolutely no business driving. 🤣
We laughed.
We froze.
We ate REALLY good food.
We saw history.
We made memories.

And we did it together. ❤️

There is something pretty special about spending three weeks with your best friend, waking up every morning with absolutely no idea what moment from that day is going to become one of the stories you tell for the rest of your life.

And now…those three weeks that we planned, researched, dreamed about and talked about for so long are suddenly memories.

That’s the bittersweet part. 🥹

But maybe that’s also the whole point.

We came home from one adventure just in time to watch someone we love begin one of the greatest adventures of his life. ❤️

And I honestly can’t think of a better ending.
So this may be the end of this particular road trip…but anybody who knows Travis and me knows one thing for certain:

THIS IS NOT THE END OF THE ADVENTURES.

Not even close. 😉

There will always be another road.
Another place we’ve never seen.
Another sunrise worth waking up ridiculously early for.
Another trail.
Another story.
Another memory waiting somewhere we haven’t been yet.

Because this was never really about checking places off a list.
It’s about living while we can.
Seeing what we can.
Doing what we can.
Loving our people.
And making one hell of a life together while we’re here. ❤️

So, one week later, I suppose it’s finally time to say it…
Almost Home Adventures is officially HOME. 🏡❤️

Three weeks.
Thousands of miles.
Countless memories.
And absolutely ZERO regrets.

Until next time…

🚐🏔️🌎 ADVENTURE AWAITS. ❤️

15/09/2026

🤠🏍️ ALMOST HOME ADVENTURES
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9: PART TWO:
WALL DRUG, STURGIS & DEADWOOD! ❤️

After spending the morning exploring the Badlands and learning all about the Cold War at Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, we still had PLENTY left on the list.

And our next stop was one we had been reminded about approximately… 4,782 TIMES. 😂😂
If you’ve ever driven anywhere near South Dakota, you already know exactly what I’m talking about.

WALL DRUG. Signs. Signs. More signs.

FREE ICE WATER!
5¢ COFFEE!
WALL DRUG…ONLY 347 MILES! 🤣

Fun fact: Wall Drug really DID build its reputation on free ice water.

Back in 1931, Ted and Dorothy Hustead bought a tiny drugstore in Wall. Business wasn’t exactly booming until Dorothy came up with the idea of putting signs along the highway offering thirsty travelers FREE ICE WATER.

It worked. Boy, did it work. 😂

Today, Wall Drug says more than 2 MILLION PEOPLE a year stop there. And apparently… ALL TWO MILLION WERE THERE THE SAME DAY WE WERE.

Y’ALL. It was ELBOW TO ELBOW. Shoulder to shoulder. People EVERYWHERE. We had planned on eating lunch there. HAHAHAHAHA. NO.

The wait was somewhere around TWO HOURS, and after about five or ten minutes of walking around, Travis and I looked at each other and basically came to the same conclusion. WE’RE GOOD.

I’m sure Wall Drug was incredibly cool back in the day, and the history behind how this little drugstore in the middle of nowhere became world-famous really IS pretty fascinating.

But for us? It felt like a giant tourist trap.
A LOT of souvenir stuff, a LOT of people, and plenty of things that looked exactly like the same mass produced stuff you can buy at tourist destinations all over the country.

So I’m just going to say it…
Wall Drug was not our thing. 😂

We gave it our five to ten minute college try, turned around, hopped back into the Jeep and headed toward our next stop.

🏍️ STURGIS, SOUTH DAKOTA!
Now THIS was something I wanted to see just because I’ve heard about Sturgis my entire life.
And here’s what absolutely blows my mind.

Sturgis itself has a population of only around 7,000 people. But during the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, hundreds of thousands of people descend on this little town. This year alone, the 2026 Rally traffic count was approximately… 448,166. 😳 (Yep, I googled that mess)

FOUR HUNDRED FORTY-EIGHT THOUSAND.
In a town of around SEVEN THOUSAND.
HOW?!

Driving through it when the Rally WASN’T happening almost made it harder to comprehend.
We drove down Main Street, looked around and tried to imagine what those same streets must look and sound like when they’re absolutely PACKED with motorcycles.

I’m glad we saw it. Would I like to come back during the actual Rally just once to witness the insanity?

Maybe. Probably not.
But then we headed toward our final real destination of the day…

🤠 DEADWOOD.

And I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. But y’all…

WE LOVED DEADWOOD. ❤️

The minute we got there, it just had a completely different feel. Historic buildings. Old saloons. Brick storefronts. Casinos tucked into buildings that look like they belong in another century.
And SO MUCH Wild West history.

