brits on tour

From Badlands to Pipestone: Sunday, July 11th

2010-08-06T17:01:00.000-04:00

From the ‘Oh Ranger’ book:
Starting 65 million years ago, weather patterns shifted, and the area now called the Badlands was lifted and transformed by geological forces. The black, muddy floor of an ancient sea that once covered this area was compressed into a band of 2,000-foot-thick rock known as the Pierre Shale. Forests flourished and withered away. Volcanoes laid down a thick layer of ash and rivers repeatedly flooded the region, depositing sediment. These successive layers of matter often held the bodies and bones of animals now long extinct and preserved for posterity as fossils. Wind and the rushing waters of rivers now long vanished eroded the dry, fragile soil, coursing through different layers of harder and softer rock, gouging out channels and gulleys, and carving cliffs, spires and odd rock formations.

Erosion continues to this day, frequently revealing long-buried fossils. Drawn by the fossilized remains of saber-toothed cats, miniature camels and horses, and huge rhinoceros-like beasts known as titanotheres, scientists discovered millions of years of geologic history buried in the multicolored layers. One of the world’s richest Eocene/Oligocene Epoch fossil beds is located here, yielding a wealth of information of the ‘Golden Age of Mammals’ of approximately 25 million to 37 million years ago.

It’s so fascinating how these National Parks came to be what they are today. When we arrived at Badlands Visitor Center, the kids were happy to discover the Junior Ranger program was all about fossils, focusing of course, on those found within the Park. The Ranger chatted with them for a while, showing them samples, then gave them little ‘cakes’ of hard baked sand, which they carefully dug through to find shell ‘fossils’. It was a great activity, kept them occupied for a good while; they were thrilled to find some shells. I’ve searched for the ‘recipe’ online and can’t find anything similar, the ranger couldn’t remember the exact combination of ingredients but mentioned he used sand and Epsom salts, the search will continue – I could hide all sorts of things in there!

As well as showing all the kids (there was a small group of 7 – we were over 50% of the attendance!) different casts of fossils, he also took them out to a rocky area where a saber-tooth skull fossil had been discovered. They all eagerly looked around to see if there was anything they could find. It was a great program, well worth staying the extra time for and they were sworn in for their 50th Junior Ranger program, GO VALENTINE KIDS!

So, it was a late start to the travel day but we made good time, leaving before noon. We stopped at ‘The World’s Only Corn Palace’ in Mitchell, SD. We would certainly have passed this by had it not been suggested by the Outback couple at the campground. The first Corn Palace was built in 1892 when the city of Mitchell was just 12 years old. The idea was hatched by Louis Beckwith and L.O. Gale to showcase the crops grown in the area and to attract immigrant farmers to settle here. Along with the Corn Palace, a festival was planned to celebrate the harvest. Renowned to this day, over 100 years later, the tradition of the Corn Palace continues. The Corn Palace is known around the world as a folk-art wonder on the prairie of South Dakota.

Each year a new decorating theme is chosen and the outside of the Corn Palace is stripped and redecorated with new corn and grains. In early summer the process begins with removal of the old grasses and grains. Over the summer, 3,000 bushels of milo, rye, oat heads, and sour dock are tied in bundles and attached. The corn murals have to wait until late summer when the corn crop is ready. Over a half million ears of corn, in 12 different colors, are sawed in half and nailed to the building following patterns created by a local artist. They were a-maize-ing!

After another couple of stops en route for essentials (including wood for the floor in the camper, in an attempt to resolve a very soft floor issue around the air vent where the slide struts are underneath – not sure if it’s because we’re using the slides so often or walking over the area constantly but either way, it’s not great and a tad worrying) in Sioux Falls and across the border into Minnesota we went: state number 43.

Pipestone is a small town just over the border; the campground is along Hiawatha to the very end of town, opposite the entrance to Pipestone National Monument. By the time we rolled in, given that we lost an hour during the day, crossing back into the Central timezone, it was 9pm. The kids ran off to play in the huge sandbox while Dave and I battled the mosquitoes before I took refuge in the camper to sort out beds. When the kids came in, they were covered in bites, poor Caitlin had 5 on her face alone, ugh, we hate (this is the one time the kids will let me get away with hate – not a word we encourage the use of) the tiny, blood-sucking, buzzy things, there is more OFF in our future I fear!

From Hill City to Badlands National Park: Saturday, July 10th

2010-08-05T13:48:00.008-04:00

Having spent some of the early morning running around playing variations on tag (listened to the rules of ‘soccer tag’ on the drive, surprisingly – she says, tongue in cheek – similar to ‘frisbee tag’, ‘football tag’, ‘nerf tag’, ‘shoe tag’, really, shoe tag??) with the early-rising neighbors who had three boys, the kids were fine with sitting in the car for a couple of hours. As we drove through nearby Hill City, I stopped for photos of the Iron Star by John Lopez. This is a hybrid metal sculpture, featuring scrap-iron technique, infused with cast bronze pieces. Along with the farming tools and implements, we were also challenged to find five equine bronze sculptures, a man's face, flowers and iron feathers - think we succeeded.

The route to the next campground took us under a neat 'double bridge' (just outside of Hill City), through part of Badlands National Park and also past the Visitor Center for Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, I hadn’t realized it was so close.

The Badlands were amazing, barren, yet beautiful, the colors were so varied, the landscape, a maze of hills and bumps of soft pale rock. Dave pulled over for a photo with the camper in tow; I love how it came out. It’s been fun to look through the different ‘backgrounds’ the camper’s enjoyed this year, a great selection indeed. Coming into the Park, we also watched a tour helicopter landing.

We stopped in at the Visitor Center just after 11am and discovered there was a Junior Ranger program each day at 10:30am, lead by a Ranger which would give the kids their badges without having to complete their book, as an added bonus, they’d also get a patch. This appealed to all of them as a fun alternative and we decided to change plans a bit and leave later to allow for them to do that in the morning. We stayed to watch the movie before leaving the park and locate the campground. The movie was one of the highest qualities we’ve seen, the sound and images were excellent. We learned how much of a diverse animal population this area supports, in both the rock areas and vast, expansive prairies.

We stayed for one night at Badlands Ranch & Resort, as Dave said, resort should be regarded in a very loose sense! It was a perfectly acceptable campground and in fact, more than we expected for the $12.50 we paid (thank you Passport America)! We really weren’t there very much actually. There were amazing views of the edge of the Badlands from the hill top as we drove in and out; it’s in a wonderful location.

After chatting with our new neighbors, full-timers, retired, traveling in their Outback travel trailer, we headed back through Badlands NP (watching an amazing storm in the distance) to Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, the only national park unit that tells the story of the Cold War.

This is made up of two areas, Launch Control Facility Delta-01 and Launch Facility Delta-09. Beneath the Launch Control Facility is an underground Launch Control Center. This is where Air Force officers, known as missileers, could launch Minuteman missiles if the United States was attacked by the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons. Unfortunately the tour for the facility had already been completed for the day so we ‘saw’ it via the video and looked at one of the red chairs – complete with seatbelts. Belts were necessary to keep the missileer in place should the ground be shaking from an imminent crash or earthquake in order that they could still complete their tasks.

Launch Facility Delta-09 is a missile silo with a Minuteman 2 missile on display (President Kennedy referred to these as ‘Ace In The Hole’ in 1962). We saw a number of pictures of this but didn’t have time to drive out to the site on exit 116 – another time perhaps. Funnily enough, these locations were never kept secret, always just by the side of a road, usually on rancher properties. The average citizen however rarely knew what they were. There are still a number of Minuteman 3 missiles in the US, ready to be launched should it become necessary, far fewer than during the Cold War but still active and prepared. They will be decommissioned in 2050 by which time they will be 72 years old.

The kids Junior Ranger booklets gave a short summary of the history surrounding this site. The Cold War lasted from 1945-1991. During that time there was a long and troubled conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. This war led to a huge weapons build up on both sides. These weapons included nuclear missiles, such as the Minuteman. The first Minutemen were deployed in 1962. Within five years a total of 1,000 were online and ready. Minuteman missiles were operational across the Great Plains region. United States policy was to only use Minuteman missiles if the Soviet Union first attacked with their own nuclear weapons.

The 150 Minuteman missiles in South Dakota were made up of three squadrons of 50 missiles each. The Air Force personnel who worked in each squadron took great pride in protecting the United States. Squadron personnel developed logos to display their sense of duty. These 150 missiles in South Dakota made up the 44^th Missile Wing. Missileers developed artwork to paint down in the Launch Control Center in order to display their sense of mission. The blast door photo (like a pizza box) symbolizes how the missile personnel felt about the strength of the Minuteman system and Air Force!

When the Cold War ended in 1991, a treaty was signed (Jake and I spent a while by the sign detailing this treaty, signed by Presidents Bush and Gorbachev) that deactivated these 150 missiles. It was also decided that a deactivated launch control facility and a missile silo would be kept to help tell the story of the arms race. These sites became part of Minuteman Missile NHS in 1999.

That same year a missile engineer by the name of Tim Pavek testified before the US Congress about the importance of the Minuteman Missile to the nation’s history. Here is what Mr Pavek said:

“The Minuteman was one of the most significant strategic weapons in the

USA

history. With the turn of key, the missile could deliver its nuclear weapon to a Soviet target in 30 minutes or less. It was a weapon for which there was virtually no defense – for a war no one could win. For nearly 30 years, South Dakota’s missiles stood on alert.”

A number of myths were also ‘debunked’ by the Visitor Center information:

Were the missiles ‘top secret’?

No, they were in plain sight.

Were the missiles launched by pressing a red button?

No, two missilers had to turn a key at the same time in the Launch Control Center. The keyholes were 12 feet apart so it was impossible for only one person to complete this task alone.

If a missileer did not execute a launch command would their partner shoot them?

No! Clearly, movies do not depict facts accurately!

Did the missileers know where the missiles were going?

No, although they usually had a pretty good idea.

How many missileers did it take to launch the missiles?

Four. There was back-up center that would also turn their two keys after the first center turned theirs, thus preventing one squadron from taking matters into their own hands.

Were most missiles aimed at cities?

No, some were of course but the aim was to take out the Control Facilities first.

It was an interesting hour or two we spent there. The kids learned about a war they hadn’t even heard of prior to today and we got to see some ‘behind the scenes’ activities. The Ranger on duty, Ranger Jack, was extremely informative and posed with each of the kids as he presented them with their certificate and patch.

From here, we drove back into Badlands National Park, stopping at the various overlooks until we reached the Door Trail and Window Trail. Obviously these trails are pretty self-explanatory. This part of the Badlands is described as the wall, allowing you to ‘walk through a door opening’ and out to the incredible, open views beyond, an enormous expanse of pale rock as far as the eye can see. The kids were excited to climb all over this area, unfortunately we were only wearing crocs, not exactly the best or most grippy footwear. The rocks look solid from a distance but in fact are eroding relatively quickly, by 1” per year; it’s easy to see how this erosion happens, bits were coming off with every touch and step. It's easy to see the incoming storm in the photos, we saw lots of lightning strikes in the distance.

Similarly, a little further along, the window opening created a couple more different views of the landscape. As we walked over there, we passed this running car (a/c clearly needed for the pets not allowed on the trails) with their dog driving!

After checking out a couple of exhibits in the Visitor Center (Jake always curious, asking questions of the ranger), we walked around the Fossil Exhibit Trail, seeing samples of fossils of animals from long ago, some with similarities of those animals around today, others baring little resemblance to anything we’d ever seen.

We continued our drive along the Badlands Loop Road, stopping at more overlooks, through intermittent rain storms, complete with thunder and lightning. The Yellow Mounds Overlook was neat, such a variety of colors. Also, the Ancient Hunters Overlook, as this was an area that would have been home to the Indians as they stayed by the migrating herds of buffalo. They would likely have encouraged the buffalo off the slight cliff and kill them far more easily while they were injured. Of course, once the homesteaders came to the region, they totally over-killed the buffalo until they were almost gone forever. For the most part, homesteaders left after a few years, realizing the land could not support their animals or crops to make any kind of life.

The Pinnacles Overlook had been recommended to us as a great location to view big horn sheep. Unfortunately, as we arrived, another storm was setting off so I’m quite sure all the animals were already taking shelter. So, no sign of any animals but great views of the lightning! As enormous raindrops began to fall, Dave stayed outside for another 15 minutes in an attempt to photograph the lightning – ever tried to do that? Quite a challenge isn’t it?!

The Badlands Loop Road really isn’t an ‘in park’ loop road, you have to exit out to one of the freeways to ‘loop’. Given the time, we headed up to the little town of Wall, so named because it was built on the edge of the northern extension of the ‘Badlands wall’. For miles along the freeway, prior to getting to this area, we’d been seeing signs for Wall Drug, at least 100 miles from the town! Their marketing certainly worked for us, as we came into the town, we drove towards the shop and went into the café they had inside. The shop took up an entire block and was filled with a maze of mini shops which we had to walk through to get anywhere within this neat store. It had such an interesting history and was barely turning any profit when the couple running it came up with the idea of offering free ice water to travelers, which brought people in for other things. They continue to offer free ice water every day and also only charge 5 cents for a cup of coffee; this keeps customers coming in and the store has grown and grown.

After dinner there, we walked through to their ‘backyard’, had pictures with their huge (fake!) stuffed rabbit, giant Jackalope replica, Mt Rushmore replica, on the covered wagon among other things. Becca and Nate were desperate to get wet in the jumping fountains but kept timing their moves around the area incorrectly (not sad about that!). We bought some of their homemade donuts to take back with us for dessert (sadly they weren’t as good as their hype) and really enjoyed our experience in this quaint/kitschy historical store.

Despite the rain, or perhaps because of it, Dave insisted we stop on the way back through the National Park for more pictures – clearly everything looks different once it’s wet! I got to be photographer’s assistant and protect the new camera from the rain – such a privilege! On the way back, we saw a beautiful half-rainbow.

Rafter J Bar Ranch campground fun

2010-08-01T12:09:00.000-04:00

Well, obviously the playground was a huge draw at this campground, every second that they could be over there, they were! The younger three spent 3 hours over there during the afternoon on Tuesday, in the rain, totally happy – communications via the walkie-talkie were kept to a minimum because, apparently, they interrupted the game! Jake was in heaven as he spent most of the 3 hours on wii – a very rare treat indeed.

On Tuesday, given the expected rain and thunder in the afternoon, once they had journaled and worked on their Custer Naturalist books (quite challenging, still needed another day of time for them), we headed over to the pool. It was heated but they all commented it was chilly when they first got in, thankfully they were also allowed in the hot tub so they could go in there to warm up. There were a couple of other boys playing, from Illinois, aged 7 and 9, who joined them in a game of water football. It got quite rough and somehow (gulp), Nate managed to knock one of the 7 year old’s teeth out! Apparently it was loose but even so, not one of his finer moments – they switched to a different game! As I was chatting with their mother (and apologizing!), the kids rushed off to get dressed and came back to the playground for nerf tag and running. They ended up with a very late lunch that day - friends and play trump eating any day of the week!

On Friday, we had another relatively quiet day, much needed after all the running around and exploring of the week. We started the day with the pancake breakfast for the bargain price of $2.50. It is offered every day during the summer, they must do well, there was a steady stream of people coming in while we were eating.

After work, Dave took the kids to the pool, it was another hot day, I’m so glad we didn’t have anything outdoorsy planned – other than being in the water! This campground has been one of our favorites: plenty for the kids to do but not an overwhelming amount of extra-curricula stuff, so nothing we felt obligated to hide from the kids (some campgrounds offer crafts, games, group campfires etc, while these are definitely fun, sometimes they take away from what we have planned and the kids are unimpressed when they are unable to attend)! Also, the campground is in a great, quiet location, easy access to so many wonderful places. As mentioned before, the sites are large, the place is huge but not at all overcrowded, we would definitely recommend it.

Custer State Park: Thursday, July 8th

2010-08-01T00:58:00.000-04:00

Given the hard work the kids had already put into their Junior Naturalist books, we decided to head back into the Park with hopes of completing them. Due to the program requirements, this meant 3 back-to-back programs as well as a hike. We arrived early enough to attempt the mile-loop hike of the Legion Lake area. Unfortunately the trail was not well marked and although we hiked up some steep hills, we’re pretty sure we did not complete the loop as intended, regardless, we hiked!

As we came closer to the Visitor Center, we passed the cabins on the opposite side, with an enormous field of bison just wandering around between them all! The downside of this was that the next stop for the bison was the open field area, directly next to the creek that we should have been 'panning for gold' in. At the meeting point, the Naturalist unfortunately decided to cancel that event for today; the kids were hugely disappointed. Apparently the bison had been there about half an hour earlier, she’d requested they be cleared by park rangers, which they had been but then they returned, so it wasn’t worth taking the risk that they wandered off and then came back with many people 'panning' at the creek.

Instead of actually going down to the creek, she did share information about the gold rush and the history associated with that in the park. She also showed the kids an example of the yellow ore that they might possibly have found.

In the end, it worked in our favor as they were able to complete some more of their books and have some lunch while waiting for the next program to begin. At 2pm, we sat and listened to the 'Horns vs Antlers' talk. Of course, the kids knew quite a lot of the information about horned and antlered animals so shared perhaps more than they should! The Naturalists passed around multiple examples, including an enormous elk antler; their antlers grow back each year, after they have shed, about an inch per day!

After a couple of games of tag in the field, all four settled down to complete the Junior Naturalist program about recycling. Having learned a bit about recycling (hopefully they knew most of it already), they made a ‘bison bank’ with a recycled water bottle, some twigs and a little coloring project – they came out very cute-looking, the downside: where to locate FOUR water bottle banks in the camper??

Once their journaling page was completed in the book, they went into the Visitor Center to get everything signed off. This program was very thorough in checking everything they learned, so they were all happy to receive their certificates, seals and patches, a good effort indeed.

Dave was eager to return to the narrow tunnels and rock spires again to take photos of them in better weather and lighting. This time, we were happy to actually locate the needle rock and the kids were happy that it coincided with a big area of rocks they could climb over (and disappear on). They didn’t mind too much about the extra drive, given that they’d been waiting to watch ‘Matilda’; both Jake and Caitlin read the book this year, so were eager to see the movie. Hopefully they’ll write a comparison at some point between book and movie as they both noted a few differences. I’ve recently been fascinated to discover that many of the books they read this year are way above expected grade level and discovered a website via an online friend’s blog: http://smith-cottage.blogspot.com/2010/07/kids-zone.html which details suitable titles for their grade – if I gave either of them some of the recommended titles for their age, they’d be shocked at how easy they were; so happy to have kids who love to read!

