Posts Tagged With: fulltime families

50th Anniversary Celebration

When we left Montana at the end of August, we had exactly 6 weeks to make it back to Charlotte, NC for a very special occasion. We covered a lot of miles in those 6 weeks! The special occasion was a party for my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary. Not many people these days can say they’ve been married to the same person for 50 years. That’s quite an accomplishment and I’m so proud of them.

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The party was held at the Extreme Ice Center in Indian Trail and we couldn’t have been happier with the excellent customer service we received there. Many friends and relatives came in from out of town and we appreciate all of them so much, as well as all of the local friends and family that came out to celebrate with us! It was so much fun spending time with people that we haven’t seen in so long.

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Pre-party festivities at Mom and Dad’s house

My amazingly talented brother-in-law Chris and my sister Cheryl put together a really awesome video highlighting my parent’s story beginning from their dating years. There were a lot of really funny parts to the video and I love the pictures Chris captured here of everyone’s laughter.

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We had wonderful food, dancing and lots of laughing.

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My beautiful Mom with Cheryl and me

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Group picture with my mom’s sister Jackie and her brother John with wife Patty

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Lifelong friends: Jim & Beverly and Fred & Rita

After the party we went back to Mom and Dad’s house for some more family time. Yes I’m wearing pajama pants in the picture below. After a fun-filled day I was ready for “happy clothes”. 😉

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My Aunt Jackie… I love her!

After the action-packed party weekend, some of us went to Hilton Head Island to continue the celebration for a few more days. We stayed in a really cute rental house together and had lots of fun playing games and just spending time together.

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My Chris (my brother-in-law is also named Chris so I have to distinguish by saying “my Chris” and “Cheryl’s Chris”) prepared a fabulous dinner one night for everyone including crab legs, salmon and steak.

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One day the guys played golf while Cheryl & I took the boys for a bike ride, and the rest of the ladies went shopping.

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One thing that made this trip extra special is that Chris & I were celebrating our 16th wedding anniversary that week and it just so happens that we were married in Hilton Head. We visited the Westin Resort where we were married and showed the boys the “scene of the crime”. 😉 Our wedding took place to the left in the picture below where the green roof is.

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Westin Resort, Hilton Head Island, SC

The week-long celebration was such a wonderful time for all of us! Next we headed back to Florida.

Categories: Fulltime RV'ing, North Carolina, South Carolina | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

The Ark Encounter and Creation Museum

We met up with some other Fulltime Families at the Indian Springs Campground in North Bend, Ohio to go on a couple of field trips to the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum.  The ark and museum are in Kentucky, while our campground in Ohio was across the street from Indiana where we ate dinner twice that week.  It was kind of funny being in 3 states several times that week.

We had a beautiful campsite on a lake where many ducks visited our site daily for food.

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Fat Cat loved watching them.

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Since we started traveling my bucket list included visiting the Creation Museum in Kentucky, and then I heard they opened the Ark Encounter in July which made it even more appealing.  When we lived in Florida we used to attend the FPEA Homeschool Convention every year where I would attend Biblical Creation talks by Answers in Genesis.  I have missed that since we moved away, but I was excited to be able to finally visit the Creation Museum by Answers in Genesis.

I don’t have a lot of pictures from the museum other than pictures from the outside petting zoo.  They had these strange looking animals called zebroids.  Have you ever heard of such a thing?  It’s a mix between a zebra and a horse (a zorse) or a mix between a zebra and a donkey (a zonkey).  Jake is a huge fan of zebras so when I first saw these animals I was about to say, “Hey Jake, look at the zebras!”  But then as I looked closer I wasn’t really sure they were zebras.

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The kids liked the petting zoo.

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And the outdoor botanical garden with the suspension bridge was really fun.

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Most displays at the museum include a lot of reading.  That was fine for me, but kids quickly lose interest.  The museum is done really well with displays on evolution, Adam & Eve, the Fall, the Flood, all the way up to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It very clearly describes human history from a Biblical perspective and explains the origins of various people groups, racial differences and languages.

There were some interactive displays which were great for kids, and the outdoor area helped to burn off some energy.  Below is a picture of an interactive game for the kids to help design the ark.

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The Ark Encounter was really amazing and very hard to describe.  It’s something you really just need to see in person.  It’s so huge!  It is built according to the specs in the Bible, so you really get an idea of just how they could fit all those animals on it.

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Inside there were many displays to show you how Noah and his family might have stored food.

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There were also many displays to show how they could fit all these animals into the ark and how they would feed them.