Deadwood was born during the Black Hills Gold Rush in 1876, when miners flooded into the area after gold was discovered. And the place got WILD pretty darn quickly. 😂

Gamblers. Gunslingers. Outlaws. Saloons. Brothels. Gold seekers.

And some of the biggest names of the Old West eventually became part of Deadwood’s story.
Including… Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane.

Wild Bill arrived in Deadwood in the summer of 1876.
And amazingly, he was only there for a FEW WEEKS before becoming permanently tied to the town’s history.

On August 2, 1876, Wild Bill was playing poker when Jack McCall shot him from behind.

The cards Wild Bill was reportedly holding?
Aces and eights. ♠️♣️
A hand that became known forever afterward as… THE DEAD MAN’S HAND. 😳

And then there’s Calamity Jane, another one of the most famous characters of the American West.

She came to Deadwood in 1876 as well and became a legend in her own right. And here’s one little piece of Wild West myth busting I learned:

Despite all the romantic stories about Wild Bill and Calamity Jane… there isn’t good historical evidence that they were actually lovers. SORRY, HOLLYWOOD. 😂

Calamity Jane died in 1903 and was buried beside Wild Bill at Mount Moriah Cemetery, where they remain today.

We walked Main Street, took in the old buildings and history, poked around the shops and just enjoyed being there.

And then…well… When in Deadwood. 😏🎰😂

We may or may not have wandered into a casino.
And we may or may not have played for a little while.
And we may or may not have eventually walked back OUT of that casino with approximately… $600 IN OUR POCKET. 💰

NOW THAT is what I call an educational historical experience. 😂

Apparently Deadwood wanted to send the Broaches back to Arkansas with a parting gift. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. 🤣

But honestly, by that point in the afternoon, Travis and I were doing something we had done throughout this entire trip…trying to stretch the day out just a little bit longer. One more building. One more block. One more look around. One more stop. Because we both knew what came next. 🥹

Eventually, there wasn’t anything left to do except get back in the Jeep. We had about an hour long drive back to Big Bertha, and this drive felt a little different than all the others.

Because this time… we weren’t driving toward the next adventure. We were driving back to pack. 😭❤️

After three weeks of waking up and asking, “What are we seeing TODAY?!” there wasn’t another national park waiting the next morning. No sunrise alarm. No wildlife loop. No mountain town. No hike. No waterfall. No geyser. No crazy Jeep trail. No passport stamp to chase down. It was time to pack up.

We made it back to Big Bertha, started getting everything together and called it a night. And just like that… our last full adventure day was over.🥹❤️

From the Badlands…
to an underground nuclear missile…
to Wall Drug…
to Sturgis…
to the Wild West streets of Deadwood…
and somehow leaving South Dakota $600 richer. 💰

What a way to end it.

The next morning, we would get up, finish packing, meet our parents and hand over Big Bertha and the Jeep… and then Travis and I would head to the airport.

Home.

But I think this trip deserves one final post.
Not about where we went.
Not about what we saw.
But about what three weeks on the road together meant to us.

Because this adventure?

❤️ This one deserves a proper goodbye.

Adventure Awaits. 🚐🏔️❤️

14/09/2026

🏜️🚐 ALMOST HOME ADVENTURES
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9: PART ONE :
THE BADLANDS & A LITTLE COLD WAR HISTORY! 🚀❤️

And just like that…
OUR LAST FULL DAY OF ADVENTURE WAS HERE. 😭

After weeks of waking up early and squeezing every possible minute out of every single day, Wednesday morning rolled around and…we may or may not have hit the snooze button once. 😂

LISTEN. We had earned it. But eventually we rolled ourselves out of bed, left Big Bertha behind at the KOA and headed out for one more full day of exploring South Dakota.

First things first… BREAKFAST. 😂☕️

We found a little local place on the way and had a really good breakfast before hitting the road toward somewhere I had been wanting to see…

🏜️ BADLANDS NATIONAL PARK! And the Badlands are WEIRD. 😂 Beautiful. But WEIRD.

You can be driving through miles of normal looking South Dakota prairie and then suddenly the earth just seems to break open into these enormous jagged formations, canyons, spires and layers of color.

And the story of how they got there makes them even cooler.

The oldest rocks exposed in the Badlands began forming about 75 MILLION YEARS AGO, when this entire region was covered by a warm, shallow inland sea called the Western Interior Seaway. Yep. SOUTH DAKOTA WAS UNDERWATER. 🌊😳

That sea once stretched across a huge portion of North America from the Gulf of Mexico toward the Arctic. As millions of years passed, the sea disappeared and the environment changed again and again. Rivers, floodplains, wind and even volcanic ash deposited layer after layer of sediment.

