Bum Bum Bum Baum Bum...

Today started about 1:30 AM when I awoke (within 10 minutes of going to sleep) to the sound of a child crying. Luke was sick in the bunk that he and Lorelei share. We got him down and changed and into an extra sleeping bag on the couch. Scott cleaned up the bunk as best he could and covered it while Lorelei slept on the other side. Then while I stayed up to see if Luke would have another round, Scott did laundry. We managed to go to sleep around 3 AM. I got up to go to the bathroom around 6:30 and we finally all got out of bed around 8:30. Luke's first words to me were "I feel much better this morning".

We ate breakfast and spent the morning doing a few chores. Scott dumped the RV black and greay water storage tanks for the first time and washed out the mattress in the kids bunk while I cleaned up and organized all of the inside stuff. The kids got to enjoy the playground until Lorelei was bitten or stung by something. We then drove the 3 miles to the Devils Tower National Monument visitor center. The kids picked up another junior ranger badge, 4th for Lorelei and 3rd for Luke on this trip (he didn't want to do the one at Herbert Hoover). Then we took the trail around the tower. we bought a pocket tracks and scat (poop) identification guide and the kids had a great time trying to find stuff. We did find some kind of track that we think was a porcupine. Lorelei said "this is cool, it's an adventure". We also saw some climbers who chose to ignore the voluntary ban on climbing in the month of June as a sign of respect for the native american tribes who consider this to be sacred ground.

After our hike, we returned to the campground and stopped into the cafe for some buffalo burgers. Scott and I think the ones at Ted's Montana Grill were way better. Then we got to hang out in the camper and hit the FREEZING cold pool. Our outdoor temperature gauge said the high here today was 103 but the water was like stepping into an ice bath. Then we made pizza in the oven for dinner and did another load of laundry while the kids played some viedo games (all three kids). We had a small rain storm tonight but all is quiet now. The campground shows Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind every night on a big screen theatre but we leave early tomorrow to hit the Little Bighorn Battlefield, Bighorn Canyon rec area and camp for the night in Bozeman, MT so we decided to skip it.

Happy trails to you...

Today was another early riser. The sun was up and shining in the window by 5:30. I do love how much daylight we are getting in order to really enjoy the activities. With sun up by 5 AM and sundown somewhere around 9 or later, we have been making the most of it. We were driving through the Badlands loop road by 7 with the kids still asleep in their bunk. Scott and I stopped at an overlook and the kids started the slow process of opening their eyes. At the next overlook, Scott and I turned around to find Luke following in his pajamas with camera in hand. By the next stop, Lorelei was up and Luke was dressed. We didn’t see any bison in the Badlands which prompted our decision to go through Custer State Park, but more on that later. We were done with our drive and into the town of Wall for a stop into the famous Wall drug by 9:30 am. For those that don’t know, several years ago, a guy named Hustead (first name forgotten) needed to attract customers to his pharmacy in Wall and started putting billboards all over South Dakota, along I-90. So for 200 miles, you see signs saying stop at Wall Drug and you can get a free cup of ice water and buy souvenirs. Really it is tourist trap hell but if you are going through South Dakota, how can you not stop? We got some homemade ice cream and cookies (and water) and then headed on our way.

Our next stop was Wind Cave. Originally, we planned to visit Wind Cave and get a stamp and then visit Jewel Cave and go on the cave tour. I forgot in all of my stress last week to buy a ticket for jewel cave in advance. I also wasn’t thinking about our timeline when we made the decision to take the slower and longer route through Custer State Park, I was thinking about bison.

Custer has the largest privately owned stock of American Bison, over 1300 in the herd. So we took the wildlife loop road and were rewarded with bison 5 feet from the camper and totally causing a traffic standstill. We were also rewarded with views of antelope and deer and the burrows who came and ate carrots right out of our camper window. (The ranger said it was ok to feed the burrows) The kids ate that up and we had a nice picnic lunch and drive. Unfortunately that put us in Wind Cave around 2:30 and we didn’t want to wait for the 3:40 tour. The ranger told us we probably wouldn’t be able to get into Jewel Cave since we didn’t have reserve tickets so we made the decision to back track a little after we get finish North Dakota and come back next Thursday to see Jewel Cave and Crazy Horse. The kids were disappointed about not seeing a cave today but very excited that we were going to come back. We are supposed to finish every park and the capitol in SD so we can’t leave without it!!!

