Wedding Beauty

We had a great time at Brian’s cousin’s wedding, Mary Catherine Cahill to Kane Mach, in Green Lake Wisconsin.  For two days we celebrate with family, enjoyed the beautiful lake front, and connected with relatives from across the country!

I won’t lie, we also really appreciated the showers and space of a large hotel suit which must be ten times the size of our current motorhome!  The pool was pretty great too!

Many congratulations to Mary and Kane on our their beautiful nuptials and for including us in the event! 

South Dakota?? Who knew there was so much to see?

Over nearly 48 hours we explored so many sites and museums.  Where you ask?  D.C.? Philly?  No, in South Dakota!

We began with a great tour at Wind Cave National Park, a long time national park, with it’s own barometric pressure, so some time air is sucked into the cave network, and sometime it is pushed out, depending on the air pressure outside.  When the air is pressure stabilizes by pushing air out of the 148 mile network, it feels like “wind” blowing out of the cave. 

Next we visited a cool private non-profit paleontology dig site, called Mammoth Site.  This crazy formation in the Black Hills was formed when an odd sink hole formed almost 20,000 years ago.  The sink hole in the limestone, over centuries filled with warm water, attracting animals, particularly mammoths, who fell into the waterhole, since there was a near vertical drop at the edges of this water.  There have been over sixty mammoth remains recovered at this location, now all on display, even though it is an active paleontological site!  So cool!   

We then made our way to Rushmore in the evening.  It was cool and important for Simon, who really wanted to see this!  I’m not sure that Brian and I were moved by this, but they did manage to complete this sculpture in 14 years!

That night we drove to the Badlands and arrived with the full moon!  So cool.  I made everyone get out and look at the cool rock formations in the moonlight on the way to our campsite, at nearly 11pm.  (By the way, we have totally failed at parents at getting enough sleep for our kids.  Over one week, we have switched time zones four times, and we keep them up late far too often… but we decided that they have the rest of the summer to recover!)

The Badlands National Park was very cool—I didn’t know that these beautiful rock spires formed 500,000 years ago and will be gone 500,000 years from now (a blink of an eye geologically speaking) due to the erosion with each rainstorm.  We were able to explore this park that next day, in high heat, and enjoy the prairie dogs, too!

Claire has become super excited about the Junior Ranger Program-- here she is being sworn in at the Badlands!

After this, we went to a super-cool National Site Minuteman Missile Historical Site, only 10 miles from the Badlands.  We learned a ton about the Cold War and way the US Government placed all our inter-continental ballistic missiles in the plains.  I knew nothing about this, and the kids learned a ton about the Cold War and how to we taught children to protect themselves (under the desk everyone!).

We ended our two days in Sioux Falls at a great RV park with a cool pool, which made everyone happy! After this we were on to Wisconsin and a great wedding! J  

I finally lose it.... It had to happen!

Tuesday we needed to make our way from Montana into the Black Hills of South Dakota.  This was a significant driving day—which the kids prefer!?! They ask each day if we are going to have “long drives,” as this is somehow more enjoyable than the amazing places we have visited.  Go figure!

Our most notable stop today was at the Battle of Little Bighorn, of the Battle of Greasy Grass as it’s known by the Lakota Indians.  We enjoyed learning about the players in this battle, including Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and General Custer.  This site was the major victory for the Plain Indians who refused to be forced into reservations during the Great Sioux War of 1876.  Sadly, the loss of General Custer galvanized support for the war, and after an infusion of funds and people, within a year the Sioux had surrendered.  This National monument was so well done, and the kids found it to be appropriately sobering.  If you are ever near Billings, Montana, check it out! 

That evening we had planned to top off the day, after more driving, by going to the Crazy Horse memorial in South Dakota, near our campsite.  I didn’t have a lot of time to vet this location, but it seemed fitting given our stop in Montana earlier that day.  We arrived later than we wanted but I had planned to have dinner that night at their restaurant which serves traditional Native American dishes.  But, things went off the rails as soon as we arrived.  For those who may not have been here, this site is designed to be a memorial to Crazy Horse carved into rock, similar to Rushmore.  However, there is a kitchy-ness to this immediately.  We learn that there is a light show, and a fire show planned for that night, because it’s the anniversary for the Battle of Little Big Horn.  And clearly the family which supports this site planned to benefit from that.  The monument is not complete and not much progress seems to have been made in the last 20 years.  The family of the original sculptor has died and his family runs this whole organization.  They are packed for these “special nights,” but I can’t get the exploitation slick off me as we wonder around.  Top it off… the restaurant is closed.  The snack bar, which has ice cream and hot dogs, has a line a mile long.  Now I’m embarrassed that I’m here, and I’m hangry.  Brian and I can’t decided what to do.  A light and fire show will certainly interest the kids, but I do not want to spend another dollar here.  We leave.  I want to stop for dinner. Brian does not.  We don’t.  We’ve had a few days of sandwiches, and I want a real meal.  We arrive at our campground.  It’s nice enough.  But learn when cooking that it’s not level and the hot pan keeps sliding off the stove—not a feature! Then the kids have one million requests for us, within a few minutes of arriving.  One was to go bike riding.  That’s another pain of getting the bikes off the racks, finding the helmets, and getting good shoes.  The kids are being good, but I’m on my last nerve.  They bike off and I think I’ll get to work on the dinner.  Minutes later they are back, in tears, with a big crash of two out of three.  I know I should have been better, but I really didn’t have a lot, okay any, patience left in me.  I overhear Brian say to Simon, the only one not injured, “go help your mom, or she might kill you.”  After hear this, I laugh, I breathe and I try to calm myself.  So the night didn’t go as planned.  We are all here and all well, minus a few bicycle crash scratches, and we gave $30 to a scam-artist family. I apologized to my crew for my grumpiness. Live and learn, right?! 