Devils Tower National Monument: Wednesday, July 7th

2010-08-01T00:25:00.000-04:00

A much brighter day dawned, blue skies and fluffy clouds filled the skies outside. Dave took a half day off so around 11am, we left for a 2-hour drive to Devils Tower National Monument. Dave was eager to see this site as it was used in the movie: ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’, always pretty cool to have visited somewhere that you see on TV and can say: ‘been there!’

It’s an amazing site, distinctly visible on the landscape as you’re still a good distance away. We stopped for a couple of pictures on the way and as we drove in, passed another Prairie Dog Town – not quite as spectacular as those in Theodore Roosevelt NP. We are being spoiled by these National Parks, unintentionally comparing things to those we’ve already seen. In 1906 President Roosevelt proclaimed Devils Tower the first national monument under the new Antiquities Act. His action made Wyoming te home of both the first national park – Yellowstone in 1872 - and the first national monument.

We collected Junior Ranger books, Becca was thrilled because she and Nathan had an easy scavenger hunt to do. Caitlin and Jake’s were a little more involved but everything they learned along the way was interesting and do-able with short essays and descriptions to read which gave them answers on the geology of the butte, items, words and terms used in climbing, Indian words for the area in different languages. It took them a good hour of solid work but they kept at it uncomplainingly. We may be on our official summer break but the learning accidentally continues!

There are many different legends about this prominent butte, known as Devil’s Tower. The Kiowa people say:

“Eight children were there at play, seven sisters and their brother. Suddenly the boy was struck dumb; he trembled and began to run upon his hands and feet. His fingers became claws, and his body was covered with fur. Directly there was a bear where the boy had been. The sisters were terrified; they ran, and the bear after them. They came to the stump of a great tree, and the tree spoke to them. It bade them climb upon it, and as they did so it began to rise into the air. The bear came to kill them, but they were just beyond its reach. It reared against the tree and scored the bark all around with its claws. The seven sisters were borne into the sky, and they became the stars of the Big Dipper.”

There was a great picture depicting this story in the Visitor Center. Dave always takes pictures of pictures, some of them come out well, others, not so much, but still he persists!

They learned how the butte was formed: About 50 million years ago molten magma was forced into sedimentary rocks above it and cooled underground. As it cooled it contracted and fractured into columns. Over millions of years, erosion of the sedimentary rock exposed Devils Tower. The Tower rises 867 feet from its base and stands 1,267 feet above the river and 5,112 feet above sea level. The area of its teardrop-shaped top is 1.5 acres. The diameter of its base is 1,000 feet.

Approximately 5,000 climbers come here every year from all over the world to climb on the massive columns. Over 220 routes have been used in climbing the Tower. Rogers and Ripley made the first ascent in 1893, using a wooden ladder they had built for the first 350 feet. On our hike around, we looked through ‘viewing pipes’ to pinpoint where some of that wooden ladder is still evident on the Tower.

As we were getting ready to take the 1.3 mile hike around the base, a Ranger program on Indian languages and stories was just starting, it was an interesting topic, so we stayed to listen. The Ranger grew up on a Shoshone Reservation where she still goes back frequently, she spoke the Lakota language during the presentation and assists with translating many documents from and into that language. She read a story in Lakota, it’s filled with guttural sounds, and then translated it into English. At the end, she taught the kids how to say thank you, they enjoyed listening to her.

So, eventually we hiked the loop around, seeing a number of climbers high up in the distance, thanks to binoculars and the long lens! The kids had also read about a parachutist who had intentionally landed on the top of the butte in 1942, to prove that he could aim and land on a small space. Unfortunately he hadn’t planned well for his descent and had to wait at the top for six days until rescuers reached him and brought him to safety – clearly, not so much on the forward planning!

On many of the trees around the loop, we saw colored scarfs and little sacks of colored material. These are prayer bundles left by the Indians. The Monument is still considered a sacred place for them, so they come and place their offerings in memory of loved ones and prayer requests. The Ranger likened it to those going into a church and lighting a candle. If any of the bundles come off the trees, the Rangers are not allowed to touch them, they request a member of the local Indian tribe come in to replace them.

The joy of climbing all over the rocks was the most fun part of the day for the kids. There were so many near the base and they were a perfect size for scrambling around on.

On the way out, we stopped at the Prairie Dog Town and also to look at the lone long horn in the field. It was a good day, the kids were happy to get their 48^th Junior Ranger badge, climb and play, as well as watch an entire movie on the way over and on the way back!

We stopped in the town of Deadwood for pizza. This is a big gold-mining area, shame we didn’t have chance to take advantage of that while we were visiting.

As we got closer to Hill City, we passed the reservoir and dam, looking very pretty in the evening light. Given the time, it was 8:45, we figured we might as well head over to Mount Rushmore for the lighting ceremony. We had planned to do that tomorrow but as we were up this late anyway, decided to change plans.

We arrived just after 9pm and caught the end of the Ranger talking through the loud-speakers as we walked through the Avenue of Flags. There were an incredible amount of people present, all seats in the outdoor auditorium were filled, standing space was 4 or 5 people deep on the lower and upper levels. Thankfully we found a gap and were able to see the movie depicting the lives and influence of the four presidents.

Everyone rose for the singing of the National Anthem as the lights came on to highlight the faces in the rock. The Ranger asked all past and present military personnel to come down on the stage, I counted at least 100 men and women. The flag ceremony was then completed by a Scout troop who were camping nearby. We spoke with them afterwards, apparently it’s something that any troop can sign up to do, if they know that they’re going to be in the local area. One of the leaders said there was already an 8 year waiting list to complete the ceremony on July 4^th; Jake said it was something he’d like to do one year, guess he’ll be lobbying his new troop to head out to South Dakota at some point!

Mount Rushmore National Memorial: Monday, July 5th

2010-07-31T23:49:00.000-04:00

A post-11pm bedtime created a barely pre-10am wake-up time! We just about managed to get ourselves out of the camper by lunchtime but it certainly wasn’t easy. Thankfully we only had a short drive to Mount Rushmore and were all excited at our first glimpse of this famous masterpiece.

After collecting Junior Ranger books, we walked through the Avenue of Flags, stopping to deal with yet another bloody nose from Jake. As we were standing there, concerned Ranger Darin came over to check on us. The kids asked him a lot of questions (he was a law enforcement ranger) and he gave us some history of the Memorial. I think he was a bit worried about Jake and took us to the office for gauze and an ice pack, so sweet.

We looked around the museum and exhibits before going in to watch the film, Mount Rushmore: The Shrine. It is also known as The Shrine of Democracy. It started as an idea to draw sightseers to South Dakota. Doane Robinson suggested carving giant statues, in the Black Hills, of Indian leaders and American explorers who shaped the frontier. However sculptor Gutzon Borglum made his name through celebration of all things American. To him, ‘American’ meant ‘big’ (nothing’s changed there then!).

He came to look at the available rock in the Black Hills and realized the Needles area was too fragile. The exposed granite facing southeast to receive direct sunlight for most of the day was his choice. He wanted to carve something ‘in commemoration of the foundation, preservation, and continental expansion of the United States’. Hence, the four presidents were chosen. Initially it was just the three without Roosevelt but there was space so Roosevelt was added. At the time, he was a contentious choice because he was such a recent President, it wasn’t yet clear whether or not he was truly worthy.

President Coolidge dedicated the memorial in 1927, commencing 14 years of work; only six years were spent on actual carving. Money was the main problem. Borglum lobbied state officials, representatives and senators, cabinet members, and presidents. He insisted the work was purely a national memorial. He got $836,000 of federal money toward the total cost of nearly $1 million.

Each head was formally dedicated as it was completed: Washington in 1930; Jefferson in 1936; Lincoln in 1937 and Roosevelt in 1939. The plan was to sculpt the figures to their waists but money and time ran out. Borglum died in March of 1941 and that same year, the US entered World War 2, so the Memorial stands ‘as is’ and will not be changed in any way.

Each day, Rangers climb the statue to check for cracks and monitor the ‘heads’, they periodically power wash the granite. It was mainly blasted with dynamite to get to the point where pieces of rock could be finely chiseled to create the faces. Watching the old footage of the men dangling off ropes, drilling honeycomb holes to get to the finishing point was incredible. 400 men worked on the statue during the 14 years it took to complete.

To let you know how enormous it is, the carving of George Washington’s head is as tall as a six-story building. If his body was carved from head to toe, the height of the full figure would be 465 feet! Dimensions of the head: forehead to chin – 60 feet, width of eye – 11 feet, length of nose – 20 feet (Jake said, ‘wow, that’s 4 me’s!’), width of mouth – 18 feet.

Once the kids finished their booklets and were sworn in, we took a few more pictures and made it to the truck right as the rain started falling; we sat in the truck for a while eating a late lunch (wish they had some picnic areas closer to the parking area, we saw so many families eating lunch in the car park!). Leaving the Memorial took us past the side of Mount Rushmore so we were able to get great pictures of Washington’s head in profile.

The weather suddenly started to clear so we took the LONG route back to the campground via Custer State Park. A couple of people had mentioned great views of Mount Rushmore through the rock tunnels along Iron Mountain Road, for Dave ‘Mr Photo’ Valentine, the temptation of these potential shots was too much of a lure. The kids were less than impressed but it really was worth the extra couple of hours; the frame of the tunnel was perfect.

The road took us into the Park – they had a neat metal buffalo on the sign at this entrance – and onwards, stopping at the Norbeck Overlook for distant views of Mount Rushmore, to the Peter Norbeck Visitor Center. This is named for former South Dakota Governor, Peter Norbeck, who planned and surveyed most of the roads located within the park. The State Park offers the opportunity for kids to become Junior Naturalists. We picked up booklets and wandered around the exhibits in the Center. Thankfully there was a ‘pup’ book for Nathan so his requirements were far less demanding than those for the older three.

On the way home, we spotted the Crazy Horse Memorial, which is reasonably close to the road so we were able to get some pictures. Due to a lack of time this week, this will most likely be the closest we’ll get to it. We did read up on a few facts of how and when it got started and its continuation, seems like it has a long way to go yet!
• 1939 - Korczak Ziolkowski [core-chalk jewel-cuff-ski] a noted New England sculptor, first came to the Black Hills to help Gutzon Borglum on Mount Rushmore. That year Korczak also won first prize for a sculpture at the New York World's Fair. Chief Standing Bear read news reports of Korczak's achievements and invited him to create a mountainous tribute to the North American Indians.
• May 3, 1947 - Korczak Ziolkowski returned to the sacred Black Hills to create a monument of Crazy Horse.
• June 3, 1948 - First blast on the mountain. Five survivors of the Battle of the Little Bighorn attended.
• Crazy Horse Memorial is the world's largest mountain carving in progress.
• The Memorial's mission is to honor the culture, tradition and living heritage of North American Indians.
• It is being carved in the round and when completed it will be 641 feet long and 563 feet high.
• All four 60-foot high heads on Mt. Rushmore would fit inside just Crazy Horse's head.
• 1950 - Korczak married Ruth Ross.
• Korczak and Ruth had 10 children, five girls and five boys.
• Seven of the 10 children still work on the project.
• October 20, 1982 - Korczak died at age 74, leaving Ruth and family to carry on the dream. They continue it to this day; it is worked on year-round.

Custer State Park and Wind Cave National Park: Sunday, July 4th

2010-07-22T23:29:00.006-04:00

Happy July 4^th to all of our American friends. The kids were already at the playground pre-breakfast, due to the fact that apparently I wasn’t moving at a speedy enough pace! It didn’t help their cause that the men’s Wimbledon final was on the telly, congrats to Nadal for winning again, at least Murray can say that the Champion knocked him out; their match was much more exciting to watch.

Breakfast did eventually happen, mid-match, and all the kids disappeared back to the playground for a while until the thunder and rain began. It made for a miserable, dark morning but gave us a chance to get everything together for a late-start day trip.

We drove directly to Custer State Park to take the Needles Highway Scenic Drive through this beautiful area. We passed through three incredible tunnels, going directly through the rock, admiring Sylvan Lake and the amazing rock formations on each side of us: Little Devil’s Tower, Cathedral Spires and Needles Eye, although photos weren’t great due to the weather.

We passed the Blue Bell Lodge and Resort, had to get a photo of that sign; love anything 'Blue Bell', reminds us of home, and this one, with its bison picture and covered wagon was too good to ignore.

At the beginning part of the Wildlife Loop Road, there were fields of North American bison (more commonly known as buffalo – they are one and the same – as we learned in Yellowstone). As in Yellowstone, they wandered extremely close to the car, totally unconcerned by the number of people and vehicles around.

This guy made us giggle when we downloaded the pictures, walking along the road in front of us, more than happy to make us wait and then teased us as he looked around and stuck out his tongue!

We continued down Route 87 towards Wind Cave National Park, which shares its border with Custer State Park. On the way, we passed a beautiful pronghorn with clear signs of shedding, a number of deer, a yellow-bellied marmot (we recognized this as a groundhog) and eagle-eyed Nate spotted a couple of chipmunks (which he will insist on calling chickmunks!).

As we entered the National Park, we passed a small herd of pronghorn, Dave turned around so we could get better photos of them. For the last week, his truck window has been broken, if it goes down, it often won’t go back up, so taking photos out of his side has been curtailed – a hassle indeed! I’m not sure when we’re back in a busier area to try and get it replaced, not this week, small tourist towns and to be honest, too much to do and a certain lack of time!

I had read that weekends were the best time to visit this National Park, supposedly less busy. Entering the car park, we did not get that impression; obviously holiday weekends change that statistic. We knew in advance that there were frequent ranger-lead tours into the caves but they were not reservable prior to arrival. We were hoping to get on the 4:00 tour as it was around 3:30, unfortunately the earliest available they had was the Natural Entrance Tour at 5:30, so we paid for that, collected Junior Ranger books, watched the movie, had a quick look at the exhibits (more pictures of pictures for Dave!), and returned to the car for ‘linner’ and JR work.

The kids had their workbooks checked and were sworn in, right before the tour started. This was definitely one of those times that we were happy Jake works quickly and independently, his questions were tougher than the other threes and he got on with them and completed them well, learning (I think and hope!) along the way! This Park works in partnership with Kodak and takes photos of all their new Junior Rangers and posts them online, you can check our four out at: http://www.nps.gov/wica/forkids/junior-rangers-july.htm?eid=76720&root_aId=584#e_76720

Our tour began with Ranger Mikala showing us the tiny natural entrance of the cave, discovered in 1881 by two brothers after they heard a loud whistling sound, the story goes that as they got closer, one of them lost their hat, the force of the wind rushing out was so great. Depending on outside temperature and other barometric forces, wind is both sucked in and out – the Ranger did a test and it was being sucked in while we were there.

Thankfully, we were not expected to climb through this tiny gap and went in via a revolving door, down about 300 steps. The tour took us through some narrow and low tunnels to and through larger rooms: North Room, Post Office, Roe’s Misery, Devils Lookout, Methodist Church, Model Room and Assembly Room. An elevator returned us to the surface outside.

The most fascinating thing about Wind Cave is the boxwork, formed millions of years ago by various forces working at the time. It is non-regenerating, once it is taken, brushed off or even touched (it is incredibly fragile), it is gone forever. The Ranger helped us imagine how it happened by likening it to brickwork. If the bricks were slowly dissolved over a long period of time, only the mortar would remain, that’s pretty much what happened here, leaving these open ‘boxes’ with extremely thin layers of rock creating the lattice work; it really was spectacular to look at. 95% of the world’s boxwork is found in this cave, how privileged we felt to be seeing it.

The tour was so informative; between the Ranger and the movie we got a great overview of the history of the Park. A few years after the Bingham brothers discovered the cave, which is regarded as sacred by American Indians (and protected as the seventh oldest National Park since 1903); Alvin McDonald followed the wind and began to discover the cave’s extensive network of passageways containing boxwork, popcorn, and frostwork formations. Alvin was only 16 when he began exploring, his family would later give tours of the caves, sadly at the age of 20, he passed away from typhoid but lives on through his detailed and extensive journals of the cave system.

It is the 4^th longest cave in the world with 134 miles of cave chartered and explored on three levels, all within one square mile! At the beginning of the talk, the Ranger used Jake and another boy to demonstrate what this would look like, using a 134 inch long piece of string, having them wrap it up and then stuff it into an inch square plastic box – wow!

They’re pretty sure however that they’ve only explored about 5% of the cave, given the volume of air measured as it ‘breathes in and out’ (not entirely sure how that works but she sounded convincing!). Thanks to Alvin’s journals, they know there are still areas they haven’t found that he did and vice versa. Also, another family moved in nearby and their children would often explore with Alvin, one of the children, Katie, wrote her memoirs before she died, mentioning an amazing cave room with a rock that looked as though it had fallen from the ceiling, broken open and revealed some beautiful brown crystals. That room has yet to be discovered. Volunteers are allowed to explore the caves at certain times but once areas have been chartered, they are generally not explored again, opening up options instead for further exploration.

The Park was closing after we finished the tour, we just had time to briefly explore the downstairs exhibits: touching a piece of broken boxwork and checking out the 'flashlight' of yesteryear!

The Ranger had given us good info on where to view some local fireworks. We headed towards Custer and looked around for a lot of cars! After a DQ Blizzard (dinner/snack), we drove up to Pageant Hill (great views as the sun went down) and joined hundreds of other cars in a huge field. It was organized chaos, clearly this is a popular event and people had come very prepared with chairs, blankets, tailgating food and drink. The kids were running around in the open area, having a great time with multitudes of other kids also running around. Via their new friends, we met Elizabeth and Curtis (parents of said new friends!), from Minnesota, who offered us beers; can never turn down a beer at July 4^th Fireworks!

There was a live band playing while we were waiting and when The Custer Fire Department was ready to get started, they roll-called every state and asked people to cheer and honk their horns if they were from there; it was so cool, there were people from almost every state. This is definitely a ‘go to’ vacation destination from all areas.

The fireworks were amazing, so spectacular, Dave was excited to 'play' with all the settings on his new camera. The three younger kids sat with their new friends in their car trunk, Jake sat with his new friend, playing DS for the first 5 minutes – how they managed to focus on the screen when lights were exploding in the air, I’m really not sure! The show went on for about half an hour and finished with the National Anthem and grand finale; we were very impressed. Unfortunately getting out of the field area took longer than the show!