We went on to Mount Rushmore where the kids did the junior ranger program and by then it was getting near 7 pm and time for dinner. We ate at Wendy’s for a change of pace and then picked up pedals, milk and bread at Walmart before making the drive from Rapid City to Devils Tower and a KOA with showers!!! We have seen tons of animals today and it was awesome. Prairie dogs, bison, deer, antelopes, mountain goats and elk. Glad to be moving on to Wyoming where we will have some downtime tomorrow with just Devils Tower and laundry to be done. Pictures on FLICKR are slow to come. I took 320 in 2 days, not sure if digital photos are a blessing or a curse.

Monday, Monday so good to me...

Today was a really good day. We got up and had breakfast and then showered at the campground. We drove a few miles into Mitchell, SD to stop into the “world’s only Corn Palace”. It is a building that is decorated with murals made out of corn and different grains and grasses on both the inside and outside every year. It’s the kind of attraction that is a little bit corny but we like that sort of thing.

After leaving the Corn Palace, we stopped in to the Walmart for a few food items and some bicycle pedals. Somewhere in the 1500+ miles between home and South Dakota, we lost a pedal from Lorelei’s bicycle. Unfortunately there were none at that Walmart so we will be stopping somewhere else.

Next we drove to Pierre, SD which is the capitol of South Dakota. It is located on the Missouri River so you can understand how it might have become the capitol in years past. With the invention of cars and I-90, it became a little town in the middle of nowhere which is exactly how the drive felt. We did get to stop into the Fort Pierre National Grasslands which is more like what Scott and I had pictured this area of the country looking like. Along I-90 it was corn fields until about Mitchell and then it turned to farm after farm with a lot of cows and silos. We both expected the prairie to be brown and much dryer than it has been. We also didn’t expect all of the mosquitoes that we saw in Mitchell. They were worse than North Carolina. It turns out that SD has had about 200% more rainfall over the past 18 months than it normally gets. This has led to population explosions of all animals and lush greens all over South Dakota.

After our visit to Pierre we were hustling to make it to the visitor contact station at Minuteman Missile before it closed at 4:30. We entered Mountain Time on our drive and arrived with 30 minutes to spare. This site is pretty new. It represents the over 450 nuclear missile silos in the west that were used during the cold war with Russia. We watched the video and looked at the exhibits but didn’t have enough time to visit the actual missile silo.

Next we headed into Badlands National Park. We drove to the campground and setup and then cooked dinner. In the national parks there are no power or water hookups so setting up amounts to leveling off and opening windows. We cooked dinner and then ate at the picnic table at our site. We then hiked up to the visitor center and arrived about 10 minutes before they closed. That gave us enough time to go through the exhibits and take a peek in the gift shop. When I plan our trips they are always VERY full. We seem to be getting into full on vacation mode or simply getting tired because we seem to be meandering a little more and more off my schedule. After the visit in the visitor center we climbed among the sandstone peaks and enjoyed the setting sun. About 8:15 we returned to the camper to grab our flashlights and a drink and head up to the amphitheatre and hear a ranger talk about the night sky. It was really cool to see all of the constellations but because the moon is full (or very close to it) we couldn’t see the milky way and all of the other cool things as good as we might have. By 10:30, Luke was too tired to keep his eyes open and we returned to the camper. I can’t wait to try star gazing as we get to some of the other parks in the second week of our trip.

Day 3 - Ooooh, I'm driving my life away...

GlacierTrip Mitchell (3 of 8)
Originally uploaded by Olivia Linkel

We got up early again this morning and were on the road around 7 am. Just as we were leaving the campground a thunderstorm rolled in and we drove for about an hour in off and on rain. The picture here is the prairie/corn fields in Iowa that we drove past all day on the western edge of the storm front. It is so flat through most of this country that you can see the clouds rolling in and know when you are going to hit rain, 20 minutes before you do.

We had a four hour drive ahead of us to get to the Herbert Hoover National Historic site. He was an interesting guy and seeing the town he grew up in and the 2 room cottage where he spent some of his childhood was pretty cool. Lorelei did the activities to earn her junior ranger badge and then we ate lunch and continued the long haul. We knew we had an even longer drive ahead of us this afternoon - appx. 7 hours.

In Iowa, we crossed paths with Laura Ingalls and her little house on the prairie. I mapped all of the places that are mentioned in the book and we were probably within 20 miles of where the home from that book stood. Pretty neat. The kids were fascinated by the indians and description of the prairie's from the book and when we arrived at the campground around 10 PM (central time) there was still enough sun for Lorelei and I to walk over to the fence and take a look at the actual prairie. I can't wait to make it a little further into South and North Dakota and visit some of the Indian sites and help the kids to understand that the indians described in the books no longer live like that.