Then, beginning roughly 500,000 years ago, water really started carving into those relatively soft layers. Rain. Snowmelt. Rivers. Wind. Freezing and thawing.
Little by little, Mother Nature carved all of it into the crazy landscape we were standing in. And she’s STILL WORKING ON IT.

The Badlands erode at roughly ONE INCH PER YEAR, which is ridiculously fast in geological terms. Scientists estimate that these formations have a lifespan of only about a million years before erosion eventually wears them away.

So basically…GET THERE SOMETIME IN THE NEXT 500,000 YEARS. 😂 You should be fine.

But one of my FAVORITE things was seeing all the different COLORS AND STRIPES running through the formations.

There are yellows, reds, pinks, purples, grays and tans layered through the rock, and those layers are basically pages in Earth’s history book. Different layers were deposited during completely different environments and time periods.

And I’m sorry… but I know EXACTLY what they reminded me of.

Does anybody remember those Smarties candy powder suckers from back in the day?! The ones that were all pastel-colored compressed candy powder?!

THAT. 🤣 That’s ALL I could see.

I’m going to put the pictures side by side because somebody PLEASE tell me I’m not crazy.

Mother Nature spent tens of millions of years creating one of America’s most fascinating geological landscapes… and Mel walked up and said, “Looks like a Smarties sucker.” 😂 Sorry, Mother Nature.

But while the rocks were incredible, y’all already know what will make me forget about pretty scenery in approximately .03 seconds… WILDLIFE. And FINALLY…

🐏 BIGHORN SHEEP!!!

I had been hoping to see these suckers, and there they were!

Badlands National Park protects more than 244,000 acres of prairie and badlands habitat, and bighorn sheep are one of the species that call this crazy landscape home. They were SO FREAKING COOL. 😍

After plenty of pictures, overlooks and approximately 437 versions of me saying “LOOK AT THAT!”, we eventually made our way out of the Badlands.

But our next stop was something COMPLETELY different. 🚀 MINUTEMAN MISSILE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE.

And y’all… I LOVED THIS PLACE. Maybe more than I expected to.

During the Cold War, this peaceful-looking stretch of the Great Plains was part of America’s nuclear defense system. And underneath those quiet fields?

NUCLEAR MISSILES. 😳 Just sitting there. Ready. For decades.

The whole Minuteman system was built around the concept of nuclear deterrence … essentially making sure an enemy knew that even if they attacked the United States first, America still had the ability to retaliate.

We started at the Visitor Center, and the history there was absolutely fascinating.

There is also a ranger guided tour of Delta-01, one of the historic Launch Control Facilities. The tour actually takes you underground into the original Launch Control Center where missileers once sat on alert. But, I fell down on my job and missed the reservation window.

But we weren’t leaving without seeing a missile.

We hopped back into the Jeep and drove about 15 miles down the interstate to…

🚀 DELTA-09 MISSILE SILO. And THIS was cool.

You can actually walk inside the fenced area and right up to the glass enclosure covering the historic silo. Then you look DOWN… and there it is.

A MINUTEMAN II MISSILE SITTING IN THE GROUND. 😳

The silo itself is only about 12 feet in diameter, which somehow made seeing that missile down inside it feel even crazier.

For decades, sites just like this were hidden in plain sight across the Great Plains. People drove past them. Farmed around them. Lived near them.

And sitting underneath the ground were nuclear missiles kept ready as part of America’s Cold War defense. That is WILD to think about.

And walking around the site with fences, warnings and reminders that this had once been a VERY serious military installation made the whole thing feel even more surreal.

We may not have gotten our underground tour…
BUT THIS HISTORY NERD WAS HAPPY. 😂🚀❤️

I absolutely loved it. And at this point we had already packed a LOT into our final day…

Badlands. ✔️
Bighorn sheep. ✔️
Ancient seabeds. ✔️
Smarties sucker rocks. ✔️😂
Cold War nuclear missiles. ✔️

But we were FAR from finished.

Because next up was a place that had advertised itself to us on approximately 17 BILLION BILLBOARDS since entering South Dakota… 🤣

WALL DRUG.
And let’s just say…
Mel has thoughts. 😂

TO BE CONTINUED…

Part Two: Wall Drug ➡️ Sturgis ➡️ Deadwood ➡️ and somehow we left a casino $600 RICHER. 🤣💰🤠

Adventure Awaits. 🚐❤️

13/09/2026

🏔️🦬 ALMOST HOME ADVENTURES
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8: PART TWO:
GOING UNDERGROUND & THE NEEDLES! 🕳️❤️

After our completely random “HOW DO WE KNOW PEOPLE IN THIS RESTAURANT?!” Arkansas encounter at lunch 😂, we had to get moving.