From North Dakota to South Dakota: Saturday, July 3rd

2010-07-20T17:48:00.000-04:00

Well, the main purpose of heading to Mount Rushmore on this specific weekend was to watch the fireworks over the famous carving; however, due to all the dead trees thanks to the horrible beetle attacks, and the subsequent fear of fire, the fireworks were cancelled this year. Regardless, that was the plan and helped us figure out our travel times, so South Dakota for the 4th it was!

We drove almost directly south, along single-lane roads, through yet more fields upon fields of crops, cows, some bison and sheep. It really is so pretty, I hope that it remains emblazoned in our memories.

We had a quick stop for lunch and stopped again for groceries once we reached Rapid City. We drove through the downtown area and were intrigued by the number of statues of people on almost every street corner – at all the major cross-intersections; there were three on the corners. Guess we need to do a bit of research as to why and who they all are.

This week finds us at Rafter J Bar Ranch just outside Hill City in South Dakota. This campground is huge but not overcrowded at all. Unlike many campgrounds who pack you in, this one has 5 sections of sites with large fields and rows of conifers in between. The campsites are extremely large and spacious, some of the biggest we’ve seen and driving around the area during the week, certainly one of the best. The pool and hot tub are set out of the way of campsites, with a large playground next to them.

As soon as we arrived, the kids whizzed off to the playground, I could see them in the distance but we were back to the radios for communication. Of course, too much fun was being had with new friends and great games of tag, capture the flag and nerf tag, to answer my call of ‘is everyone OK?’!

When I updated the blog map this evening, Karen’s comment of ‘the red’s really closing in’ definitely hit home – this is our 42nd state of the trip; hard to believe that we only have six left ….. and only six weeks remaining of our time on the road, well, for this part anyway!

Medora Campground: Friday, July 2nd

2010-07-20T17:39:00.000-04:00

A quiet day today, watched some soccer and some tennis; much disappointment from these Brits that Nadal knocked Murray out of the Wimbledon semi’s. The kids were happy to be allowed to rent ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’ from the campground store. Usually they’re thrilled just to be outside and playing but this week has been unbelievably warm, even by 10am, it was too much, two minutes of running and they came back in, red and panting!

Dave finished early and took them to the pool to cool off. It’s amazing how much I can get done without any distractions – achieved a lot, even managed to get some photos loaded onto the blog from last week, hard to believe, actual pictures! This is truly a challenge for me, there are so many fantastic ones, choosing just a few from each day is really tough.

The campground started filling up yesterday evening and by the end of the day, most sites had a trailer, tent or pop-up in it. It’s the big 4^th of July weekend, so we weren’t surprised. The new neighbors had two boys, aged 12 and 7 so ours disappeared off around the campground in the evening, with them, playing nerf tag – the increase in children everywhere has improved the general mood of the kids, a lot less mooching about!

Dave popped into town to get photos of the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame (perhaps would have visited here had the tennis not ruled our lives this week, sounded like it had some interesting exhibits), as well as some other interesting sights and the Chateau de Mores, that once belonged to the Marquis and his wife, Medora. There really was plenty to keep us occupied in this little town, we’d come back, an enjoyable week.

Back to the National Park and Medora Musical: Thursday, July 1st

2010-07-15T10:43:00.001-04:00

It’s July already?! The weeks seem to be speeding up, only 6 weeks of our journey left; we’re not ready to be finished yet – already planning the next one!

The children went off to play on the tennis courts quite early in the morning to avoid the heat and later, we enjoyed a quiet afternoon until Dave finished work. As we had been able to exchange our tickets for a repeat performance of the Medora Musical this evening, we persuaded the younger two to rest, instructing them that they could not come out until 3:25pm at the earliest – yep, dead on 3:25, they appeared – clearly Nate has learned his number recognition very well this year!

We drove out to the National Park again to complete a couple more short hiking trails and have the kids sworn in as Junior Rangers. As we drove around a corner, there were two wild horses prancing in the middle of the road, totally unperturbed by our arrival, they just carried on as if we weren’t there! All of us were staring out of the window, Dave was able to drive slowly around them but they didn’t move out of the roadway at all, just ignored us completely.

The first hike was the steep Ridgeline Nature trail. This one was not dissimilar to Coal Vein Trail that we did a couple of days earlier; it highlighted a few of the same informational tidbits, focusing on ecology.

Driving along, Dave spotted a mule deer disappearing into the valley, he jumped out for a photo; we never get tired of spotting wildlife!

The second was the short Wind Canyon Nature Trail. This led us on a walk up a ridge, leading to a fantastic view of the Little Missouri River and the wind-sculpted canyon; it was wonderful, I think we could have foregone either of the others just in favor of this – so if you’re visiting Theodore Roosevelt National Park and your time is brief, take this little wander up the hill, most definitely worth the view.

On the drive out, we spotted a lone bison up on the ridge, it created a neat silhouette against the evening skyline.

At 8pm, we drove up to the Medora Musical site once again. It’s very well organized and utilizes its location perfectly, providing escalators to take you down to the ‘bowl’ where the seating and stage area is, the escalators then switch directions to be able to take you back up.

Thankfully, there were no storms and no rain this evening and we were able to enjoy the entire performance. As well as these alternate tickets, we were given two free tickets to use at any other time this season or next. Dave sold these to another family at the campground for less than half price, a win-win all around!

The Coal Diggers were the musical group playing throughout the musical, who had also entertained us at the fondu dinner. Two of their members were from England so we chatted with them after the show. There were 11 ‘Burning Hill Singers’, plus 3 other stars: Buffalo Dale, Buffalo Alice (Becca thought she was awesome and gave her a huge hug afterwards) and Theodore Roosevelt who made up the cast.

I enjoyed the tap dancing number, Becca thought the battle was the best part, Caitlin liked the wedding. We understood why the two elk (they were there again!) were moved on from their location in the background prior to the beginning of the show, during the second half, fireworks were set off out in the field, as part of the battle scene, they would have been terrified!

Part of the second half also included a ‘featured attraction’, this month was Dave Crowe, a comedian, with a BBC review: ‘Crowe delivers a brilliant combination of saucy intellectualism and physical buffoonery. The result is a totally original style of brain-bending jocularity.’ He was laugh-out-loud funny, certainly more geared to the 10+ crowd, Jake was in absolute hysterics, he really thought he was awesome, Becca, on the other hand, kept asking, ‘why are you laughing?’!

After the show, the actors were available to chat with, of course, we met many of them. Jake made a beeline for the comedian to tell him how great he thought he was. Come to find out, his Mum was from Scunthorpe – got to love that British humor! He was chatting with Jake about the World Cup, coming up with some great comedic input, Jake was giggling away when we left.

So, an 11pm bedtime but absolutely worth it. There were also fewer kids in the audience tonight so it was easier to see ours when they went on stage. One of the reasons we had originally chosen Wednesday was because kids attend the Musical free on Wednesdays and Sundays. Thankfully that carried over to Thursday for us because of the cancellation. We would definitely recommend a visit if you’re ever in Medora, the show changes each year so people repeat visit annually.

Medora Musical: Wednesday, June 30th

2010-07-13T13:02:00.003-04:00

Wimbledon is experiencing quite a few early upsets this year. We were sad to see Federer lose in the quarters this morning but happy to see Murray make it through against Tsonga. Given the exposure to tennis in the last few days, the kids went to the office to request tennis racquets and a ball, then headed over to the courts to play a little bit. It was so hot though, half an hour was enough running around for them and they returned to the a/c of the camper, collapsing through the door, red-faced and begging for water!

We went to the community pool in the afternoon, which is kind of attached to the campground but open for use by anyone. We had to pay a small $ amount for the privilege, given that the temperature was up to 95°, it was definitely worth it. Unfortunately there was no shade so I curled myself up under the umbrella I brought with me! About an hour after we arrived, a bus full of teenagers descended, I counted almost 60 of them, the pool was pretty small so with those people already in there, it left little water space once they all jumped in! The kids didn’t seem to mind too much. Instead of swimming, Jake went to play tennis against the wall; needless to say, he was a sweaty mess on his return! This was another place with a bizarre rule of clearing the pool for 15 minutes every hour; Caitlin painted with water and the other two rested in the tiny bit of water by the side of the pool, on the hour, kids jumped in from every direction, it was chaos!

We all showered and smartened up before leaving for the Pitchfork Steak Fondue and Medora Musical. The fondue location was on a bluff at the Tjaden Terrace, overlooking the picturesque badlands. We arrived reasonably early (shocker!) and found a great seat to watch some of the Musical cast members sing some western melodies. The nationally acclaimed Pitchfork Steak Fondue is a ‘traveler’s delight.’ Each evening the chefs load steaks onto pitchforks and fondue them western style – it was very cool to see lines of pitchforks with raw meat speared onto them (says the vegetarian!). I ordered a meat option too because the kids generally prefer proper meat to the kiddie hot dog option - there were plenty of other things for them to enjoy too, including dessert.

Prior to the Musical, there was time to wander around, admiring the great views of Medora below. Unfortunately, although we were only across the road from the campground, a large hill obscured our view of it, would’ve been neat to have taken a photo of our camper from this vantage point. While we were taking a photo of the kids, a lady came over and told Nate this if he smiled well, she would give him a dollar! It sure worked, he super-beamed but then the other kids were less than impressed!

The magazine’s paragraph on the Medora Musical: The all new Medora Musical will be performed nightly from June to September at 8:30pm. Enjoy family entertainment while in the outdoor splendor of the North Dakota Badlands in the 2,852 seat Burning Hills Amphitheatre. This professionally produced, high energy, Western style musical is proudly dedicated to the legacy of America’s 26^th President, Theodore Roosevelt, and the time he spent here in North Dakota’s Badlands. Each show pays tribute to American patriotism and the old-west way of life. Audiences are treated to an exciting array of song and dance routines performed by the Burning hills singers and accompanied by the on-stage band, the Coal Diggers. The Musical is fun for the whole family and offers a breathtaking extravaganza of fireworks, horses, and outstanding professional entertainment. Kids are invited on stage to join in the fun at every performance.

While we were waiting for the show to start, we watched a couple of elk in the fields behind the stage. A short while before it began, a cowboy on horseback came through and moved them along, we were to realize later the next day that they were moved along for good reason.

Throughout the awesome first half, in which the kids were called up on stage, we were also treated to a massive lightening storm taking place in the background. The sky got gradually darker towards intermission and by the time the break arrived, small raindrops started falling. We were all hopeful that the storm would pass but after a few minutes, the director came on to announce that the storm was definitely heading our way and they would have to cancel the rest of the performance. We filed out with the masses and sat in the truck while Dave took pictures and videoed the incoming spectacular storm! Thankfully we arrived back at the camper just in time to escape the worst of the rain.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park: Tuesday, June 29th

2010-07-10T00:52:00.002-04:00

Dragged the kids, bleary-eyed, from their beds at 8:30 because the Opela’s were getting ready to leave and they would never have forgiven us if they’d missed saying Goodbye. After they left, it was one of the rare times that we told Becca she was not allowed to go back to bed, even though she wanted to, late night much?!

They worked on their journals and Junior Ranger books. It was certainly a morning to stay inside, the temperature got up to about 94° and with little breeze or shade outside, stepping from the camper was like walking into an oven.

After Dave finished work, we drove over to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, named for the 26th President of the United States; it covers 110 square miles of breathtaking vistas in the savagely beautiful North Dakota Badlands. We arrived in time for a short tour around the Maltese Cross Cabin. Ranger Kevin gave us some good information about its original occupant. Theodore Roosevelt first arrived to hunt buffalo in September 1883, immediately fell in love with the land, and invested in cattle raising. He returned here from New York after the deaths of his mother and wife on Valentine’s Day, shortly after the birth of his daughter. The cabin was too close to the throughway and he received too many visitors in his time of grieving so he requested a location much further away and moved out to Elkhorn, where he enjoyed the peace and quiet of the land.

In 1901 Roosevelt, at age 42, became the youngest president in US history, serving until 1909. He called his years in the badland ‘the romance of my life,’ and often credited his Dakota experiences with enabling him to become president, saying, after he left the Presidency, “I never would have been President if it had not been for my experiences in North Dakota.”

The park allows visitors to learn about an environment and way of life that helped shape Theodore Roosevelt’s attitudes and philosophy regarding conservation. The prospect of big game hunting had initially brought Roosevelt to the West. But when he returned, the last large herds of bison were gone, having been decimated by hide hunters and disease. By spending time in the Dakota Territory, he became alarmed by the damage that was being done to the land and its wildlife. He witnessed the destruction of some big gamed species. Overgrazing destroyed the grasslands and with them the habitats for small mammals and songbirds. Conservation increasingly became one of Roosevelt’s major concerns. When he became President in 1901, Roosevelt pursued his interests in conservation and resource protection by establishing the US Forest Service and by signing the 1906 Antiquities Act under which he proclaimed 18 national monuments. He also established 5 national parks, 51 Federal Bird Reservations, 4 National Game Preserves, and 150 National Forests. By the end of his presidency, he had protected 230,000,000 acres of public land!

The children learned quite a bit through their Junior ranger books, for example, a New York City toy company decided to name a toy in honor of him, Teddy is a nickname for Theodore, hence ‘teddy-bear’ came into being. They also learned about the branding of cattle and the different symbols associated with the ranches of the time, along with the fact that cattle of multiple different ranches would graze together, hence the need for branding. A reminder of what they saw in the Petrified Forest was the large trunk base of a petrified cypress tree in the Visitor Center.

There is a 36 mile loop around the South Unit of the park, we are 70 miles from the North Unit. We checked out the Skyline Vista and River Woodland Overlook, then drove past a number of Prairie Dog Towns, fields of little mud piles of prairie dog ‘houses’, with little heads popping up and little brown critters running across the grass. At the Badlands Overlook, another girl was there, taking a picture with her 'roaming gnome'! She squealed when she saw Caitlin's, both she and Dave took pictures with them together! As we continued on, we passed lone bison wandering along the road side. They seemed a little scrawnier here than in Yellowstone, and the kids commented, "Oh, just one, where's the herd?" Yellowstone and Grand Teton have spoiled us for wildlife!

Our next stop was to hike the Coal Vein Trail. Prominent throughout the badlands are layers of brick-red rock, locally called ‘scoria’ but more properly termed clinker. Scoria, a dark, cinder-like lava, is not found in this region, which has never been volcanically active. Not so obvious are the bands of black lignite coal. The two materials are related. As far back as 9,000 years ago, exposed coal periodically caught fire, occasionally burning for decades. The heat from these fires baked the overlying rocks, reddening them and making them harder. The effects of a fire that burned here for 26 years (1951-1977) can be seen along the Coal Vein Trail.

As we followed the trail around, we also learned about how the land collapsed as the coal below the ground burned away, about the thick grayish-blue layer on the hillside being bentonite, also formed by fire and an excellent home for black widow spiders! We could find the beginning and ending point of the coal seam fire, this one was started by lightning – burning coal seams are a natural process in the badlands, apparently people roasted marshmallows on the glowing embers.

We also learned about lichens, consisting of two different kinds of plants – fungus and alga – the algae produce food and the fungi obtain water, they break down rocks into soil. Due to their sensitivity to impurities, park lichens have been studied to detect possible air pollution from area industries. The north facing slopes are cooler in the summer and dense vegetation on this side provides needed resting places for bird life and larger mammals.

Our last spot to look at was a large chunk of clinker: small pieces of ‘scoria’ were cemented together by exceptionally high heat. Over thousands of years, the action of water, wind and plants will slowly break down the formation. It was a great little mile trail.

From here, we continued our scenic drive, climbing to the top of Bunk Hill, only 100 yards (Jake let the kids know that was only the distance of a football field!) but extremely steep. It was incredibly windy at the top, however the views were truly incredible, such a vast expanse of land, covered with bumps of rock, buttes and stark areas of erosion.

We stopped at Boicourt Overlook on the way back, glimpsed wild horses in the distance, as well as a herd of pronghorn, a lone deer in the middle of another prairie dog town, an almost skinny-looking bison (look at those ribs!) and passed Peaceful Valley, the site of a horse ranch during the 1880’s heyday of cattle ranching, now the location for saddle horse rides throughout the park. The number of prairie dogs running around on the way out was crazy!

Medora: Monday, June 28th

2010-07-09T21:17:00.000-04:00

Dave needed to work today, which was a shame, given the limited time we’d be seeing the Opela’s, we enjoyed some Wimbledon, while the kids played in and outside. It got progressively hotter during the day so the boys even got to play wii a little bit. I went to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park to collect Junior Ranger books and check out the Visitor Center, it was right by the campground, which was perfect.

Later in the afternoon, we went into Medora. The town of Medora was founded in April 1883 by a 24-year-old French nobleman, the Marquis de Mores. He named the town for his bride, the former Medora von Hoffman, daughter of a wealthy New York City banker.

General Alfred Sully fought the Sioux in 1864 a few miles south of the present site of Medora, in what became known as “The Battle of the Badlands.” Lieutenant-Colonel George Custer passed through in 1876 on his fatal march west to the Little Bighorn.

It’s a quaint little tourist town, lots of shops filled with things you want but really don’t need (and in our case, or have the space for!). One area kept the kids enthralled for a while with a bison and ATV they could climb on. The campground employee had told us that we could see taffy being made at the Taffy Shop so we went there as we wandered slowly around. The machine cutting and wrapping the taffy was very cool. We were all fascinated, it was 78 years old, spat out one wrapped taffy every second and on average was used to produce 36,000 in a day! Of course, we had to buy some, it seemed only right; they were good!

The purpose of visiting the town had been to get ice cream so the kids were really pushing for that. We stopped in at the playground, which appeased them briefly, but not for long. The adults were pushed towards the Medora Fudge and Ice Cream Depot at a pretty fast pace. It was worth it, delicious, the mixed berry version was perfect. We sat outside under an absolutely enormous umbrella, a relaxing way to spend the afternoon.

Directly next to the campground, in Chimney Park, was the old meat packing plant, built in 1883 by Marquis de Mores. He also built a large home (Chateau de Mores) with financial backing from his father-in-law. Despite his vision and energy, all of his various enterprises ended in financial failure by the fall of 1886. The couple and their children returned to France, the Marquis continued his adventurous lifestyle and was killed by native tribesmen on the Sahara Desert in Africa in June 1896. His widow, Medora, never remarried and died in France in 1921.

There was still just about evidence of the old buildings but the chimney stack still stood tall in the middle of the field. It was interesting reading the story and learning that the town is only here because of the Marquis’ visions.