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There were displays to show how they may have prepared food.

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And what their living quarters might have looked like.

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This display shows Noah and his family praying to God.

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This one shows Noah and the dove returning with the olive branch.

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There was even a display showing these crazy, wild looking animals, unlike anything I’ve ever seen. 🙂

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The door to the ark was huge!  Touring the ark gave me a better understanding of just how large it was and how there was plenty of room for the animals (large and small).  Of course large marine life like whales did not need to be on the ark.

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This sign really spoke to me.  I firmly believe in the Bible, the Holy Word of God, but I know many people do not.  Heaven and Hell are real places and my prayer is that all of you reading this would not be deceived, but know that the Bible is true.

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Visiting the Ark Encounter answers all of the skeptic’s questions like “how did they fit all those animals on the ark?”, and “what about the dinosaurs?”, etc.  The museum and ark encounter scientifically lay out all of the answers to these questions and more.

If you plan to visit, keep in mind that the museum and ark are about 45 minutes apart.  When you buy a combined ticket, you can spend 2 days at the museum and 1 at the ark.  Because they are not right next to each other, you should definitely plan on a separate day for each one.

A week after we went there, another Fulltime Family went and wrote an awesome blog post about their visit.  I wish I would have had their post to read before we went.  If you plan to visit, please read this first.  It is a great post about how to plan your visit for kids of all ages: Faith Takes Flight.

 

Categories: Kentucky, Ohio | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Wisconsin Dells

Wisconsin Dells is known as the Water Park Capital of the World.  When someone first told me that I thought they were crazy.  I mean seriously, Wisconsin that might only have a few weeks of summer, known for water parks?  Then I found out that many of the water parks are indoors and they really are amazing!

We passed through this area during the week of Jake’s 12th birthday.  Another fun birthday on the road!

We parked our house at a nearby RV park for the week, but spent a couple of nights at 2 different water park hotels.  Since it’s the off season we were able to get really great rates for the hotels and the cost of the hotel includes water park access.  It’s actually cheaper to do that than pay admission for 4 to a water park.

The first hotel we stayed at was Wilderness Resort.  This place is huge!  They have 4 indoor water parks and 4 outdoor, but the outdoor parks were closed for the season.  And only 2 of the indoor parks were open while we were there, but that was plenty.  That also may be why it’s so inexpensive at this time of the year.

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Klondike Kavern

Klondike Kavern has several slides, a large lazy river, an indoor/outdoor hot tub and our favorite the Hurricane slide.

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Wild WaterDome

Wild WaterDome has a giant wave pool and a fun family slide.

Wilderness Resort also has many other non-water indoor activities like a go cart track, mini golf, laser tag, a ropes course and a huge playground.  We did not spend the money on all of those extra activities, but I was impressed by how many fun things they have to do there.

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The other hotel we went to was the Great Wolf Lodge.

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This place has one indoor and one outdoor waterpark, but both parks are huge and all in one place instead of spread out around the resort like Wilderness.

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This was one of our favorites where all 4 of us could race on toboggan style mats.

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We enjoyed both of these resorts very much, it’s hard to say which one is better because they both had many fun things to do.

And again we had both places almost to ourselves with very short lines if any.  September birthdays are lots of fun, and Jake said this was his best birthday ever.  Jesse said the same thing about his birthday celebration 2 weeks earlier at Mall of America.  It looks like I have my work cut out for me to try to come up with something just as fun for each of them next year.

Categories: Wisconsin | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The North Shore of Minnesota

After driveway surfing in Wisconsin we headed back into Minnesota up to the North Shore.  We stayed at Burlington Bay Campground in Two Harbors right on Lake Superior.  Do you see a Fat Cat on the fence?

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She’s easier to see close up.

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Lake Superior is amazing!  I swear this seems so much more like the ocean to me than a lake.  It’s enormous and on windy days the waves were just as big as ocean waves.

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One evening we went to visit beautiful Gooseberry Falls State Park, and enjoyed riding the bike trails.

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We heard that when you’re in Two Harbors you must stop and try Betty’s Pies.  So after walking and biking around Gooseberry Falls we stopped there for dinner and dessert.  Delicious!

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Another evening we checked out Split Rock Lighthouse State Park.  Wow, this was absolutely gorgeous!

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We also enjoyed walking the trail across the street from our campground.  I loved watching the waves crash against the rocks!

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That’s our home back there, parked in between several other homes with a view.

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We found a nice playground down the street for my little monkey.