Because we had a 3:00 date at Wind Cave National Park! And this was one I was REALLY excited about.

🦬🕳️ WIND CAVE NATIONAL PARK

We made it back in plenty of time, checked in and got ready to head underground. But before we ever entered the cave, I learned something that made this place feel completely different.

Wind Cave isn’t just a cave.

For the Lakota people, this is a sacred place connected to their origin and Emergence Story. ❤️

The natural opening of Wind Cave is known as Maka Oniye - “breathing earth.” And it actually DOES breathe.

Changes in atmospheric pressure cause air to move in and out of the cave’s small natural entrance, sometimes strongly enough that you can actually feel it. Imagine discovering THAT before anybody knew what was underneath there. 😳

According to Lakota oral tradition, this area is connected to the place where their ancestors emerged from the spirit world beneath the earth and began life on the surface.

And the bison are deeply connected to that story as well. 🦬❤️

After spending days driving through these enormous herds of bison and seeing how important they are to this land, learning that history gave me an entirely different appreciation for where we were standing.

Then it was time to go… UNDERGROUND. 😳😂
And Wind Cave is absolutely fascinating.

It’s one of the longest and most complex cave systems in the world, with well over 150 miles of passages mapped and explorers are STILL discovering and mapping more.

But one of the coolest things inside Wind Cave is something called boxwork. It looks almost like delicate honeycomb or stone fins covering the ceilings and walls.

And here’s the crazy part: Wind Cave contains one of the world’s largest known concentrations of boxwork formations.

So you’re not just walking through a giant underground cave. You’re looking at something that’s actually pretty rare. 😍 But then we started seeing something else that fascinated me just as much…

✍🏼 NAMES AND DATES.
Signatures from people who explored the cave back in the 1800s. And THAT will make you think.

Early explorers were crawling around inside this enormous cave system long before electric lights, paved walkways and nice park rangers saying, “Okay everybody, follow me!” 😂

Some early explorers used things as simple as candles and string to help find their way through the passages.
CANDLES. AND STRING. 😳

Meanwhile, Mel is walking on an established tour with a ranger and modern lighting thinking: “We ARE keeping track of the way out, right?” 🤣🤣🤣

Wind Cave was eventually established as a national park by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903, making it the first cave anywhere in the world to become a national park. Pretty freaking cool.

And after spending part of the afternoon underground, we came back into the daylight and did what any reasonable couple would do after already cramming Iron Mountain Road, Custer State Park, Wind Cave, Crazy Horse AND lunch into one day…

WE KEPT GOING. 😂😂😂
Because there was one more road I absolutely wanted to drive.

🪨🏔️ NEEDLES HIGHWAY!
And OH. MY. GOODNESS.
If Iron Mountain Road was beautiful…
Needles Highway was DRAMATIC.

Huge granite spires shoot straight up out of the Black Hills, with the road winding around and THROUGH them. Sharp curves. Massive rock formations. Incredible views. And tunnels so narrow that there were several moments when I looked ahead and thought… “Surely THAT isn’t where we’re supposed to drive.”😂

Oh yes.
That’s exactly where you’re supposed to drive.

One of the most famous spots is the Needle’s Eye, a giant granite formation with a narrow opening that really does look like the eye of a sewing needle.

And right beside it is the ridiculously narrow Needle’s Eye Tunnel, carved directly through the granite. This entire highway is only about 14 miles long, but this is NOT a road you hurry through. You slow down. You pull over. You look UP.

And you repeatedly say…
“HOW did they build a road through THIS?!” 😳😂
It was absolutely gorgeous and easily one of my favorite drives of the entire trip.

By the time we finished Needles Highway, even Travis and I were finally willing to admit… WE HAD DONE ENOUGH FOR ONE DAY. 🤣

We headed back to Big Bertha, grabbed some dinner, kicked our feet up and finally called it a night.

And that’s when it really started sinking in. 🥹
After weeks on the road…
Thousands of miles…
Mountains.
Waterfalls.
Geysers.
Caves.
Wildlife.
National Parks.
Tiny mountain towns.
Sunrises.
Sunsets.
And more “OH MY GOSH, LOOK!” moments than I could ever possibly count…

We had ONE MORE FULL DAY OF ADVENTURE LEFT. 😭❤️

Our giant Western adventure was almost over.
But we weren’t done quite yet.
Because Wednesday?
Well… we still had a little South Dakota left to conquer. 😏🏔️

TO BE CONTINUED…

One more day.
One more adventure.
And I have a feeling I’m going to be a little emotional writing that one. 🥹❤️🚐

Adventure Awaits.

Almost Home Adventures

30/09/2026

20/09/2026

16/09/2026

15/09/2026

14/09/2026

13/09/2026

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