Phil had found an ‘app’ for Ellen’s phone which quickly located nearby geocaches and with the built-in GPS, we were able to successfully find two, one right by the Little Missouri River that runs along side the campground, tucked under the bridge, the other was a simple find by Nathan in a field between two logs, he was super excited.

There was a train track reasonably close to the campground (clearly land is not as easy to sell near tracks for housing, it's therefore perfect for campgrounds!), while we were caching, one came past. Nate still loves his trains!

Once back, the kids played inside for a while before grabbing all the Nerf guns and heading back to the playground for war games. The teams had a good number by the end of the evening, all sorts of other kids joined in. Ellen had given them head torches/flashlights so they were running around with those on as well. Tearing them away for showers was painful. While we were sitting outside chatting, these awesome motorbikes came by, almost half bike/half car.

Jake begged to be allowed another half hour of wii time with Carson “because I’ll never see him again”, we acquiesced, suckers for those puppy dog eyes! They were both happy.

From Little Bighorn to Medora: Sunday, June 27th

2010-07-09T19:21:00.001-04:00

An English family from Cornwall was camping next door to us; they were travelling in a rented Class C for a month, from west to east. Dave invited them, Paul and Mags, over to come and watch the England vs Germany World Cup match. They had a son, Robert, who was Jake’s age and a daughter Lisa, aged 8. Jake and Robert chatted about the players, Lisa went out to play with our girls in the play area, while we chatted and watched in growing disappointment until the end, with a result of 4-1 in Germany’s favor (there was a disallowed English goal which was much disputed later!). The Valentine 'England shirts' didn't do much to help, but the ice creams afterwards consoled them for sure!

We eventually rolled out of the campground a little before lunch and made it to Medora before 5pm, passing the beautiful mountains with their varying colored layers of rock, as well as a hay baling wagon (swiftly taken picture!). Nate was being a total 'dude' in the car, he is loving his mohawk and rocking 'the cool look'! The Opela’s had just arrived about 15 minutes before us. They were in the midst of moving from Virginia to Montana and their drive across country coincided with our location for a couple of days – well, they fanangled it to coincide, thank you Phil and Ellen!

Carson quickly fit in with our kids and the five of them were off and running: Nerf gun wars, games and fun. We sat outside and proceeded to get bitten by the horrible mossies.

From Flagg Ranch to Little Bighorn: Saturday, June 26th

2010-07-09T18:46:00.001-04:00

Happy 2nd Birthday to our adorable little niece, Jasmine, can’t believe it’s been a year since they flew home from visiting us, at least we got to spend her 1^st birthday with her, not that she’ll remember but our four certainly do.

Unfortunately we didn’t get going quite as quickly as we had wanted, due to the multiple trips over to the toilet block – Dave had duck taped ours shut just in case anyone forgot it was unusable!

Regardless, we got going around 8:30 and took a couple of hours to reach the east entrance of Yellowstone, unfortunately in the rain, so not the greatest of views and none of the wildlife others had seen on this stretch. Despite the weather, there were long lines waiting to get in. It’s been a wonderful National Park, definitely one of our favorites, seeing all of the wildlife has been fantastic.

We passed through Buffalo Bill State Park and headed into more desert-looking mountains, through some quaint little towns, including Cody, and many miles of nothing but mountains and green fields, punctuated by the occasional oil rig and long train. Although this made for a pretty drive, the downside is there is a complete lack of cell service, so trying to touch base with friends and family was a bit of a challenge. Having had no cell reception in Flagg Ranch all week, it was really time to try and make some calls.

We stopped in at Billings for groceries and were finally successful in getting Becca’s prescription. It was quite a shocker as we’re paying less for medical insurance this year, the flip side being that our deductible is huge – her advair was $170! I scrimped on the groceries a bit as a consequence. We also found an RV store and secured a new toilet – yay! In the distance we could see an enormous, fluffy cloud with a fairly isolated rain storm coming down from it, we thought it was very cool!

On the way to 7^th Ranch campground, we had to pass very close to the entrance of Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Our intention was to stop in quickly, get Junior Ranger books and continue on our way. Unfortunately, as this is such a busy weekend at this NP site, it being the anniversary of the battle, with reenactments taking place in nearby Hardin, parking was unavailable for an RV. The Ranger told us to carry on in and complete the 10 mile loop through the Battlefields before parking on the return.

The loop was very informative; we were given a point by point brochure that outlined the importance of each stop, so I played tour guide! As we started up the hill, we spotted some re-enactment soldiers crossing the river on horseback. A little further on, we saw wild horses prancing in the field and then overhead, a small plane flew by, nothing to do with the Battlefield but held the kids attention for a while.

We were able to read about and see the ways the troops were split up and aimed to attack the Indians in the valley below, beside the river. Convinced that the Indians had spotted the

army, Custer called for the attack despite being unknowingly outnumbered. Two thirds of his troops ended up being marooned on a ridge 5 miles from Custer’s position, so were of no assistance to him, as you can see, the rolling hills made it impossible to have a clear view of the open area. Many of these troops were saved by a doctor assigned to their unit and by volunteers willing to risk Indian attack by running down to the river for water (you can see how far away that was from the photo). In the end, the Indians cleared out of the valley and moved on, following the trail of the buffalo. However, the US army didn’t dare move on until they were convinced the coast was clear, fearing a trick.

By the time they reached Custer’s Last Stand Hill, there were no men remaining of Custer’s troops. They had also killed all of their horses to create a barrier behind which they could seek some refuge before they were eventually killed. Of the 400+ troops that arrived on June 25^th, only 175 remained by the end of the battles on June 27^th. Jake was very interested in the story, the battle, the different stand-off points and the memorials to those killed. Everything is presented very well with sympathetic viewpoints from both sides.

We went into the Visitor Center from the Hill, Dave having managed to secure a parking spot, toured the exhibits and watched the informative short movie showcasing the movements of both troops and the events as they would likely have unfolded over the two days.

The children completed their Junior Ranger programs, learning that the US Army had Indian Scouts on their side from two other tribes. The US Army’s intention had been to move the Indians to a settlement in the Dakotas but when they left, they moved themselves north into British Columbia. The children did really well on their Junior Ranger programs, considering it was 7:30 by the time they were being sworn in, we’d spent most of the day in the truck and they hadn’t had dinner yet!

7^th Ranch campground is set on a hillside, overlooking the Battlefield, it’s a beautiful location, unfortunately with a train track running reasonably close-by – wake up calls at both ends of the night! A free ice cream came with check-in, which the kids were thrilled to run in and collect (dinner??). We wandered up the driveway to the campground, passing all the incredible bird houses on the fence posts on the way, while Dave followed the escort to the site.

The kids immediately ran off to play tether ball and in the sandpit with a number of other kids who were staying. We were greeted to open cupboards and broken glass and mugs in the camper, which must have happened between Billings and Little Bighorn. There ensued an hour of cleanup, broken glass travels pretty far in a moving camper – it was everywhere! We’re wondering whether the cupboard latches are getting loose, as this had never happened before.

So, a long day with a late night, but that seems to be the norm of late, we haven’t managed a normal bedtime for over a week, they’re all hanging in there though, we can tell it’s summer, flexibility is upon us. The bonus of being outside in the late evening at this campground was the spectacular sunset on one side of the valley and pink clouds over the camper on the other. Once any light was gone, the stars in this enormous open area were incredible.

Grand Teton: Friday, June 25th

2010-07-08T13:21:00.003-04:00

Dave got up and was out of the camper before 7am. He was eager to get down to Schwabacher Road to capture the reflection picture in the water of the mountains and trees that is often seen on the cover of Grand Teton photography books. It was definitely worth his while, the photos came out beautifully.

As an added bonus, on his way in, a grizzly was wandering along the side of the road. He was able to capture it wonderfully. At one point, it was within 5 feet of his open car window, he said it made him a tad nervous so he put the car in gear and was ready to put his foot on the gas pedal, should it have got any closer! A little too much wildlife for my liking! Look at the 7th picture, do you see the claws? Dave went through the photos and deleted a lot of the bear ones, when I came to decide which ones to use in here, I still had 41 to choose from....this gives you an idea of how many photos are taken each day!

Late afternoon, we all headed back to that same point in hopes of seeing beaver as there is a large beaver lodge there. On the way in, we stopped at the newly, renovated sign area. While they were re-paving the road, the sign had been removed completely so it was great to be one of the first to stand by it - it smelt new!

It really is an incredibly peaceful spot and not a terribly well-known or marked one in the Park, so, rarely crowded. While we were sitting watching the water, an elk appeared through the forest and just stared at us, it was a great moment. Along the path on the way to this point, Caitlin spotted a snake, on the way back, many, many ground squirrels criss-crossed in front of us, lots of little tunnels all over the place.

The Teke Family from Outbackers had let us know they were also in the area this week. Our paths weren’t crossing at the beginning of the week, when we were in Yellowstone, they were in Grand Teton and vice-versa. Today, they were staying at Signal Mountain campground, which wasn’t very far out of our way, so we stopped in to see them. While we chatted with Dan and Rachel, the kids played with their 9 year old daughter, Sydney. There are no hook-ups here, so they had a good fire going for their dinner and to deter the mosquitoes. Today was a particularly bad mosquito day; we weren’t outside very much and still went through a container of spray! There were a couple of mule deer wandering around in the woods behind the campsite, totally unconcerned by the number of people around.

By the time we left them, it was almost 9. We had promised the kids ice cream for dinner as we’d had a late breakfast and very early dinner. The day ended up being a little longer than we had planned, especially as we saw another bear on the drive out of the Park and needed another moon photo – the joy of travelling and flexibility!

Dave had spent the afternoon fixing a leak on the toilet but thinks he may have over-tightened it slightly because when we got back, it cracked (unfortunately, while I was sitting on it, clearly spent the next day as the ‘butt’ of a few family jokes!). This was less than perfect timing, given that we had wanted to quickly pack up and be ready to leave early in the morning. So, instead of packing, Dave had to try and figure out an RV store on our route that might have a toilet we could buy, sigh, nothing quite goes the way we’d hoped (and just goes to show that life still throws those curve balls occasionally)!

Yellowstone’s North Drive: Thursday, June 24th

2010-07-07T11:52:00.001-04:00

After a very late night, we had an equally late start to the day. We watched the recorded England match from the day before and were happy that they managed to come away with a 1-0 win. The assumption was that England topped the group with Slovenia taking second, but it was not to be, one minute after extra time, the USA scored in the other match so they ended up top of the group with England second – there was great joy in the camper after we finished watching those games!

Dave and I had been discussing what we wanted to do these last two days. He had been keen to do the North East drive, which many people had recommended, however, our final decision was that, it was probably too far to drive simply to try and see more wildlife. Of course, as is so often the case, after having a quick chat with the Ranger, the lure of more animals got the better of him and the ‘no’ decision was reversed in favor of the drive! We hustled for a quick lunch, packed some food and were back on the road through Yellowstone by about 3pm. At this point, I think the truck might be able to take itself on this route all by itself! Nate finds a way to keep himself occupied in the truck, feet up, sucking a pop, watching a movie, not a bad life really!

We stopped to get a picture of the tree seemingly growing all by itself in the middle of the lake.

We took the couple of hours drive back up to Tower-Roosevelt, getting some great photos of a black bear in the woods on the way, then drove eastwards to the Northeast Entrance near Cooke City. Lamar Valley is extremely vast with a lot of open meadowland. We saw multiple herds of bison and a few pronghorns. Our hope was that we would see some wolves in this area but we were unlucky in our search.

We drove past Ice Box Canyon, a really deep gorge with a lot of ice on the rocky walls. This stretch of roadway didn’t really have any major points of interest marked on the map, although there were quite a few that we felt should have been. When we got to the main entrance, just a little way beyond the border into Montana, we asked the Ranger if she knew of a good place to see wolves. She told us that a ranger had just headed into the park in a yellow truck with lots of antenna, when he was around, it meant wolves were about because he had radio transmitters for two of the males in the pack.

Sure enough we caught up with him, first of all passing a couple of different groups of people with their spotter scopes trained on both grizzly and black bears – even with our binoculars (finally, we had remembered them, need to leave them in the truck!), we could barely make out a little brown speck, and that was only when it moved! The Ranger told us to follow him to Slough Creek campground area. When we arrived, there were already a few people set up; a couple of cars had been there for 3 hours! There was a wolf den up on the hill so all lenses were trained on the cave opening. Unfortunately while we were there, nothing appeared and time was really pressing along, so we had to give up the wait.

As predicted, it was another late night, although the kids are tired and quite grotty on these long drives, they do love the chance to watch movies, the chance of seeing wildlife is a bonus!

Geysers in Yellowstone: Wednesday, June 23rd

2010-07-06T18:54:00.005-04:00

Determined to start the day even earlier today, Dave had everyone up before 7am! This was to be an almost 15 hour day away from our home on wheels, thank goodness for the somewhat more restful day yesterday. It was worth going in so early to see the fog slowly lifting over the water (and another elk resting in the trees).

We had a pretty good plan of action organized, thanks to the National Parks book, which had given a detailed description of things to see between Old Faithful and Mammoth Hot Springs. We made a beeline for Old Faithful (stopping only at the pretty Kepler Cascades), getting to that point in just over an hour. The Visitor Center there has predictions for this famous geyser’s eruptions, as well as others in the area. The next time on the schedule was 9:08am +/- 10 minutes.

We found a good spot on the front row of (still-wet) benches and waited, after some false-starts, some spitting teasers, it finally went off about 9:20 and kept going for almost 4 minutes. It was spectacular but the water height was somewhat camouflaged by the amount of steam and the direction of the wind. It was great to finally see something we’d really been waiting to get to.

There are a number of different geysers within walking distance of Old Faithful. We were excited to see Castle Geyser in the distance really spurting water for over 20 minutes! This one only goes off about every 14 hours so we had unknowingly timed it just right to see it. We walked the mile-loop around the small geysers. We thought Anemone Geyser was cool, it goes off for about a minute, to quite a low height, we could then clearly watch the water draining back down into the hole and as it re-heated, it went off again after about 10 minutes.

We continued around the loop, looking at: Plume Geyser, Beehive Geyser, Heart Spring, Lion Group (4 little geysers: mama, papa, big cub, little cub!), Aurum Geyser, Doublet Pool (two linked beautiful pools), Giantess Geyser. There were some different shapes and sizes of the geysers, some great colors of the different bacteria mats. Thermophiles, tiny microorganisms, live around the hot ground areas and contribute to these beautifully landscaped colors. The hottest areas are a deep blue, slowly cooling to around the edge through yellow, green, orange and brown.

We took a quick walk back to the outside area of the Visitor Center to listen to Ranger Sam (an ex-teacher) talk about bison. This was a program specifically geared towards the Junior Ranger age group, so the kids were all enthralled. We learned a lot about the bison, they are enormous animals, their babies are born at an already heavy 35lbs and are up and walking within 4 hours. Although, as they plod around, you feel as though they are very slow-moving, they actually have the ability to run at a sustained pace of 30mph for hours on end, thanks to their large leg bones.

They also have enormous paddle-like shoulder blades which assist with holding up their long hump bones. Huge muscles attach to these bones to help handle the incredible weight of their heads. They use those huge heads to sweep back and forth through the snow during the winter to find grass, hiding beneath the 3+ feet of snow. They have an incredible sense of smell; this is how they manage to find grass in the winter. The Ranger had a couple of different dried ‘scat’ piles for the kids to examine. In the summer they dry to a flat disk, which the Pioneers would collect as they trundled along in their wagons and then use to burn when they arrived at their destination and needed fire. In the winter, due to less-moisture, the scat heaps are quite different-looking and can be seen in the Park all around the geyser flats, where they head to find some respite from the cold. During the time of the Indians, every single part of the bison was carefully used to their advantage.

We also listened to some stories about the bison in the Park. They do periodically wander through the Old Faithful area. One such time, the Rangers had to come out of the Visitor Center and keep those around the geyser in place and stop anyone coming through as the herd meandered through the middle. Another time, during his Ranger program, a lone bull came through. The Ranger keeps a bison fur on one of the heavy benches so the kids can feel it and stroke it. This time, as the bison came through, he obviously caught the smell of the fur, kind of butted it a couple of times with his head, shuffled around, pawing at the ground and finally butted it, full-force, with his horns and easily flipped the concrete weighted bench fully over! He also spoke of how dangerous it is to be on the receiving end of an attack, one man who got too close, received such a gash from a bison horn, he was given 120 stitches on the back of his leg. Occasionally a seemingly-gentle herd gets spooked and starts stampeding through. A Ranger just leaving the area on her bike was caught in the middle, she stopped and stayed very still, they stormed past her and she escaped unharmed. It was a good reminder that although the animals are generally unconcerned by cars and human presence, they are still wild and can turn quite suddenly.

After the program, the kids sat on the benches and completed the last parts of their Junior Ranger programs before we went inside to have them checked. The two little ones received a patch with a wolf paw print, the older two, a patch with a bear print. The Ranger was very impressed that this was their 43rd completed program.

As we came out, Old Faithful was supposed to be going off again within a few minutes. Once again, it was a good 10 minutes beyond its predicted 90. The number of people present for this eruption was at least triple of the earlier one, people were standing 4 deep; Dave found a good spot for the video camera and this time, the wind was blowing in a different direction and we had a much more clear view of the water, which was incredibly forceful. I’m glad we got to see this second one, what an incredible sight.

We drove the short distance to Black Sand Basin Area and watched Cliff Geyser go off, another smaller, but quite dramatic, geyser. Once again, we walked the loop, admiring the pools, particularly Sunset Lake, Rainbow Pool and Emerald Pool. Our intention was then to see the Biscuit Basin area; unfortunately this trail was currently closed. We bypassed that and went directly to the Midway Geyser Basin to view the Grand Prismatic Spring. By now, the crowds were really out in force, the lines for the bathrooms were unbelievable! I guess this is the downside of visiting these more accessible areas with short boardwalk loops – everyone can see them and walk around, so everyone does!

From Midway, we drove to the Lower Geyser Basin area (passing bison on the road) to check out the Fountain Paint Pot, this is one of the interesting areas with bubbling mud. In the spring, it is reasonably watery because of all the snow-melt but still looks cool with grayish mud spluttering and bubbling in a huge pool. Probably the best time to see it is in the summer when the mud gets much thicker and huge globules of mud spit out and create rippling holes. Everything pretty much dries up by the autumn and the cycle begins again.