Yellowstone!

We've been so busy that I'm a bit behind on posting.  On Monday we were in Yellowstone.  We woke up early and started driving while the kids slept-- we definitely wore them out in the Grand Tetons.  For those who have never been, Yellowstone park is the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined.  The main park is comprised on 142 mile figure-eight-like drive with tons of trails and the like to go off and explore.  Brian and I worried that we had not planned for enough time in the park, so we started early.  We drove by the huge Yellowstone Lake in the morning as the fog lifted, and, of course, Reid woke up first!  We discussed with a Ranger the best way to make use of our day at the ranger station early.  He gave us the hints on where to stop and what to skip.  We enjoyed a couple of great waterfalls, massive roiling mud pits, sulfur venting and belching earth. 

We then hit the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, with a huge beautiful waterfall, and steep canyon sides.  The visitor's center here was a great museum about the volcanic activity, or caldera, which creates Yellowstone's cool features. 

Then there were the geysers! And did we mention the animals: bears, bison, a moose, bald eagles, and more.

The vistas were stunning, and so commonplace, that the kids started to say, "another vista...great.", without enthusiasm!

Our long and eventful day ended with a last minute, poorly thought out decision, by Brian and I.  We decided we wanted to leave the park, and start to make our way to Montana, because our planning and paid for campsite was on the other side of this huge park.  We should have taken note that this particular park exit road had almost no RVs, an ominous sign, even though they are ubiquitous in these western national parks.  It turned out that we had inadvertently stumbled on to one of the top scenic byways in the world, known as Beartooth Highway.  This is closed in the winter, which means it just opened five weeks before.  It turned out that this crazy, windy, nail-biting, mountain pass was likely the most notable part of our trip for Brian and I.  The RV's engine groaned as we got to the one of the highest paved roads in North America at 10,947 feet!  There were 30 foot snow banks at the top!  In June! And again, some really great vistas.  We had, wrongly, assumed that 69 mile stretch of road would take us about an hour and a half.  As we realized the choice we made, and learned that this road was in numerous travel books we had brought along for our trip, we discovered that people were to expect 2-3 hours in a CAR.  Our RV took us over 4 hours.  We had to put the kids to sleep while driving-- which was not in our initial game plan, and luckily found a state park campground on the other side of this crazy pass.  We enjoyed a quick beverage to calm our nerves and all crashed out after this long and nutty day! The pictures do NOT do this justice, but here are a couple.

Off Grid!

Our last three days have been fully off-grid as we explored the great parks of Wyoming and the mountains of Montana.  We reemerged into cell service this morning.  It's almost hard to explain how awesome these few days were for our family.  We resorted back to paper maps, no texting, no iPads, no work and lots of outdoor time exploring the glorious outdoors.

Our trip into Wyoming was gorgeous, filled with rolling hills, big sky and lots of cattle.  It was a full travel day, and we finished a family audio book.  We stopped to climb some cool rocks mid-way and arrived at the Grand Teton's that evening. 

The Teton's were gorgeous, which is a complete understatement but the best word I can come up with.  We took a beautiful morning rafting ride down the Snake River, and hiked to waterfalls at Jenny Lake.  The lakes with the huge Teton range as the backdrop was stunning from all angles in this huge park.  It was a spectacular day.  (I should mention that we have had great luck with the weather--- so keep saying good wishes to the Sun Gods for us!)  Mid-day we stopped for a massive pile of nachos, a family favorite, to keep us fueled up.  We were finally able to have a campfire, since much of mid-west was on fire restrictions or our days had been too action packed.   

The next day we totally mastered Yellowstone! More to come on that.... 

Colorado

We had so much fun in Colorado.  When we got to Denver, we embarked upon a fun activity, thanks to Kara Saranich.  For my birthday, she gave us a fun Puzzling Adventure through the downtown Denver area, which is a mix of a race, a scavenger hunt and a trivia quizzes. We learned a bit about the city, and got to view a lot of cool art!  Thanks Kara!

Blue Bear outside the Denver Convention Center

Denver was a slower, relaxing, time for us.  We even took a bike ride through one of the city's large parks.  We needed this after a bunch of days of go-go-go speed!

We had a huge treat of traveling into the mountains outside Bolder to visit one of Brian's friends from middle/high school.  Sarah kindly allowed us to park our huge RV in her driveway-- after we made it up the mountain, and even do some laundry! We got to enjoy a great evening in Colorado at her gorgeous log cabin home meeting her son Jayce and her husband Paul, who cooked us up quite a feast.  We caught up on almost 15  years of life that evening; we hadn't seen Sarah shortly after our wedding!  Simon enjoyed thinking about what it would be like to live in the mountains, which is just a wee-bit different from our Shrewsbury suburban neighborhood!  And to top if off, Sarah's family has a hot tub, so the kids relished in another "pool" day! While we took off early the next morning to make our way to Wyoming, we had a great time in Colorado. 

Kids really enjoyed the dogs never-ending love of fetch! 

Fun to visit "old" friends!