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On Saturday my boss and his wife and daughter came up to visit us for the day.  We went back to Gooseberry Falls with them.  It was a lot colder that day than when we went earlier in the week, but lots of fun to enjoy this with Mike and his family.  They have been here many times before and were able to show us around to other areas of the park that we missed when we went the first time.  It’s always nice to have locals to show us around!

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We got to see an eagle on the trail!

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I’m so glad we took this trip up to the North Shore.  It was a little out of our way since we were on a tight timeline to get to North Carolina by mid-October, but it was worth it.  Such a beautiful area and definitely a place I would like to go back to again when we have more time.

Categories: Minnesota | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Driveway Surfing in Wisconsin

One of my co-workers lives on a beautiful farm in Amery, Wisconsin.  She invited us to park on her property so we went there after Minneapolis.  I recently learned that parking at someone’s house is called “Driveway Surfing” or as another friend put it “Mooch-docking”. 🙂

Whatever it’s called I like it!  I need to find more friends that have room on their property for us to park.  This was really fun, and just look at this beautiful spot!

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Jenna and Scott were such gracious hosts and we really enjoyed spending a few days with them.  We especially enjoyed evenings by the campfire!  We surprised Jesse with a birthday cake after dinner one night even though it was now past his birthday.

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Jenna took us kayaking one evening.  That was so much fun and the lake was so peaceful and beautiful.

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This was the first time Jake kayaked on his own and he did great!

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The Amery Fall Festival was that weekend so we got to attend a small town parade and carnival.

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As if the kids really needed more rides after Mall of America!

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They tried to help Jenna win a goldfish with no success.

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Jenna had a temporary roommate from Mexico living with her, a very sweet lady named Rebecca.  She made us a real authentic Mexican dinner one night that was so delicious!  What a treat that was!

We are so grateful to Jenna for inviting us to stay with her for a few days.  We all really enjoyed our time there!

Categories: Wisconsin | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Mall of America and Birthdays on the Road

Last October I went to Minneapolis for work for a few days.  You can read about that post here: The Smokies with a side trip to Minnesota.  While I was there I went to the Mall of America and later came home and showed my kids pictures of the Nickelodeon Universe amusement park that is inside the mall.  Ever since then they have been wanting to go there.

After leaving South Dakota we headed to Minnesota.  I was able to go into the office one day while I was there.  It’s always nice to see people I work with face to face sometimes.  I feel very blessed to work with some awesome people that I really like to spend time with.

Jesse’s 10th birthday was that week and guess where he wanted to go for his birthday?  Mall of America of course!  Sometimes people ask me how we do birthdays on the road.  Actually we were never really into the birthday party thing when we lived in our sticks and bricks.  We always preferred to celebrate birthdays by taking a vacation to Disney World because that’s just how we roll.  So now on the road we just try to plan our travels through an area with something fun to do as a family.

We went to Mall of America twice that week.  One day I took the kids to the Crayola Experience in the mall.

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I found a Groupon for 50% off and I was able to get in free with my homeschool teacher ID.  What could have cost $60 (it’s normally $20/person) ended up only being $20 for all 3 of us.  Score!  I wasn’t sure if my kids would like this place because they are getting older and I wondered if it may be a little too young for them.  But they loved it and we all had a great time!  We spent about 4 hours there because there was so much to do.  I was really impressed by all the activity stations and how much creativity is involved.

At the first station you make your own personalized crayon.

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Then you make a coloring page featuring your own picture!

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At another station you make something out of clay.

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In this section they could color with markers.  Jesse’s sign shows his love for his family, Jake’s on the other hand shows he could use a little humility. 😉

After the Crayola Experience we went to the Lego Store where the kids could play with lots of Legos.  Check out the amusement park in the background!  That was for the next day.

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So the next day my baby turned double-digits… 10 years old!  How can that be possible?  I can’t believe how quickly they are growing up on me.  Chris took the afternoon off work and we spent the day at the Nickelodeon Universe inside the mall.

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First of many roller coaster rides

The log flume ride was my favorite!

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I think the kids liked the bumper cars the best.

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This ride was pretty fun.  With your controller you can make it spin or go upside down.  I’m not a big fan of spinning, but it was still fun.

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I love roller coasters and this one had upside down loops and corkscrews.  It was really fun!

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My cute birthday boy!  He kept telling me several times throughout the day how thankful he was that we took him there for his birthday.  He is so sweet and it melts this momma’s heart to hear him express such gratitude.