One of my most favorite sights of the day was around this Lower Geyser loop. A beautiful, constantly spraying geyser, surrounded by a rainbow of bacteria mat means that seeing regular fountains will never hold the appeal they once had. I think it was called Celpsydna Geyser, of course, this was the one place that we did not pick up a brochure for! It was incredibly pretty, such a great reminder of the beauty of nature.

There was quite a line waiting to get into the Madison area, nothing to do with the bison wandering along the road, so we took an extra little loop to see the Firehole Falls, they were pretty, didn’t gain us a jump on the traffic though unfortunately! It was neat to see so many fly-fishermen along the way, often waist-deep in the water.

We bypassed the Madison Information Station and headed up towards Norris, admiring the elk as we went, intending to stop at Gibbon Falls. Unfortunately this entire area is being completely re-done and roadworks were in full effect. We had quite a wait to be escorted through the chaos, it will be wonderful when it is finished but that is quite a way off yet, I’m sure the area will be crazy during the summer. We had to laugh, while we were waiting in line, the driver of the car in front, turned off his engine, got out to have a smoke, when the line began to move, he jumped back in and obviously couldn’t find his keys! Things went flying in the car as he threw things to the back seat in his hunt, including the dog! Eventually he put his hazards on and everyone had to drive around him as the Ranger came up to check whether he needed break-down assistance – kind of embarrassing, lesson learned: if you turn off your engine, just leave the keys, ready to go again, in the ignition!

Once past all of the roadworks, we stopped in at the Norris Geyser Basin to see Steamboat Geyser. When it goes off, it rises to 2 or 3 times the height of Old Faithful; unfortunately it is extremely unpredictable and rarely erupts. The last time was in May of 2005, prior to that, it was 1991. When it goes off, all the water from the Lake below it empties and takes a couple of days to refill, can you imagine being the privileged person who gets to witness this rare phenomenon? Jake was hopeful that it would just start going while we were watching – not that it wasn’t active, it was spitting water about 10 feet high, which was dramatic enough! Further up the pathway was another pretty Emerald Pool, an incredible 27 feet deep, given their small circumference on the top, it’s hard to believe how far these pools go down.

From Norris, we drove north towards Mammoth Hot Springs, stopping at Roaring Mountain, which wasn’t quite as impressive as we had anticipated. Steaming fumeroles spout from the steep mountain side and make a kind of snoring noise against their white backdrop, in any other place, this probably would’ve seemed incredible, but because of everything we’d already seen, it was less remarkable, how spoiled we’ve become!

It was along this route, through Willow Park, that we saw our first (official – remember the Tetons debate?!) grizzly bear, right after watching a coyote cross the road in front of us. This time, there was no mistaking exactly what it was. We got some great pictures, it wasn’t too far from the road and wandered along, parallel to the road, not close enough that we were in danger, but not so far that we couldn’t clearly see it. It was so exciting, we kind of followed along with it, at times, it stopped in open grassland so we had very clear views of it. It totally made our day! Dave clambering out the sunroof for photos was also quite entertaining!

A couple of miles further up, we stopped to see what the next lot of commotion was about and were treated to the sight of a mama black bear and her cub up in a tree. After a few minutes, mama bear climbed down, leaving her cub clinging to the trunk, we stayed for a while but the cub just stayed where it was and mama wandered off into the forest.

Our next stop was the Mammoth Hot Springs Trail. For hundreds of years, Shoshone and Bannock people collected minerals from Mammoth Hot Springs for white paint. These minerals contribute to the beautiful terrace structures, along with heat, a natural ‘plumbing’ system, water, and limestone.

At Mammoth, a network of fractures and fissures form the plumbing system that allows hot water from underground to reach the surface. The water comes from rain and snow falling on the surrounding mountains and seeping deep into the earth where it is heated. Small earthquakes may keep the plumbing open. Limestone, deposited here millions of years ago when a vast sea covered this area, provides the final ingredient. Hot water with dissolved carbon dioxide makes a solution of weak carbonic acid. As the solution rises through rock, it dissolves calcium carbonate, the primary compound in limestone. At the surface, the calcium carbonate is deposited in the form of travertine, the rock that forms the terraces of Mammoth Hot Springs (science education alive and well in the Valentine family!).

These terraces are like living sculptures, shaped by the volume of water, the slope of the ground, and objects in the water’s path. They change constantly, and sometimes overnight – but the overall activity of the entire area and the volume of water discharge remain relatively constant. Here, as in few other places on earth, rock forms before your eyes.

Minerva and Cleopatra Terraces were certainly the most beautiful, so walking around the Lower Terrace area was a real treat. You could imagine this being a definite ‘go-to’ spot for wildlife in the winter months when snow leaves them feeling quite chilly. Of course, the acidic levels mean there is little by way of plant-life; hence this cannot be a constant ‘home’ to them during the winter.

We completed the Upper Terrace Drive, enjoying the Orange Spring Mound, this spring flows from several vents from its top and side. Its striking colors come from the thermophiles living in the hot water, and beautiful white Angel Terrace, which was dry and crumbling for decades, but resumed activity in 1985. Some of the other dormant features we saw on the drive may on day flow again some day too; this is such a constantly changing area.

On the drive out, we passed Liberty Cap, which stands 37 feet high. It was created by a hot spring that was active in one location for a long time. Its internal pressure was sufficient to raise the water to a great height, allowing mineral deposits to build slowly and continuously for perhaps hundreds of years. Liberty Cap was named in 1871 by the Hayden Survey because it resembled the peaked knit caps, symbolizing freedom and liberty, worn during the French Revolution.

On the drive from the Mammoth area to Tower-Roosevelt, we saw an incredible elk with an amazing rack – it had about 7 or 8 points, it was huge! Once again, we were unsurprised (sadly) by the craziness of some people in their cars. The lady in front of us, just stopped, in the middle of the road, left the car running, got out and started videoing, causing absolute havoc for everyone behind her – unfortunately not the first incident we had experienced on the roads in Yellowstone this week.

We were all rather hungry by the time we reached Roosevelt Lodge and quite ready for dinner. Dave had an elk scallop, there was also buffalo on the menu but he’d tasted that once before so thought he’d try something different. The menu had a special note that the meat was raised outside of the Park so at least the kids didn’t feel like he was eating something that we potentially could’ve seen within the last few days! My dinner was delicious....and not the default vegetarian dish of past!

From the lodge, we drove a short distance to the little trail out to Tower Fall. The water levels in this park are incredible, some hot, some cold, many lakes, streams, rivers, waterfalls, the thermal areas – all extremely dramatic and beautiful, we are loving this National Park and would certainly hope to return one day. Dave is so happy with his new camera, gives these great 'flowing' water pictures.

As we headed through Hayden Valley, Dave stopped a couple of times to enquire as to what people were looking at. Both times, there were grizzly bears in the distance. Many people seem to set themselves up in the Valley with their long range cameras and binoculars, sitting on their lawn chairs and taking in the views and wildlife. Dave could see the bears through their scopes but on our camera, the bears were little brown dots! Regardless, he was happy to take his bear count today to SEVEN!

Beyond that point, our drive was pretty uneventful, other than bison walking along the road, right next to our window! We stopped at West Thumb Lake for pictures of the sunset, with a lone canoeist in the foreground and an interesting stretch of land stretching across the Lake. For some reason, the mosquitoes were out in force and it has to be said, those little pesky bugs are very large around here!

Resting and Yellowstone: Tuesday, June 22nd

2010-07-02T14:23:00.004-04:00

Think the kids were just a tad tired after their long day yesterday, they didn’t emerge from their beds until 9am – sleeping that late is pretty much unheard of, probably helps that the campground is wooded, fairly dark and very quiet, despite the number of trailers here.

The morning was rather rain-filled which gave us the perfect opportunity to spend some time journaling the events of the previous week and working on the Yellowstone Junior Ranger program. Around mid-afternoon, we headed back to Yellowstone National Park for a couple of hours to get a few photos we’d missed on the beginning stretch.
We finally remembered to stop and get our photo by the big Yellowstone sign and continued into the Park, stopping for a photo opportunity at Lewis Falls. The Falls themselves are pretty but the view down the valley is beautiful, frames the Teton range perfectly. Continuing along, we spotted an elk resting in the trees, he had an amazing set of antlers, of course, had to stop and get a photo of him!

As we hadn’t spent much time by West Thumb on Tuesday, we pulled into the West Thumb Geyser Basin area to do the one-mile loop around the pretty dormant geysers. There’s no good explanation as to why these geysers are nowhere near as active as those further north in the park. Apparently they do spout occasionally but there was no evidence of activity while we were there. The colors of the bubbling pools are truly incredible though; many were a multitude of colors, from oranges to greens, however the ones that stood out for us were those of deep, deep blue and turquoise, very pretty. One of them was called Bluebell Pool, had to get a picture of that one with our little ‘The Blue Bell Roaming Gnome’ – eventually I’ll get all his pics up on his blog!

From there, we headed back to Flagg Ranch, stopping for a photo by the Rockefeller Parkway sign. When we arrived back, there was another Outback family camping opposite us! We really haven’t seen that many Outbacks on this trip but this week we’ve seen them all over the parks.

Grand Teton National Park: Monday, June 21st

2010-07-02T14:16:00.008-04:00

Determined to make the most of the day and get an early start, we were on the road about 7:30am. Our intention was to make it to Colter Bay for an 8am ranger program, unfortunately a couple of things got in the way of that plan. Firstly, road works were well underway on the Parkway, this meant waiting for a green light and following an escort truck. When we finally made it into the park, it was very close to 8 already and then, we saw a bear! Photos of a bear definitely have higher priority than a ranger program so we stopped to watch it meander past the truck. It was another black bear, a brown one this time. Needless to say, there was much excitement in the back (well, ok and front!) of the truck.

We bypassed Colter Bay and drove directly to the Jenny Lake area. There is a shuttle boat to take you across the river, which shortens your hikes across the lake by about 5 miles. It was worth the extra few dollars to enjoy a 2 mile hike with limited complaining than to struggle through an extra 10 miles round-trip! It seems to be the route most people take.

We hiked out to Hidden Falls as our first destination. They are so pretty and actually, very well hidden; it is easy to see how some people miss the off-path sign for the spectacular viewing spot. The hike to Inspiration Point was a little tougher, along narrower paths, over rocks and quite a bit steeper, however the reward once we got to the top was more than worth it. The view out over the Lake was gorgeous. It would have been easy to spend a lot more time up there, admiring the scenery but we knew we were on a schedule so sat for a little while before making the descent – far easier going down than climbing up!

Unfortunately, Nathan must have been bitten by a horse/deer fly while we were on the hike at some point. He developed an enormous bump on the back of his head that he complained of being ‘itchy’; it was quite alarming as it seemed to be growing almost in front of my eyes. We iced it later in the day and gave him Benadryl before bed, it had gone down quite a bit the next day and didn’t seem to be bothering him nearly as much – always something new with these kids of ours, I never think I’ve seen it all!

The shuttle boat took us back to the Visitor Center area and we were able to eat lunch while driving down to Moose Junction. Here, at the Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center, we attended a ranger program (at least one program was a requirement for their Junior Ranger badges) about the pocket gopher. It was fascinating, the gopher is quite isolated, builds its own tunnels, rarely ventures more than a body-length from the tunnel opening, blocks up the ends of the tunnel when it’s inside, uses whiskers on its face and tail to navigate forwards and backwards, pulls down roots/whole plants to eat, stores food and tries to avoid detection!

In the winter, they build their tunnels through the snow, using the soil as their base. When they are done with the tunnels, they fill them up again with soil, so as the snow melts, little ‘tunnel houses’ show up on the ground around the Park. The Ranger took the kids to an area by the Visitor Center where they could clearly see one such ‘home’; it was very cool. He asked if anyone had any questions, of course, Jake, who’d been giving a lot of answers to the Ranger’s questions, had one: “If they’re so isolated and only come out of their tunnels the length of their body, how do a male and female ever get together to mate?” What can I say? Good question for sure and it both stumped and made the Ranger laugh, guess we’ll be using the power of ‘google’ again!

We sat outside for a while longer and completed the Junior Ranger books before going inside to be sworn in as Rangers for the 42^nd time! These books teach us so much and really force them to research, ask questions and learn about the area. When we were at Inspiration Point, they asked Ranger Hilton, as he came down the mountain, what his job was (must ask a ranger a question….), he was an Interpretive Ranger and had been at the park three seasons, having given up his corporate job to go back to university at age 50 and do a degree in geology. I think it’s so neat that the kids are being exposed to people of all ages and from all walks of life, it’s really showing them that there are a multitude of options out there and they should never get ‘stuck’: love the life you live!

Having spoken to one of the Rangers, Dave had learned that a small stretch of road, along with a section of rough off-roading, was a good place to spot moose. As the patches the kids had just received pictured a moose, they were quite eager to try and see one. It happened to coincide with the most direct route to Teton village where the aerial tramway was located in Jackson Hole Ski Area, so off we went, bumping along!

As luck would have it, we rounded the corner and cars were dotted everywhere, sure enough, there was a large water covered field with a moose at the edge, quietly drinking. We parked some way up and Dave managed to get a great shot of it, away from the massing crowds. It only had one antler – when he took the first picture, as we drove by (we’re getting quite good at taking pictures out of the window!), it seemed like it had a great pair of antlers, however, turned out, it was an optical illusion as it was directly in front of a downed tree branch!

We drove on, along the much quieter stretch of ‘off-road’ and came across another moose, this time drinking from the stream by a one lane bridge. We were able to pull over and get some good photos; this one didn’t have any antlers but was happy to look up at Dave when he made some noise. I tend to be a lot more wary about wildlife than my hubby and don’t get nearly as close!

In Teton Village, we caught the tram up to the top of Jackson Hole, taking us to a new height: 10,450ft. The tram runs on a system that requires both ‘sides’ to go at the exact same time, crossing each other at the half way point. It appears that the other one is going much faster and was a little alarming to realize that in fact, we were also going that fast! Apparently, in the winter, the tram accommodates 100 skiers/boarders packed in body-to-body holding their skis/boards – our ride was far more civilized, there were even benches so we could sit.

At the top, there was still plenty of snow, thrilled kids once again, we could never move to the south! Only Caitlin and I had been sensible enough to put on sweaters so everyone else was trying to pretend they weren’t cold, we weren’t buying it and were happy to be cozy! We went in the little hut for made-to-order waffles with nutella, they were delicious, shame they took so long to prepare, must be frustrating in the winter when you’re hungry after skiing.

We drove back into the National Park, via the same route, this time, no sign of any moose. As we got to the more open meadow area, we pulled in to see why there were so many cars and in the distance were able to see a bear before it disappeared behind the trees. Jake remains convinced that it was a grizzly but Dave thinks it was a large black bear, guess we’ll never know. We were happy to have timed our trips just right though, good wildlife today.

We were supposed to be meeting the Greene’s at the Colter Bay picnic area on Jackson Lake at 4:30; thankfully they were running as late as we were. Driving past The Potholes area, we had to stop and get more photos of the bison, the backdrop was beautiful – I know Dave was not the obligatory 25 yards from the nearest animal and I’m quite sure it could’ve run faster than him if it had set its mind on it!

The spot that was chosen by the Greene Family for our civilized grilling-out picnic was perfect. It was a beautiful setting, close to the water’s edge with the Teton Range directly in our view. The kids played fairly happily, we were able to sit and chat and enjoyed our simple, but yummy, meal. As the evening wore on, we had a fire and roasted marshmallows, enjoying the sun setting behind the mountains. As Greg and Judi are currently living in a small town in Vermont (they’re transplanted Canadians), they have a neighbor that makes their own maple syrup, they kind gave us a container, we are forever indebted, it is SO good!

It was a very long day, we didn’t get back until close to 10pm (Dave had to stop for a shot of the moon against the backdrop of the mountains, it was too hard to resist and he is loving playing with all the settings on his new camera) but a great one; this area is gorgeous.

Yellowstone National Park: Sunday, June 20th

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Happy Father’s Day to Dave (and of course to my wonderful Dad, sorry we're so far away), he’s an amazing Dad who deserves 100% the love and adoration the kids have for him. He was delivered breakfast in bed: cinnabuns, fruit, juice and coffee, along with cards, what a great way to start the day!

There was a family in an Outback camping opposite us who we chatted with the previous day. As they were getting ready to leave, they asked to look around our camper. We love sharing all the mods (modifications) that Dave’s done to the trailer, there are usually a couple that people leave saying they’ll definitely be copying. I still need to put a post in somewhere of all the mods he’s done on this camper, there are SO many.

We decided to spend the rest of the day in Yellowstone National Park; the world’s first National Park created in 1872. This Park is HUGE! It is a geological smoking gun that illustrates how violent the Earth can be. One event overshadows all others: Some 640,000 years ago, an area many miles square at what is now the center of the park suddenly exploded. In minutes the landscape was devastated. Fast-moving ash flows covered thousands of square miles. At the centre only a smoldering caldera remained, a collapsed crater 45 by 30 miles. At least two other cataclysmic events preceded this one. Boiling hot springs, fumaroles, mud spots, and geysers serve as reminders that another could occur.

We came in through the south entrance, past Snake River, Lewis Lake, Grant Village, West Thumb and the incredibly beautiful Yellowstone Lake to Fishing Bridge. Here we went into the Visitor Center to look around and pick up Junior Ranger books. Understandably, given the size of the park and the extensive things to do and see, the Ranger carefully went through each book with the children; she was very thorough in explaining what they needed to do and also extremely knowledgeable about the park in general – it was her 42^nd season working here!

One of the questions on Jake and Caitlin’s books required them to read the signs on the fishing bridge. This used to be packed with shoulder-to-shoulder fishermen until the 1970s, at which point, Rangers realized that the area was being incredibly over-fished and the once dense trout population was dwindling to nothing. Fishing is now banned on the bridge and the trout population is steadily increasing once again, this has brought back a number of birds to the area, including the pelican. While we were looking, a Park Volunteer came along to measure the depth of the river and check its temperature. She was kind enough to allow the kids to help her and they lowered her measuring string into the water. The thermometer was not accurate for lower temperatures because it was designed for measuring the temperatures in the mud volcanoes and hot pools; she said, “Let’s just say, it’s cold in there!”

From the Fishing Bridge area, we followed the Yellowstone River up to Canyon Village. This part of the road took us through Hayden Valley, known as a great spot to see bison. As we drove along, we began to see small groups of 3 or 4, suddenly as we rounded the bend, fields of bison emerged in front of us. We pulled over, it was impossible to stay the required number of feet away from them as they were practically next to the truck! A little further away a baby was nursing, such a neat sight. Given the time of year, there were many babies, so cute.