Tomorrow we head to the corn palace here in Mitchell and then to the Badlands National park. We won't have Wi-Fi so expect two days of updates on Tuesday night. Total time on the road today was about 15 hours including stops which probably totalled about 3 hours.

Saturday night. This campground has crappy wifi. I can't get logged in to my blog or upload pics. Will try again tomorrow.

Saturday - 4 states covered

Saturday was a long driving day. Scott and I were up by about 5:45 AM and after showering, we were on the road by 6:20. The kids were asleep when we arrived in Huntington Friday night and we were already on the road by the time they woke up and they wondered what happened to the campground. We stopped for breakfast in the camper at a rest area about 20 miles into Kentucky. Then we drove and drove through Kentucky and Indiana, which is possibly the most boring driving state I have ever been in. We got gas and stopped for lunch at a rest area west of Indianapolis and had a picnic on the grass under the shade of a tree. It was nice to get out and stretch our legs. When we crossed the border of Indiana and Illinois we picked up an hour because of the change in time zones. We pulled into Springfield, Illinois – Lincoln’s homeplace about 3:45 central time (4:45 ET). That means we drove for about 10.5 hours including stops.

We were all very happy to finally be doing something and our first park stamp of the trip was very exciting. Unfortunately we were too late to tour the house but we did catch the film and peruse the book store. We love souvenir shopping and we picked up some good stuff today. Luke got a President’s trivia game, Lorelei got a rag doll kit and Scott picked up “Buddy Bison”. Buddy, who has now been renamed Buffalo Bill is a bison that the National Park Trust encourages you to photograph at the national, state and local parks and send in to www.buddybison.org so folks can see where buddy has been. One of the cool things that the NPS does on Saturdays at 5 PM is, President Elect Lincoln comes out of his home and gives his farewell speech as he goes to Washington, then he leads a parade down to the capital building where he gives another speech and then greets visitors. He usually gives the speech on the steps of the building but because it was so hot they moved it indoors. It is as hot and muggy here as it is at home and they have had a ton of rain because every river and stream we have passed is over its banks. We listened to the speech and then took our pictures on the steps of the capital building before returning to the FunV and hitting the campground.

We checked in to the KOA which is in the middle of nowhere. You could almost hear the banjo playing if you know what I mean. We had a quick dinner and then went for a swim in the pool. The kids said that was the best part of the day. We can now check Illinois off our list because this is the only national park and we went to the capital. Sunday, we have another long day where we head to Mitchell, SD. FLICKR pics are loaded so check those out too.

Vacation - all I ever wanted....

This post comes to you from Huntington, WV. We left home this afternoon on our trip west and arrived later than we hoped but about when we expected. No real news to report as we spent the afternoon and evening driving. We have an early start tomorrow and are planning to be in Springfield, Illinois to visit the Lincoln home for our first national park stamp of the trip. We have been reading the Little House on the Prairie series aloud which is so appropriate for this trip since we will be visiting areas where Laura and her family actually lived. The kids really travel so well and we have introduced them to the license plate game - Lorelei is great at it!!! Since we haven't been on any adventures yet, that's all the news I have for the trip. There is an update below on the first two weeks of summer. Look for pictures tomorrow night on FLICKR for both camp and trip highlights.

Last week, the kids were at drama camp at the children's theatre. They had a great time and we will definitely be adding some additional weeks next year. Lorelei also had her dance recital. She was beautiful! Scott and Lorelei participated in the father daughter Michael Jackson finale and it was awesome. On a high note from that week, I received an email from the theatre camp director and they have asked Luke to join the theatre training program in the fall. I think he will be great at it and he really wants to do it.

When I scheduled Luke at cub scout camp and Lorelei at horse camp this week, I didn't think about the fact that Scott would be out of town for a conference the entire week. Lorelei's camp is 45 minutes away and they both had to be there at nine. Luckily I was able to find someone who could take Luke while I was taking Lorelei. Of course it was also my birthday. The four of us celebrated a little early since Scott wasn't going to be here and they made me a great cake. On my birthday, we came home to find we had no A/C and it was 85 in the house. I already had plans to go have dinner with my parents so we loaded up overnight bags and spent the night with them. It has been so hot outside that the repairman was booked for 2 days so ours wasn't fixed until Thursday. That has just piled on to an already stressful week with trying to pack, work and cart the kids all over the area. But we made it through and Luke ended up being the top archer in his den at cub scout camp and Lorelei had a great time with her horse, Red, at camp.