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Ferris Wheel

We were all pretty amazed at how many rides they can fit inside a mall.  We bought the unlimited rides wristband that my boss was able to get a great deal on.  And we sure got our money’s worth!  We stayed until they closed and only took a break for dinner.  And since it was a weekday we practically had the place to ourselves and never had to wait in any lines.  That’s a nice benefit of homeschooling and September birthdays.

Jesse said this was his best birthday ever.  Now how am I going to top that next year?  Hmm…

Categories: Minnesota | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Badlands National Park

While in South Dakota we visited Badlands National Park.  I have to admit I did not have very high expectations for this park.  I mean after we just spent the past month or two visiting the Tetons, Yellowstone & Glacier, I wasn’t sure anything could measure up.  I am happy to report I was wrong.  The Badlands are amazing!  It was so beautiful and so other-worldly.  I mean it seriously looked like we had landed on another planet.  Hey, that’s not such a bad idea!  If space travel ever becomes a “thing”, we might have to change our names from RoadSchoolers to GalaxySchoolers! 🙂

Anyway back on earth, here we are at the Badlands.

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Beautiful hills that remind me of the painted desert in Arizona with wildflowers everywhere.

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Oops, a little traffic jam caused by some pronghorn sheep that decided to walk in the middle of the road instead of on the endless miles of prairies off to the side.

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This was after they decided to get off the road and let us drive by, thank you very much!

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We started our hike at the Door Trail.  This is where it especially felt like or looked like walking on another planet.

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Oh no, it seems we have left bear country, but we’re back in the land of rattlesnakes.  Yuck!  I’m not sure which is worse.  At least bears are cuter.

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Next was the Window Trail.

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And then the Notch Trail which had a fun ladder to climb.

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The Notch Trail was my favorite.  Not only was the trail itself really fun with so many cool rocks to climb, but the end of the trail had a really amazing view.

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Climbing back down the ladder was a little harder than climbing up, but Jesse makes it look so easy.

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Afterward he wanted to sing a song on top of a rock. 😉

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The last trail we hiked was the Saddle Pass trail which was a short but steep climb.  You see that pointed peak in the background?  Jesse and I climbed to the top of that!

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When we reached the end of the Saddle Pass Trail, Jesse and I wanted to climb to the top of that peak, so there we are — those two little dots almost to the top.

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We made it!  Now we look like one little dot at the top.

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Climbing back down Saddle Pass was a lot harder than going up.  It’s like trying to walk down a dusty slide.  You might as well just sit on your butt and slide down because that’s basically how you’ll end up going down anyway. 🙂

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At the end of the day, we stopped at the Visitor Center so the boys could earn their Junior Ranger badges.

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On our way out of the park we passed by one of many prairie dog towns.  They are so cute!

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We visited the Badlands in September, and it was a very nice day (about 80ish), but it felt really hot on some of those hikes.  I have heard that in the summer it gets well over 100 there.  So if you plan to visit, keep in mind that the middle of summer is probably not the best time to go.  I think September was great, but even October is probably very nice.

If you have ever traveled down I-90 in South Dakota, you would see many billboards advertising a tourist trap called Wall Drug.  Wall Drug is close to the Badlands so we went there after the park to check it out.  It’s basically just a bunch of shops and some restaurants, and you can buy any kind of SD souvenirs that you can imagine.  There are also lots of fun statues for the kids to play on.

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That wraps up the highlights of our time in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  Next up — Minnesota!

Categories: National Parks, South Dakota | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Custer State Park and Mt. Rushmore

After leaving Montana and Wyoming we headed east to South Dakota and stayed at Custer State Park.  This park was amazing!  We all agree it should be a national park.  It’s a very big park with several different areas and campgrounds.  It’s definitely one of the coolest state parks we have been to.  I was very thankful to get a campsite there as they start taking reservations a year in advance, but I didn’t know we would be going there until about 3 months in advance.

We had lots of excitement at our campsite every day as bison came walking through.  We’re always told to never approach or go near the wildlife, but we couldn’t really help the fact that these bison were always grazing right in our campsite.  Sometimes we would be sitting outside and look up to find a bison just a few feet away!

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Fat Cat was pretty scared of these things.  She wanted to run back in the house anytime she saw one.  I think she realized this animal was much too large for her to mess with.  She liked to watch from the safety of indoors.

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We visited 3 different areas of this park.  First was a driving tour of the Wildlife Loop.  We saw some pronghorn sheep and bison on this loop, but honestly we thought the wildlife sightings back at our campsite were a lot more interesting.