We stopped in at the Canyon Visitor and Education Center to search for more Junior Ranger answers. This is an impressive Center with a fairly new exhibit. This area is known as the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone with trails and viewpoints on both the North and South Rims.

We walked the Brink of Upper Falls Trail on the North Rim; this gave a dramatic view of the colliding currents going over the brink. On our way out, we saw an awesome elk sitting in the grass.

From there, we drove out to the Artist Point car park on the South Rim. This view is one of the most photographed points in Yellowstone and even though we were here early in the season, the car park was pretty full. The first thing we noticed when we got out of the truck was the mosquitoes, ugh, our least favorite insect! We’re still not sure why they were so bad just at this area but it still spurred us to move at a much faster pace than we would normally have done!

This overlook is framed by the canyon walls with forests for a backdrop, the Yellowstone river thunders more than 308ft over Lower Falls. From the upper overlook, we could see the canyon in both directions. It was beautiful, shame about those pesky bugs. As we started back, the rain came down, creating a gorgeous fresh pine aroma.

We followed the Yellowstone River back along the road, watching a storm forming in the distance, through Hayden Valley (more bison and elk) to Sulfur Caldron.

This is one of the most acidic springs in Yellowstone. Its turbulent waters have a pH of approximately 1-2, which is about as acidic as car battery acid or stomach fluids. Its name comes from the large amount of free sulfur in its waters. The stench was truly overwhelming; the kids were particularly less than impressed and kept their fingers on their noses the whole time!

From one stink, we crossed over to the Mud Volcano area and entered another stink! It was a little alarming to read:

Toxic gases exist in Yellowstone. Dangerous levels of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide have been measured in some hydrothermal areas. If you feel sick, leave the location immediately.

The kids didn’t see this until later, the older two were quick to comment how sick they felt while we were walking around, clearly we’ve done them irrevocable harm.

The fascinating and mysterious mud features found here are some of the most acidic in the park. This acidity plays a part in making them different from most hot springs and geysers. Hydrogen sulfide gas is present deep in the earth at Mud Volcano. Some microorganisms use this gas as an energy source. They help convert the gas to sulfuric acid, which breaks down rock to wet clay mud. Hydrogen sulfide steam, carbon dioxide, and other gases explode through the layers of mud in dramatic or delightful ways.

In contrast, the more alkaline waters in most of Yellowstone’s geyser basins react with underground rock to line subsurface cracks and fissures with silica, creating the natural ‘plumbing’ systems of geysers and hot springs.

We walked the middle-loop around Mud Volcano. We passed Mud Geyser first. In 1870, muddy water exploded 50 feet into the air every few hours. The geyser died in the 20^th century, its plumbing clogged with mud and gravel. In 1993, soil temperatures skyrocketed for unknown reasons and trees began dying around the geyser’s south rim. By January 1995, a new feature on the south bank of Mud Geyser had burst onto the scene. Steam vents and shallow pools sizzled. In 1999, mud pots formed and then exploded, leaving a deep hole with more sizzling features and mud.

We continued up ‘Cooking Hillside’ to Sizzling Basin and Churning Caldron. These were like witch’s caldrons, bubbling and steaming crazily. These were pretty inactive, covered with a thick mat of microorganisms prior to 1978-79 when a swarm of earthquakes struck.

Next, we passed Black Dragon’s Caldron (which burst onto the landscape along a crack in the earth in 1948, uprooted and coated nearby trees in thick mud) and Sour Lake. This lake is named for its acidic or ‘sour’ water, it may look like a pleasant swimming hole, but its water would burn skin like battery acid. Most of its acid comes from microorganisms that create sulfuric acid as they consume sulfur. These microorganisms also give the lake its neat color.

We stopped to look at Grizzly Fumarole and learned about the different names of features that erupt from the surface. It depends on the sizes and forces. We continued to Mud Volcano. Early explorers to Yellowstone described this feature as a ‘most repulsive and terrifying sight’, a volcano-like cone, 30 feet high and 30 feet wide with mud erupting to cover tall trees. It’s likely that a violent eruption blew out the cone’s top, leaving the crater we could see. Rich in iron sulfides and powered by heavy gas discharge (pee-you!), the gray-colored water constantly undercuts the back wall.

Finally, we checked out Dragon’s Mouth Spring. Apparently this feature has captured imaginations for centuries. The Crow Indians saw the steam as snorts of an angry bull bison. An unknown European American gave it the current name. Its previous names have included Gothic Grotto, Blowing Cavern and The Belcher. This surging action has decreased since 1994; no one is sure why. In 1999, more dramatic changes occurred: The water temperature dropped ten degrees and the color changed from green to chalky white. The kids very unwillingly posed for a photo, we could barely raise a smile though because the steam and smell was really overwhelming to them.

We stopped to take pictures at Le Hardys Rapids. These rapids come alive later in the month with jumping trout; must be an incredible sight, I’m sure it must also be a good bear-spotting sight at that time.

On the way home, we popped into Grant Village Visitor Center Fire Exhibit. Another Outbackers family called and said they’d stop in at our campsite on the way past. Flagg Ranch is still a good 40 minutes from Grant Village but they were close by our location. The Greene Family has 3 boys, similar ages to our kids: Jack (11), Henry (8) and Charles (6), so while we chatted, they ran around outside. We made plans to meet up the next day for dinner. Dave also went over to another Outback across the way which was sporting an Outbackers sticker on their camper: Hodgepodge. Becca and Nathan were happy to stay and play with their kids while I finished making dinner.

warning: longer posts coming up!

2010-07-01T18:03:00.000-04:00

I'm always so impressed when people leave comments on the blog....and somewhat surprised that people are reading!

I kind of apologize to you all for the upcoming posts, they're on the longer side! We did so much and saw so many different places and things while we were in this area, I don't want to forgot a moment. The blog serves as my journal and will eventually be printed into a book (you know, when I've eventually added those pesky pictures!) so it's important for us to preserve these memories.

Thank you for remaining in the 'reading loop' and for hanging out even when the posts are long, feel free to skip a few if the going gets too arduous!

Thanks, Ali

From Arco, ID to Flagg Ranch, WY: Saturday, June 19th

2010-07-01T14:51:00.000-04:00

Rather than start out early today, we had a slow pack-up to enable us to stay for the pancake breakfast. The kids enjoyed their last couple of hours playing with Ciera, checking on the chickens, petting the rabbit and dog and running around. They were all really sad to leave; it’s been a great week for them.

Our route took us to Idaho Falls to pick up Becca’s prescription; unfortunately this was the third place that did not have it in stock, despite continued phone calls in an effort to ensure it would be there, so once again, it goes on hold until we can find somewhere that does have it.

From there, we made our way towards Flagg Ranch, via Jackson (quaint little touristy town) and Jackson Hole – would love to come back here one day to go skiing – then all the way from south entrance to north in Grand Teton National Park. We stopped at Colter Bay Visitor Center to look around and pick up Junior Ranger books; it was early evening but there were still plenty of people around.

This week we are staying at Flagg Ranch which is on the John D. Rockefeeler, Jr Memorial Parkway, between Yellowstone NP and Grand Teton NP. The Parkway is considered another NPS site, so the campground is operated under the guise of the National Park Service. It’s a pretty big campground, very wooded and fairly full. We lucked out and were assigned an end of row campsite, with a space next door which could easily accommodate a camper but is not considered a space, so we have somewhere extra to park our truck and put up the satellite dish (this created a lot of interest when Dave started assembling it!). Despite the fact that he has the week off work, it benefits him to check in periodically and monitor the ever-growing email inbox so it doesn’t get out of control. There is also a chance that he might be called in as a client is ‘going live’ this week; so glad not to be involved in any of that!

Footie: Friday, June 18th

2010-06-21T00:52:00.001-04:00

No school today! Nathan was ready to play outside by 8am, not Jake, the football was starting: US vs Slovenia, it didn’t start well, US was down 2-0 at the half but really picked it up in the second half and scored two great goals and were unfortunately denied a third thanks to some dodgy refereeing, in what is being referred to as the ‘phantom foul’!

I took our four and Ciera to the library (so funny, first official day of school holidays and where do they want to go: the library, totally not my choice, all their own doing!) for a while before lunch but we were back in good time for the England match against Algeria. It was sadly very unmotivated and after a seemingly rather lack-luster performance, the final score was 0-0 (a chance for us to reminisce about the time when my Dad, a staunch Burnley supporter, had recorded a match once and managed to avoid seeing the score. As he was about to sit down and watch, my Mum, decidedly not a football supporter, commented that she didn’t know why he was bothering, because “there weren’t any goals!” She’s still giving us a laugh today, love you Mum!). Anyway, we won’t give up, there’s still hope and we’re a nation of optimists, so come on

ENGLAND

Spurred towards the joys of soccer, Jake and other assembled kids in the campground, spent the afternoon in the wonderful sunshine, playing soccer. Caitlin was the referee and stood around with her clipboard, recording scores and supplying the players with drinks and snacks – a girl after my heart indeed!

Craters of the Moon NM: Thursday, June 17th

2010-06-21T00:51:00.001-04:00

Today is our last official day of school before Summer School begins, aren’t we lovely?! I’d really like the kids to continue journaling every week, simply because I love to read their perspective of what was important to them from the previous week and also because I truly believe they’ll love to read through it later on. They generally don’t share that belief or my enthusiasm, regardless, the plan is that journaling will continue, along with some math; it’s too easily forgotten and I hate for all their hard work to go to waste.

They were eager to get outside after the rain of yesterday and were spurred into action after Ciera came knocking on the door before they’d started school (the World Cup is getting in the way of our usual early starts – too many games beginning at 8am!).

After hours of playing outside, we headed back to Craters of the Moon, this time, Ciera joined us, she was disappointed we were going to take the kids away so it was just as easy to have her come along – the truck’s big enough, what’s one more?!

We bypassed the Visitor Centre and drove out to the tree molds area. It was a windy one-mile hike along the fine lava beds to reach the tree molds but more than worth it. Initially, we saw a couple of deep trunk-shaped holes that once housed large trees. Cooling lava formed around the trees but was still hot enough to burn them down, so nothing remains of the actual tree. Evidently the lava was cool enough that it held its shape as the tree must slowly have burned – fascinating.

As we continued a little way along, we were able to see molds in the ground, much more typical of what we were anticipating seeing. These really looked just like a huge version of imprinting tree bark in playdoh! We had to keep on touching them to make sure they were in fact rock solid, it seemed as though we should have been able to squish them, such a bizarre sight.

From here, we passed the Lava Fields (the waves of lava are evident, you can just imagine them slowly coming to a halt as they cooled, really an awesome sight and so different from anything else) and drove towards the caves area. With flash lights in tow, we walked towards the various caves you are able to go into. Unlike at Lava Beds, it’s a bit of a trek over a very sloping pathway. We stopped at the first little cave: Dewdrop Cave and went in. It didn’t go very far back and was quite wet, but still gave a good picture of how the lava had formed this ‘tube’.

We were most excited to visit Boy Scout Cave, a little further along. We had heard that this was quite a challenge to get into but once in, you were rewarded by ice formations. We had heard correctly. Ciera and Caitlin decided against coming much further in than the entrance, it was quite dark, and they spent their time above ground! The rest of us scrambled over the slippery rocks, being extremely careful to watch our heads, I do think it would’ve been a good idea for the Rangers to have recommended helmets for this one; it was quite tricky. Once further in, the temperature really dropped and we could see many icicles, stalactites and ‘lavaites’ hanging from the ceiling, it was very cool (double entendre intended!).

The brochure gave a good description of Tube Formation:

The formation of tubes is a complex process dependent on eruption rate, topography, and the chemical and physical properties of the lava. Often, rather than flowing as a broad sheet, lava becomes restricted in channels. Lava channels usually form in the fastest moving part of a flow, along older lava channels, tubes, stream beds, or other depressions.

Once a channel stabilizes, a roof can form in a variety of ways. Congealing lava can fuse to the channel sides and accumulate until it bridges the channel. This crust thickens through overflows onto its surface and accretion of cooled lava on its underside. Or surface crusts may form on the lava, tear loose, and drift along until they reach a constriction, fuse, and bridge over the channel. In turbulent lava flows, splashing and overflow along the channel form levees which may arch over the channel and join.

Everyone was eager to get back to the campground for something to eat and to continue their plans for the day. For Dave and I, game 7 of the NBA Finals was starting and promised to be a nail-biter, for the kids, they were awaiting big-screen movie time at 8:30pm. The KOA offered the ice cream social every evening at 8pm, often followed by a movie, as it was quite late, we’d resisted the movie until today so they were excited to be able to watch. They showed Robots, which they’d seen before but were more than happy to watch again. It was great for us too as we were able to sit, undisturbed and watch the game. The Lakers ended up taking it from the Celtics in a ‘scream at the telly’ 4th quarter. I can’t believe how many sports are going on at the moment and Wimbledon starts on Monday!

Rain: Wednesday, June 16th

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A day of rain…and of movies…and of wii. There were few complaints. They set up the wii in the KOA office with the huge movie screen; clearly this was a big hit, especially for Jake! Dave took them to the library for an hour at the end of the day and the librarian commented on how unusual it was to be getting this much rain. By looking at the fields full of watering devices, we could easily believe that natural water sources are rare.

Craters of the Moon NM: Tuesday, June 15th

2010-06-21T00:48:00.003-04:00

After work, we drove out to Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. We spent some time in the Visitor Center looking at the exhibits, picking up ‘Lunar Ranger’ books (not Junior Rangers this time but Lunar Rangers) and watching the movie overviews. We requested the movie with some of the Apollo 14 astronauts. They came to visit the area both pre-and post- their space flights. One of their comments was that the area is very similar to the moon’s vastness, if we could imagine it without the roads or any vegetation.

It is incredible that anything is able to grow in the cinders of the lava and even within the gaps in the thick, black lava rock. Surprisingly though, some plants do make it through and survive. We liked the tiny, purple/pink monkey flowers which almost rest on the surface and create a blanket of color on the otherwise, dark surface. The cinders must absorb the heat as we read that in the height of summer, temperatures on the ground can reach 150°F, add to this that the area receives very little rain and you really don’t have conditions conducive to plant life.

We decided to drive the 7-mile loop to see the huge fields. Particularly interesting were the two ‘young’ lava flows: Broken Top and Blue Dragon. In the Hawaiian language, pahoehoe means ‘ropy’, which is exactly how the lava looked. Geologists predict that the processes that created these flows are likely to generate future events; I was glad we were not there to witness it up close! There were general rumbles from the rear participants of the truck as we were driving, that they absolutely did not want to hike a trail – fine, OK, we’ll just look, get out now and again to read the informational signs, and be on our way.

All this being said, we pulled into the parking area at Inferno Cone, an enormous cinder cone and immediately one of them asked: “Can we climb to the top?” “Yes, I think you can, it indicates that there is a very steep half-mile trail to the top.” “Oh wow, that’s so cool, can we?!” “I guess so!” Out they jumped and were well on their way up before we had got ourselves together to follow them, having not anticipated going on a trail at all – so fickle these kids of ours! It was a great little hike to the top with incredible views of the lava fields, other cinder cones and spatter cones. The was a lone tree just off the top which looked so out of place as well as various shrubs, some of them covered with tent caterpillars – lots of them, it did look a tad disgusting but the kids were fascinated.

The cinders are quite crunchy and contain many gas bubbles or vesicles which make them very light in weight. We kept picking up different rocks and truly, they felt as though you had nothing in your hand. Apparently some are light enough to float on water. Thin layers of glass coat the cinders, creating prisms that refract and reflect light into millions of micro-rainbows, so beautiful.

We continued with the loop, stopping in at Devil’s Garden and checking out the cave area – we’ll be coming back later in the week to see anything we missed. On our way out, at the Visitor Center, the kids were sworn in as Lunar Rangers and received a very cool patch for their efforts.

Craters of the Moon/Arco KOA: Monday, June 14th

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It was a gorgeous weather-day today, beautiful outside, so there was no way we could persuade the kids away to do anything other than play! Sheri and Neil run the KOA and have a daughter, Ciera, who is almost the same age as Jake. Her school had already finished for the summer so she was around every day and happy to have other kids to play with. They started out by playing with the rabbit and washing her dog and ended up in the pool – I think it would’ve been smarter to start the day by wearing swimsuits really!

They also begged to be allowed to go on the banana bikes. We’ve tended to be pretty frugal on this trip, not spending money on things like bike rentals, saving for bigger excursions and, well, rather unexcitingly, gas money! I said I’d rent one for an hour and they could each have 15 minutes, thankfully Sheri offered to let them each have a bike for about half an hour, which was lovely of her and also made a lot more sense, given that they were different sizes and suited them all to have the correct size. They had a blast, speeding around the pathways, it really looked fun.

From Winnemucca, NV to Arco, ID: Sunday, June 13th

2010-06-14T11:39:00.000-04:00

We got out of the campground before 9am and drove towards Battle Mountain (Gateway to the Outback of Nevada – I can’t make this stuff up!), passing many cyclists, the uphills must have been torturous. Today’s journey was long, but pretty, many single lane roads, through fields upon fields of green, surrounded by mountains, many still covered with snow.

From out of nowhere, we suddenly came upon a small town with a couple of casinos. Their parking lots were full, it seemed very busy for having so little, kind of weird we thought. About a mile out of town though, we came to the state line and crossed into Idaho – state number 38 for us – and then we realized: gambling! This must be the ‘go-to’ destination for those living in Idaho who like to gamble and only have to cross just into their neighboring state. We also went back into Mountain Time, so back on Valentine Time, I guess we’ll be needing to change ‘our’ time at some point in the next couple of weeks. With only two months to go, we’ll need to be losing two hours somewhere along the line, before we get back on the east coast.

As we came closer to Arco, where we were staying, our route actually took us through the National Park site: Craters of the Moon, that we were planning to visit later in the week. It has a very similar look to Lava Beds, fields of lava rock as far as the eye could see; we were impressed that the kids also immediately realized this, even Nathan.

This week, we are staying at the Arco KOA, which has large grassy spots (in stark contrast to many KOA’s), a little playground and a pool. One of the first things Dave commented on was how quiet it is – we’re not in a flight path, near an airport, next to a freeway, near train tracks; it’s very peaceful. The campground also has a view of the local mountain, covered with numbers; these are the years of graduating classes, going back as far as 1923!

Most excitingly for the kids, there are other families here – HELLO summer holidays! As many schools have now finished for the year, the number of families we meet will obviously increase and the children are super happy about that. They quickly found friends and four families of children created all sorts of different games.

At 8pm, there was an ice-cream social. All the kids sat outside, lolling on the banana bikes, benches and ground, licking their ice-creams and chatting. I really wanted to take a photo but daren’t ruin the moment, it was a great sight.

Farewell Reno: Saturday, June 12th

2010-06-14T11:20:00.000-04:00

The day began with a huge breakfast buffet at the Peppermill with Danielle’s family, Ron’s family, Pete’s extended family and Betsy and Harry, we were quite a formidable crowd but barely made a dent in the buffet – so much great food – Jake was uber-excited! It was terribly difficult to say goodbye to everyone, we feel so blessed to have had the chance to spend so much time with them and really to get to know them all so much better. We really hope to see them again, maybe on the east coast or somewhere in the middle (we’re holding you to it Parsons/Grimms!).

Dave and the kids watched the all-important football/soccer game between the US and England at Harry’s – their big screen certainly did it more justice than our little one in the camper. I went shopping, groceries were low. Despite our chants of ‘En-ger-land’ and teaching all the family the ‘Three Lions’ song, there was great disappointment at the 1-1 result, although I think the US were secretly rather pleased as there was a general consensus of worry about Rooney. We’re hoping things’ll pick up; the World Cup is such a national institution for Brits.

Back to the camper we went, finished packing everything, hooked up and we were on our way. Given our change in itinerary to accommodate our trip to the UK, we were heading towards Idaho but needed to break up the journey as the predicted 10+ hours in one day was less than appealing.

We drove to Hi-Desert Resort in Winnemucca which was really the first major town we’d come to since leaving Reno three hours earlier! It was a windy journey so a lot slower going than it would’ve been. Trailers tend not to appreciate the wind, neither do I!

As we often do, we passed many, many small housing areas, seemingly random settlements, miles and miles from anywhere or anything. I am always so fascinated by these – who lives here, what do they do for work, how do they get their money, groceries, gas etc?? Dave said that one of these times, he’s just going to pull in, stop and knock on a door to have them answer my barrage of questions! I imagine people enjoy the quieter life of living in the middle of nowhere but I would worry about where to get basics, like milk and flour, from, maybe someone does a run once a week for everyone – just speculating.

We were glad to have made a reservation in Winnemucca as the campgrounds we passed were all full and when we arrived, they were turning people away without a reservation. Evidently there was a Basque Festival in town and that is quite the draw by all accounts – who knew?! The younger kids were happy to discover a playground but disappointed that there was no time to go in the pool or play the ‘water wars’ game, dinner was late enough!

Grand Sierra Resort: Friday, June 11th

2010-06-14T11:01:00.000-04:00

The kids did a bit of school in the morning. They have been officially signed off by their portfolio evaluator (thank you Melissa!) and all paperwork has been submitted to the school district but I need them to finish their units, so we maybe have just one more week. I am feeling very ready to be done with the school year so I know that they are too.

They had a couple of requests of things they wanted to do before we left, so in the afternoon, we headed over to the pool/beach area to play volleyball. Clearly, I use the term ‘play volleyball’ quite loosely; the net is very high for a 5 year old! Later, we headed over to Tumble Town in the FunZone. As a total bonus, summer rates had kicked in for day use Mon-Fri, only $1 per hour and $1 lazer tag – a total bargain compared to the prices we had been paying, love it when something goes our way.

SceneStealers: Thursday, June 10th

2010-06-14T10:58:00.002-04:00

Betsy and Danielle run a dance/acting studio in Reno, called SceneStealers. While we were staying, they had to spend quite a lot of time in the studio, preparing for shows which were happening this coming weekend. They invited us to come and see the dress rehearsals as we wouldn’t be around to see the real shows. The dancers were amazing, the choreography was incredible and with so many differing routines – and we only saw a small selection – it was clear how much work they all put in. If you’re ever in the Reno area during one of their show times, we would definitely recommend stopping in to check them out.

While we were gone…..

2010-06-14T10:57:00.002-04:00

Jake, Becca and Nate were excited to go to Danielle’s and have a sleep-over there. Dave was looking forward to a quiet evening, watching a ‘boy’ movie with a beer, but it wasn’t to be. When he got back, he discovered that the electrics had gone out on the entire row our camper was on. He helped the neighbor secure electricity for his wife who needed oxygen, finally getting to bed about 2am – it was not the evening he had pictured! He did end up moving campsites the next day, which he was actually happy about as it took the camper away from the noise of the road.

On Memorial Day, Pete came over with all the kids and they enjoyed the pool, despite the fact that it was a bit chilly in the wind.

School was reasonably successful in my absence, I had left a few lesson plans in hopes that they would be able to work somewhat independently but they did need Dave occasionally, so he had quite a few late nights catching up on work while we were gone.

Much to Caitlin’s chagrin, they met up with Betsy, Harry and two more ‘cousins’, Stephie and Savannah, to go and see the final installment of Shreck at the movies. They really enjoyed it and apparently Becca was thrilled to limpet onto the girls; she’s not used to be in an all-boy household!

Either in spite of, or perhaps, because of, my absence, Dave spent a LOT of money! He ordered a new camera (Cannon SLR) – great excitement there - as well as a new dvd player for the truck, a few other ‘needed’ items and also took the camper in to have two new ceiling vents/fans fitted and also the a/c unit replaced with a more powerful model, we’d found that the regular unit was struggling to keep the temperature down when it got really hot.

So, they survived just fine in our absence, there was no question they could of course. We function better as a family unit though, hard when one of the essential parts is missing, so very happy to all be back together again.

To the UK: Sunday, May 30th

2010-06-14T10:51:00.002-04:00

Caitlin and I left Reno on Sunday lunchtime, flew to San Francisco, over beautiful Lake Tahoe and as we came in to land, over the Golden Gate Bridge. We had quite a long stopover in SF before getting on the flight to Heathrow. We were on the plane a long time, thankfully though, we’d managed to get our seats reassigned and avoided the row of 5 seats in the middle of the plane; it was a full flight.

Dad and Helen came to meet us early Monday afternoon; it was great to see them, wish the circumstances were different.

It took us a few days to recover from the jetlag, flying east is so difficult, much tougher than going west; we can adapt to gaining hours and extending our day but struggle to lose a night.

Our days were filled with continued organization until Thursday. The funeral was incredibly difficult of course; it still seems rather unreal, so difficult to comprehend that Mum is gone. I found myself remembering her doing different things in the house while we were there; such an emotional couple of weeks.

The church service was lovely, Cheralee’s address was perfect and Dad’s eulogy was amazing; he delivered it incredibly well too. The outpouring of kindness for us was so touching. The church was full of people, paying their respects and supporting us. Helen and I met three cousins we had never seen before, two had flown over from Northern Ireland. It is tough to be social at times like these but it was helpful to chat with various friends and relatives – thank you all for your kindness.

Caitlin spent a lot of time reading while we were in England. They really miss going to the library, and actually taking books out, so the privilege of using Grandpa’s library card was great. She took out and read 14 books during our stay! I asked her one day if she wanted to watch TV, her response, “No, thanks!” I think if the other three had been with us, the TV may have got more use.

Helen took her out on Friday to spend time playing with Anna and enjoying a picnic at the park. It’s great that there is someone so close in age to her and, bonus, that Anna is Aunty Helen’s Goddaughter.

On Saturday we spent the day at Helen and Rae’s house, meeting up with Rae’s Mum, brother and his family for a pub lunch. Caitlin was happy to play with Tiegan, who’s the same age as her. It was a gorgeous day all day long, lots of sunshine…right up until dinnertime when the rain really came down for our drive back to Letchworth.

After church on Sunday, we enjoyed a lovely dinner at Lizzie and Mick’s. So many friends popped in during our stay; including a few of mine; it was wonderful to catch up with people, just wish the reason for our visit had been different.

On Monday afternoon, we went to the cemetery to be present while Mum’s ashes were scattered. We will be organizing for a plaque to be placed at the Crematorium.

It was terribly difficult to leave on the Wednesday; I wish we could have stayed longer. It was another long day of course. This time, our flight from Heathrow took us to Denver. We were so lucky that United upgraded us, for free, to Economy Plus – thanks to Richie, the gate agent! I have to say that the (almost) extra half foot of leg room made a huge difference, so nice to not have my knees touch the seat in front of us or have to climb out at an angle if the person in front puts their seat back – it was wonderful.

We watched movies much of the flight back, I would not recommend watching ‘Dear John’ in an emotional state; I was sobbing for about an hour! We managed to get some rest and landed safely. Unfortunately, we did not have a lot of time between landing and the connecting flight. As Denver was our first point of call in the USA, we had to clear customs and immigration before reclaiming our luggage. I then had the challenging task of fitting Dave’s all-important duty free whiskey into the back-pack for rechecking! Thank goodness the check-out girl in the shop had reminded me about the ‘no liquids’ through security. It was incredibly hot in the airport and the effort of forcing that bottle into a non-existent space must have been quite a source of entertainment for all those people waiting in line for rechecking! I had to take a few things out so the hand luggage got heavy quickly. Caitlin and I must’ve been quite the sight, she had chosen to bring back my huge ‘Comfort’ gorilla, so was carrying that all over, getting many comments.

The flight to Reno was just beginning to board as we got to the gate. Due to high winds in the Reno area, we hit a great amount of turbulence the last half hour of the flight; it was a bumpy ride, we were glad to get back on the ground.

Dave and the kids came to meet us with lots of hugs and kisses, so happy to see them again. Skype is a wonderful thing but seeing them sitting in the camper, while we chatted, only reminded me how much I missed them, so I was very happy to be able to hold them.

From Diamond Lake, OR to Reno, NV: Saturday, May 29th

2010-06-04T16:59:00.000-04:00

Traveling on Saturday, Monday, Thursday and again, Saturday, made for a speedy week but we were beginning to feel rather ‘driven out’; glad that we’ll be stopping in one place for a while, big travel day for Caitlin and I tomorrow but after that, hopefully everyone will get a little rest. From Reno to Reno, via just a few places, took us over 1,000 miles north and back south again.

As we drove out of Diamond Lake RV Resort, we stopped to take another photo of the Lake with beautiful Mount Bailey in the background. (Mt. Bailey has remained rounded on the top as it erupted right before the ice age and glaciation hit. It continues to be eroded year after year.) It was 8:30am and the lake was covered with boats, at least 100 of them! These fishermen certainly get an early start and this was obviously the place to be. Our campsite neighbor had caught four trout just going out for a couple of hours the evening before.

We took a tiny ¼ mile detour to the Mount Thielson viewpoint. It was a glorious, clear, blue-sky morning, sad to be leaving on such a gorgeous day. Mt. Theilson rises jaggedly up on the horizon with a very sharp point at its peak, still covered in snow. The peak also inadvertently serves as a lightning rod; it gets hit quite often and has even melted some of its rock in the past.

Dave was trying to be careful about watching his gas meter, while these roads are so beautiful to drive along and admire the untouched scenery; there are not so very many places to buy gas. He recalled one place we had stopped at, on the way up to Portland, so we stopped there again. The owner was chatting to us, another customer came in and moved the conversation to ‘Top Gear’, an English show, becoming very popular over here, also with a big following in the UK. As we were leaving, Dave heard the owner telling him, yep, they stopped here on their way out too, good people – isn’t that lovely, we’re good people!

A little further on, we drove back through Merrill, they had the Stars and Stripes flying from every telegraph pole and fence post along their main street. It was very effective. This is Memorial weekend and Americans have a great respect for the current armed forces and their veterans. It gave us pause for a few minutes to once again reflect on the wars fought and the lives lost. Some of the other small communities we passed through also had their main streets filled with flying flags; a great reminder.

Due to our ‘in the middle of nowhere’ route, we pulled off for lunch, overlooking the river. There was a tiny sign (on an old piece of railroad track), stating that this was part of the Californian Trail and was marked as a place where one explorer in the 1800s had lost his shoe and had to make one from plants! So funny, we couldn’t even see the sign from the road, the paths less traveled indeed….

There were farmlands dotted along our drive, many cows and calves. At one point we saw three ranchers on horseback herding their cattle, so neat. This was such a beautiful drive, the GPS didn’t like it though, kept trying to send us to the freeway, glad we disobeyed, despite sending ‘the voice’ into quite a tizzy!

We arrived back at Grand Sierra Resort, Reno, in time for dinner. The campground was packed so our spot was along the back fence next to the road, not nearly as nice a location as our previous week here. Danielle came over in the evening with our passports so we are ready to go!

Crater Lake National Park: Friday, May 28th

2010-06-04T16:58:00.002-04:00

We were still too early in the year, after the harsh winter, to be able to access the Park via the North Entrance; this meant a longer drive around to the South Entrance, passing beautiful, fast-flowing streams and cliffs with trees barely hanging on, as erosion is clearly stealing their root-bed. As we entered the Park, the amount of snow slowly increased to dramatic proportions. There was just an incredible amount.

With 44 feet of average annual snowfall, Crater Lake National Park is one of the snowiest inhabited places in America. Keeping Highway 62 and the road to Rim Village open year-round is no easy task. Each day, the park’s heavy equipment operators work from 4am to 8pm in 2 different shifts, clearing snow and sanding roads. During heavy storms, snow removal becomes a 24-hour operation, with crews working 12 hours at a time. The amount of snow moved each winter by the park’s roads crew is astounding. With it, you could create a ski trail 3 feet wide, 6 inches deep, and long enough to circle the Earth at the equator!

As the weather was clear, we by-passed the Visitor Center initially and headed straight up to the overlook at Rim Village. As with the Grand Canyon, seeing Crater Lake for the first time totally took our breath away, it is amazing, a brilliant blue, so deep and wide.

7,700 years ago Mount Mazama collapsed after a massive volcanic eruption and left a deep basin (caldera) where the tall mountain once stood. Centuries of snowfall and snowmelt filled this basin with clear, pure water of an amazing blue hue, creating a lake 1,943 feet deep. It is the deepest lake in America, five miles wide. It is one of the purest and most pristine in the world. This environment provides scientists with an opportunity to study the subtle effects of human influence and global forces. It never gets any higher than it is, as it drains off through natural holes in the rock face.

In 1853 prospectors in search of gold found the lake and named it Deep Blue Lake. Later, others came to ‘discover’ it and re-named it Blue Lake and Majestic Lake (this from a group of soldiers who were challenged by their leader to be the first to reach the water, whoever got there first would be allowed to name it!). William Gladstone Steel first visited in 1885 and largely as a result of his efforts, Crater Lake became a national park in 1902.

Despite the long, snowy winters, as a result of its position at the crest of the Cascade Mountain Range, Crater Lake rarely freezes. The last time it froze was 1949 and Rangers were able to walk across the ice layer to Wizard Island. It was still only frozen from 2”-12”. Generally, it absorbs so much sunlight during the warmer months that its temperature doesn’t change drastically enough in the winter to create freezing.

We drove back down the switch-backs to the Visitor Center, accessible through the snow tunnel. We watched the informational video, a short one about the challenges of snow removal – there is metal piping under the road to allow the plows to detect where to go, the rim trail really drops off, so plowing can be quite dangerous, followed by a presentation on how Crater Lake came to be here. The kids were able to complete their Junior Ranger program, while using the video, exhibits and informational panels and sat with Ranger Brian for quite some time discussing their answers.

All the kids were eager to get back in the snow so we drove as far as would along Rim Drive – only about a mile! – to get more pictures of the Lake. Although the road was closed to cars, we were able to walk along quite a distance; they are obviously doing a good job clearing the rim for summer opening in July. It’s hard to believe that the snow will all have melted in another 6 weeks, the walls of snow on the side of the road are currently at least 12 feet high in places!

We had quite a few snowball fights along the way; it certainly distracted the kids from the fact that they were actually walking a ways! There were also more good photo opportunities of Wizards Island (so-named because it looks like a wizard’s hat) and also the Phantom Ship, a tiny little island on the far side of the Lake.

Our next stop was the Crater Lake Lodge area, a beautiful building with a very nice sledding hill next to it. We bundled up as best we could and carried those sand sleds, yep, back in service on the snow again – at the end of MAY! – to the top of the hill. They quickly created a great little run, and just as quickly, were soaked! Jake was determined to have another snowball fight, which Caitlin wanted nothing to do with as she was creating snow art and a mini-fort – so different those two! Thankfully I’d had the foresight to bring a change of clothes this time and they were needed!

Due to the long weekend, when we arrived back at the campground, it was getting quite crowded. Campers continued to arrive late into the evening, clearly a very popular place. We had a fire for the first time in a while, complete with filled mountain pies and s’mores, cooked over the flames. Despite how cold it was while we were there; we really enjoyed this beautiful, rustic, quiet campground – even though our water froze overnight!

From Portland to Diamond Lake: Thursday, May 27th

2010-05-28T02:07:00.002-04:00

We had another early start as we drove south, first along the I-5 and then back into the windy, but pretty, National Forest roads. We saw a great many travel trailers on our journey today, including quite a few Outbacks. For the first time, we actually got acknowledgment from another OB, Dave always flashes his lights when we see one but rarely get a response.

Oregon is a beautiful state, very green, plenty of ski areas and campgrounds. We are enjoying our time here and wish we could have spent longer in this state; less than a week is not long enough.

We made it to Diamond Lake RV Park mid-afternoon. The drive took us past incredible views of snow covered mountains; so, so beautiful. The campground had only just opened the previous day and there was still plenty of snow on the ground. I knew that as soon as the little ones saw the snow, they would be out of the car like a shot – I wasn’t wrong!

Once again, I had to quickly persuade them to put on socks, boots, gloves, before I even had the words out of my mouth though, Nate was in the snow in his crocs and complaining about cold, wet feet, oh boy! They played and played, came in absolutely sodden and all exposed skin was bright red, however they were beaming and super happy. We were all pretty surprised that at the end of May, there was still plenty of snow around to play in, what will June bring?!

Before dinner, we walked the short pathway down to Diamond Lake. Even though it was only Thursday, there were already quite a few fishermen on boats out in the middle of the lake. Looking out over the water is beautiful enough, but then the amazing Diamond Peak rises up on the other side, covered in snow with interesting clouds above it; these views make sitting and reflecting for a few minutes, very easy.