The next evening we drove the Needles Highway.  This was an amazing drive with spectacular scenery of these tall rock formations.  I had read about this highway beforehand that mentioned 3 tunnels we would have to drive through.  The tunnels are very narrow and only one vehicle can fit through at a time.  As you know, our vehicle is rather large and we weren’t sure if we should do this drive.  The Needles Eye Tunnel is only 8’4″ wide and our truck is about 7’10” wide.  But we did it!  Chris is such a good driver. 🙂

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Needles Eye Tunnel – I can’t believe we drove through this!

We hiked to the Cathedral Spires which was a beautiful hike.

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Then we drove to Sylvan Lake and walked the 1 mile loop around the lake.  This was a such a fun hike because there are so many rocks to climb on!

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There were also a couple of narrow passageways to walk through.

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I really loved how the rocks reflected in the water like a mirror.

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The next evening we drove the scenic Iron Mountain Road to go visit Mt. Rushmore.  This road also had some tunnels, but not nearly as narrow as the Needles Highway.  As we drove through the last tunnel, we could see the president’s heads in the distance.

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Mt. Rushmore is one of those iconic landmarks that is a “must see” on any American road trip.

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All 50 state flags are on this walkway.

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The boys earned their Mt. Rushmore Junior Ranger badges.

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Before we started traveling like this, I had never really given the state of South Dakota much thought.  I had no idea it is such a beautiful state with so many awesome things to do.  We visited Badlands National Park next, but I will save that for my next post.  Cheers!

Categories: National Parks, South Dakota | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park

After leaving Glacier, we stopped for a couple of nights in Whitehall, Montana at Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park.  This was so nice because we really missed staying at state parks.  While we were visiting Grand Tetons, Yellowstone and Glacier our only options were crowded RV parks.  Pulling into our site at this state park was a welcome change.  Look at all that space!

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Lots of room for Chris and the boys to play.

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And Fat Cat loved it too!

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We did the cavern tour while we were there which was really cool.  This is the entrance to the cavern.

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Inside the cavern is a small slide that everyone on the tour has to go down to get to the next section of the cave.  It was a lot of fun and the highlight of the tour for the kids.  Sorry the picture is blurry.  It’s hard to get a good picture of kids in motion in the dark!

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A few cave pictures.

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I liked the room all lit up in purple!

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This was a beautiful place to spend a couple of days after all the fun we had at Glacier.

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After this we moved on to Cody, Wyoming and visited the east side of Yellowstone from there, but I already wrote about that as part of my posts about Yellowstone.  You can read about that here: Yellowstone: Fishing Bridge and Cody, WY.

Categories: Montana | Tags: , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park

While we were in Glacier we decided to make a day trip up to the Canadian side of the park called Waterton Lakes.  Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada and Glacier National Park in Montana, USA joined together to become the first International Peace Park in 1932.  The Peace Park commemorates the friendship between the two countries.  I love this because my dad is from Nova Scotia and I have many friends and relatives from Canada.

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Waterton Lakes was a 3 hour drive from where we were staying near West Glacier, so we left the RV at the park in Montana and stayed in a hotel up at Waterton for one night.  This was so exciting because although I have been to Canada, I had never been to Alberta.  And our kids thought it was really fun to go to another country for the day.  Now Jake really wants to spend a summer exploring Canada, and so do I.  What a beautiful country!

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Our first stop at Waterton Lakes was Red Rock Canyon.  This was a lot of fun for the kids to climb on the rocks and Jesse even found some rock slides.

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I think it’s pretty obvious why they called this Red Rock Canyon!

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Then we got settled at our hotel before venturing out to explore Waterton Village.  The village is in the middle of the national park and it is so cute!  There are several hotels to choose from.  We stayed at Waterton Lakes Lodge because it had an indoor pool and hot tub which we enjoyed very much.  You can walk to all the restaurants and shops in the area from any of the hotels.  There were lots of deer everywhere!

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Even Bambi!

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Waterton Lake is gorgeous!

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We ate dinner at a restaurant right next to the lake.  While we waited for the food the kids enjoyed playing in their “yard” and on the chair swings.

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I think I look a little tired in this picture.  This family sure knows how to work hard and play hard!

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The next day we hiked to Bertha Falls.

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Some beautiful views of the lake and mountains from the hiking trail.

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Then we toured the Prince of Wales Hotel which was stunning!

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This is the lake view from the hotel.

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I am so glad we made this little side trip from Glacier, but our time there was too short.  Like I say about most places we go, that just means we have to go back again someday.  Exploring more of Alberta is now on our ever-growing bucket list.

Categories: Montana, National Parks | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

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