Multnomah Falls: Wednesday, May 26th

2010-05-28T02:06:00.005-04:00

We did manage to do some school work today and yesterday, I also spent some time planning lessons for the next couple of weeks, to leave for Dave and also what I needed to bring for Caitlin. I am also trying desperately to finish up putting together the portfolios we need to submit to PA as proof of learning for the older two. They have all worked incredibly hard this year and made great progress, we just need to prove it!

After lunch, we went to another section of Lewis and Clark’s trail, along the Columbia. A couple of locals had told us a visit to Multnomah Falls while in the area was worth it, so we headed over there and were so surprised to discover the large parking lot was almost filled to capacity – at 2pm on a Wednesday afternoon – who are all these people?! We later read on one of their informational plagues that the falls are the most visited tourist site in Oregon.

These falls are the second highest year-round falls in the US but, as with others, the spring is the best time to see them as the volume of water greatly increases. They were beautiful, with a bridge crossing over between the upper and lower pools. As we had learned at other parks, when water gets into cracks, freezes and creates larger crevices, eventually these can cause sections of rock to come away from the rock face. This happened quite dramatically in September 1995. An enormous chunk of the rock came away and fell into the Upper Pool, the equivalent weight of a school bus filled with cement. This created a 70 foot wave, which washed over the bridge, where unfortunately a wedding party was standing for photographs. Thankfully no-one was killed, but there were some injuries.

After admiring the falls from the bridge, we spent some time in the Visitor Center looking at the exhibits and seeing more pictures of people making their way along the Oregon Trail, by covered wagon and in some cases, on crudely constructed rafts, complete with their wagons. It is fascinating to us how these people rode into unchartered territory in search of a better life. Caitlin has been reading the ‘Little House on the Prairie’ series for the last couple of months, so these types of journeys and pictures are of particular interest to her.

Fort Vancouver National Historic Site: Tuesday, May 25th

2010-05-28T02:06:00.002-04:00

Fort Vancouver, located just over the expansive Lower Columbia River in Washington (state number 37), was the headquarters of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s operations in the Pacific Northwest, it was the main supply depot and administrative center for dozens of posts from 1829 until 1849. Many American emigrants were supplied here until the Company left in 1860. Under the direction of Chief Factor John McLoughlin, Fort Vancouver played a critical role in the development of the Northwest.

We watched a movie in the Visitor Center that detailed life at the Fort in the mid 1800’s and also that this area was part of Lewis and Clark’s trail across the USA. There is a great Junior Ranger program online (www.nps.gov) that can be completed without going to a Visitor Center but involves reading up about some of Lewis and Clark’s historical journey. We’ll be completing it at some point but I wanted us to actually go on part of the trail and have an awareness of how challenging their travels were.

There was a great little museum in the Visitor Center that gave some initial answers to their Junior Ranger programs. The younger ones were also excited to discover a coloring table, which it was tough to pull them away from to actually go and look around the Fort!

A brief synopsis of the Fort: As the 19th century dawned, the United States and Great Britain were locked in a struggle for control of North America’s northern Pacific coast, a region rich in furs. By 1818 the two nations had agreed to share access to the Oregon Country, as they had come to call the region, until they could decide upon a boundary. Seven years later, in a bold move designed to anchor Britain’s claim to all of Oregon, the Hudson’s Bay Company, the giant fur trading organization, moved its Columbia Department headquarters from Fort George at the mouth of the Columbia to the newly established Fort Vancouver, 100 miles upstream. For the next two decades Fort Vancouver was directed by strong-willed, capable men who made it into the fur trade capital of the Pacific coast.

The entire Fort area was burned to the ground in the late 1800’s and is slowly being rebuilt by the NPS. They have done an amazing job; we were able to look in the Counting House, where employees would have worked 14 hour days, writing and reading by candlelight, passing the farming area on the way in. We looked around the Carpenter Shop and then onwards into the Bastion, which was Nathan’s favorite - he loves the cannons.

The Palisade surrounding the fort was expanded at least five times, by 1845 it enclosed an area 734 feet by 318 feet. Douglas fir posts about 15 feet high afforded privacy as well as protection from theft and attack. The British had great relations with the Indians in the area; they would frequently come to trade their furs, particularly for the ‘Fort Vancouver blanket’, apparently a much-coveted item. However, they were more fearful of an attack by the supposedly unruly and chaotic Americans in the area, particularly towards the end of their time at this location.

The kids really enjoyed the Trading Store and asked a lot of questions of the volunteer there. They were able to touch a number of different skins; the usefulness of the Fort became short-lived due to the waning interest in using beaver belts for hats back in GB. There were so many different trading items that the kids were able to handle: twisted tobacco, blocks of soap, beads, necklaces, thimbles (that the Indian women would put a hole through and add to their dresses – the more trinkets/beads you had, the higher up in the tribe you were), an interesting fire-starter kit with flint, strike and magnifying glass – Jake thought that one was cool.

We’d hoped to see the blacksmith in action, unfortunately he wasn’t around today. We did see some of the Rangers working on an archeological, blocked-off, area. Apparently it was previously dug about 40 years ago but methods have since been refined so they are re-looking at certain areas; such meticulous work and even when the rain began pouring down, they continued with what they were doing.

Another exciting area of interest for the kids was the privy. They couldn’t wait to run over to it and look inside. We were laughing that a number of people could sit on different ‘holes’ at the same time – social gathering place perhaps?! Nate, of course, sat himself on one of the ‘potties’ and requested a photo. I would hasten to add that these were not in use and only for show; we typically don’t make a habit of photographing our kids as they’re sitting on the loo! Dave was surprised how close they were to the other buildings; no doubt the stench was somewhat unpleasant.

We enjoyed this Park, the JR program was interesting and we gained a lot of new information.

On the way home, we stopped off at Urgent Care, this time I was the one who needed doctor advice. Unfortunately he diagnosed a sinus infection, on the plus side, negative strep test and antibiotics, so hopefully by the time I fly, I’ll be well on the way to feeling better.

From Tionesta, CA to Portland, OR

2010-05-28T01:46:00.002-04:00

Prior to the news we received on Thursday, our intention had been to stay in this area for a week before going to Crater Lake, the Oregon coast, Portland, Hells Canyon and the Oregon Trail and then moving into Idaho. However, plans changed in light of the fact that I would be flying to the UK for Mum’s funeral. Caitlin chose to join me on the trip and we booked flights for May 30th. This meant changing campground reservations and cutting a few of our intended stopping points either short or out altogether.

Knowing that we needed to be back in Reno for flights, we altered our route and decided to head directly north to Portland, OR for a few days. We knew it would be a long-drive day and got an early start. We paused briefly at the World War 2 National Memorial in Tulelake, north of the National Monument. This was the sight of one of ten Concentration Camps in the USA, which housed 100,000 US residents of Japanese origin, many of whom were US citizens. Jake had read about these camps last year so we were able to discuss racism and paranoia, which can really rear its ugly head during times of political unrest. It’s impossible not to learn new things as we drive along the roads in this country, informational stops like these abound along the way.

Much of our initial drive took us along the Volcanic Byway, Oregon’s Scenic Driveway. Oregon is state number 36 of our travel year, our time is flying by. We passed a Gun and Rifle Club en route that made us giggle, their sign stated: ‘Shoot 24 hours a day, only $50 annual family membership’ – quite the different area from what we’re used to! Jake was excited, “Does this mean I could go in and shoot?”

We stopped for lunch in Canyonville by the Seven Feathers Casino Resort, lunch was uninteresting but we had to stop to take a photo of the incredible eagle statue outside the casino. At the gas station, the girl pumping our gas took time to look all around our rig and especially at the front and rear hitches, as well as the sway bars. We were laughing, a real country gal, I live in it and have never shown that much interest!

We arrived at the Portland Fairview RV Resort in good time, quite a big park and pretty busy. The kids were excited to see the heated pool but while we stayed, there was a lot of rain so we never made it into the pool, Nate was especially disappointed. The previous schedule would have had us staying here for 5 days a couple of weeks later so it would have been slightly different.

Over the couple of days we were there, the owners gave the kids some duck food to feed the ducks living on the pond and Jake spent some time shooting hoops. We chose it for its proximity to the city as we had wanted to go to the Rose Festival; unfortunately we never even made it into the city of Portland at all. We did gaze over at it as we left, across the river, as the carnival rides and tents were being set up.

Lava Beds National Monument: Sunday, May 23rd

2010-05-28T01:43:00.002-04:00

Our intention this week had been to spend time at Lassen Volcanic National Park, unfortunately, due to the extremely harsh winter temperatures this year, the Park is still under about 8 feet of snow. We decided it wouldn’t be worth staying there if we couldn’t get in to see the beauty of the place so, instead came over to the Lava Beds. This park is one of the less-visited in the NPS, likely due to its proximity to nothing!

We would definitely recommend it though; Jake quickly decided it jumped into one of his top five favorite parks. We started out in the Visitor Center, collecting JR books and watching the short movie about the park. It has two main, very different, highlights. The first are the incredible lava tube caves. Lava is hot when it pours from a volcano – about 1,800°F, the outer edges and surface of the flow cool rapidly and begin to harden. This outside shell acts as insulating material while the rest of the flow beneath it remains hot and fast-moving. The flow continues on and when the eruption stops and the river of lava drains, a tunnel or tube – the outer shell – is left. Lava tubes can lie atop one another, the result of subsequent flows. Many of the tubes here were formed about 30,000 years ago after an eruption at Mammoth Crater on the southern boundary.

Having seen the caves on the video, the kids were eager to don their helmets and carry their flashlights down underground. We started out in a cave considered to be moderately challenging: Golden Dome. We were told to beware the ‘headache rock’ when entering and exiting the cave via the ladder. The downstream portion of this cave required some stooping. The back section where the ‘Golden Dome’ is located was a figure-8 so we had to be careful to note our location. Thank goodness Dave was with us; for sure I would have got us lost within minutes!

The golden ceiling in this and many other Lava Beds caves is the result of light reflecting off water droplets that bead up on a coating of hydrophobic bacteria. The bacteria are not harmful to humans but are protected so we were warned not to touch them. The color was fascinating. The kids thought it was cool, crawling over the volcanic lava rocks and under the low ceilings. A number of times, they asked to turn off their lights and ‘see’ how dark it was – let’s just say, within a couple of minutes of getting in, we were in utter pitch blackness; it would have been impossible to explore these caves without the aid of a flashlight.

Of all the caves we explored, this Golden Dome, was our most favorite of the day. Our next stop was Valentine Cave (how could we not visit this one?!). This cave was discovered on Valentine’s Day in 1933, and has large main passages with very smooth floors and walls. It had a different lava source than the caves on Cave Loop, which were where the other caves we went into, were located.

We stopped briefly in Indian Well Cave (not nearly as impressive as the others), before going to get Junior Ranger badges. The older two had an interesting page about bats – many of the caves are home to bats, some of them were actually closed to protect maternal bat colonies where mothers raise thousands of tiny, vulnerable bat pups on the ceiling. One of the suggestions they read about, to protect the bats, was to adopt a bat and of course, they wanted to do that. We now have instructions on how to build various bat boxes, which will definitely happen once we get back to Blue Bell. Our garden is a haven for mosquitoes and anything we can do to reduce their number is wonderful.

Before making our way to the huge areas of lava rock, we stopped in to see Skull Cave. This one is named for the bones of antelope and mountain goats, bighorn sheep skulls, and two human skeletons discovered inside. It is a remnant of two very large lava tubes, one on top of the other. This allows cold winter air to be trapped inside and create a year-round ice floor on the lower level. Unfortunately after years of visitors bringing in dirt, the ice is now very dirty and the park has stopped allowing people to walk on it, as they hope to restore it somehow to the clear and pristine state it was once in.

The second important reason for the National Monument is the stronghold of the Modoc Indians, led by Captain Jack. For centuries this area was home to the Modoc Indians, who hunted in the valleys and mountains, fished in the rivers and lakes, and used the tules (reeds) that grew around the lake to make their homes, boats, and other items. Their way of life was changed forever by the arrival of settlers in the 1850s. After repeated confrontations and much bloodshed, the Bureau of Indian Affairs negotiated with all the Klamath bands in October 1864.

The settlers were relieved, but the negotiations were disastrous for the Modocs. They were asked to give up their homeland and live on a reservation with bands who were their traditional enemies. Finally, the Modocs agreed to try living on the reservation, but within a few months they began to leave. They returned to their old homes saying that they wanted a reservation for themselves on their ancestral land. Even more Modocs left the reservation in 1867.

By late 1872, the US Army was ordered to return the Modocs, by force if necessary, to the reservation. On the morning of November 29th, 1872, an Army patrol went out to bring in the Indians, but fighting broke out. Initially victorious, The Modocs, under the leadership of Captain Jack, drove off the troops and sought safety in the lava beds, where for almost five months, 52 warriors held off a growing army, eventually 20 times larger.

An effort to end the war by negotiation ended in even more bloodshed. Captain Jack killed General Canby, who was the only General killed by an Indian during the years of the American/Indian wars. He was pressured into doing so by his band, who believed that if the figurehead was killed, the soldiers would retreat. In reality, the opposite was true. When people heard what had happened, their sympathies lay with the Americans.

By late May almost all the Modocs had been captured, and on June 1, 1873, Captain Jack surrendered. On October 3, 1873, he and three other Modoc leaders were hanged. The remaining members of Jack’s band were sent to a reservation in Oklahoma.

We saw the cross commemorating General Canby’s place of death and walked the loop trail, highlighting the defensive stands of the Modocs, including cave ‘homes’ of the main leaders. Given how chilly and windy it was mid-May, the thought of being there during the winter months was wholly unappealing. It certainly gave us perspective of how determined these families were to try and keep their reservation and homeland in tact.

Veterans of World Wars 1 and 2 were offered lots in this area for homesteads, their numbers were placed in a pickle jar and if they were lucky enough to be ‘picked’, they were given a lot on the land. To create these homesteads, Tule Lake was completely drained, so we had to kind of imagine what the area was like during the time of the Modocs and how the lake would have impacted their life and defensive standpoints. Jake is always so interested in these battles, I purchased the booklet and know he will read it more than once!

We learned a lot today and thoroughly enjoyed exploring this park.

From Reno, NV to Tionesta, CA: Saturday, May 22nd

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Becca had been up a lot the night before and awoke crying with ear pain. Why is it impossible for only one person to get sick?! We coordinated our morning to stop by Urgent Care while I could buy groceries, with the camper in tow. So, our second child of the week was diagnosed with a double ear infection and more antibiotics entered the fridge. Neither Caitlin nor I felt particularly wonderful either but our throats were suffering more than our ears, hopefully we’ll continue to be able to beat it with OTC drugs and avoid the docs.

We drove the single lane roads towards Tionesta, along what would prove to be our most beautiful 4-hour Saturday drive to date. We saw very few cars and were surrounded by trees of Modoc National Forest for much of the way. Driving past those firs still covered with snow created awesome picture-postcard views; it was wonderful.

We did comment a few times on how glad we were that we had stocked up on food – and gas! We passed through the odd tiny town here and there but other than houses, there didn’t seem to be much else around.

When we arrived at Eagles Nest RV Park, we were greeted by the owner who told us that they drive about an hour each way to get groceries! I suppose that is the price you pay for living in the middle of nowhere. The kids were excited to see a playset in the campground and very few campers. There was however, another travel trailer, much like ours, housing a Dad, Brian, and his two daughters, similar ages to ours. They gave us some great info on things to see at the National Monument and which roads to avoid as we headed into Oregon.

He also told us about ‘Corn Snow’, which we had never heard of before. The drive over had brought us through bouts of snow (yes, it’s mid-May, hard to believe!), one was particularly bad as it settled on the cold road, thankfully, as quickly as the snow appeared, it disappeared. Corn snow is kind of a cross between hailstones and snowflakes and by dinner time, it was really coming down; we had to take refuge inside.

There was a beautiful sunset later in the evening (oh dear, more pictures) but it was cold being outside. This was another night of needing to disconnect the water as it dropped a little below freezing.

Lake Tahoe: Thursday, May 20th

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I received a shocking phone call from my Dad before breakfast, letting us know that my Mum had passed away a couple of hours earlier. Despite her illness, the horribly debilitating PLS (Primary Lateral Sclerosis), she was not considered to be near death. We were, in fact, quite optimistic that her strength would improve once she received the peg system to aid with feeding and nutrition. However, it obviously wasn’t meant to be and a day after leaving hospital, God called her home. We know she is in a better place, her faith was strong but it is hard for us, left here without her, we will miss her desperately.

Late in the afternoon, we drove up to beautiful Lake Tahoe, it straddles both NV and CA, and we crossed back over the border and spent some time at King Beach. It was a quiet place to reflect on Mum’s life and felt peaceful, gazing out over such an incredibly blue body of water. Dave and I had visited here a couple of times in the past and it never ceases to leave you with a feeling of awe.

As we were driving up, we saw a small number of people out on their skis and boards. All the lifts are closed (sometimes Squaw opens up briefly again over 4th of July weekend) but they were managing somehow. We were quite jealous! It’s funny to have snow covered mountains and sandy beaches within a few miles of each other – another place we wouldn’t mind living in, you know, if we had a spare $2 million lying around somewhere!

Grand Sierra Resort, Reno

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This was a great location, a good base from which to explore the area. The campground is large and we were situated a good distance from the road, backing up to the walking path. It is very close to the airport though so we did have to get used to the noise of planes overhead, we did enjoy watching them fly so low above us though.

The Resort has a large, heated pool, called the BEACH. The area surrounding the pool is sandy, there’s a tiki bar area and lots of loungers. I’m sure that during the summer, it gets incredibly busy but given the temperatures of our week, it was unsurprisingly, empty. Dave did take the kids over on Thursday after lunch and they were, predictably, thrilled and took a lot of persuasion to get out. I guess we used to be this way when we were their age, it’s just hard to fathom now!

Also in the main hotel is a mall, including, unfortunately, a toy shop, filled to overflowing with Webkinz. Apparently the temptation was too great and three of them succumbed to new ‘pets’, in addition to everything else in the camper, we now have a bat, a clown fish and a ginger cat – Dave was highly unimpressed. Soft, cuddly toys are totally taking over their beds, his initial limit of four per person has long-since been surpassed!

On Friday, Danielle and Pete came over with their kids to join ours in oodles of fun inside the play area of the FunZone. After pizza dinner (oh, so conveniently located right next door, they totally have you over a barrel and you pay for it!), the older five, along with Dave, played a game of lazer tag. Apparently he was quite the target but still came out victorious; he’s such a big kid at heart.