Before I forget, I wanted to tell our vacation story. Eventually it will be put into a scrapbook, but that takes more time, so before it becomes too much of a faint memory, here's our story...
3200 miles, 10 states, 11 days
Tuesday, July 12th
We left Jaguar Way just after 7am headed to Mt. Rushmore! Somewhere after we were in Wyoming we said good-bye to the sun. And not only that, but some heavy fog set in. Mike's GPS led us a little astray and we ended up on some really small highways. (Although after looking back on the map, I don't think there were many much bigger the way we were headed!) Anyway, at points of this drive, we could barely see the road in front of us...
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| Wyoming State Hwy 270 |
Driving on the smaller highways, we ended up going through several small towns. One sign said population 76. Can't imagine what life would be like in that small of a town! We also saw a creek that caught my eye. It was all dried up, and the name on the sign was "Old Woman Creek". My question is, was the creek all dried up when they named it that?!? :-) One huge downside to driving on these roads is that you don't see semi-trucks and that means we can't try to get them to honk at us. We only managed to get 1 honk on the first day...
So as we continue to drive and notice not only the fog, but the cool air, I realized I didn't pack any long sleeve anythings for anyone!! For goodness sake, it is a summer road trip. I knew Colorado had crazy weather, but we were leaving Colorado. So we warn the kids that if the fog doesn't lift, we might not get to see the presidents faces, so we would just go in the morning. And that's exactly what happened. It was foggy, so we kept on driving into Rapid City where we would stay our first night. First we stop in a few little shops looking for sweatshirts!! We were all a little chilly! We stopped at one place and I just ran in to see if there were affordable sweatshirts considering we were going to have to buy 5 of them!! I noticed I was the only one in the shop with shorts, shortsleeves and flip-flops, guess they all checked the weather, unlike us! Too expensive, so we continue on. We saw a sign on a window for $6.99 sweatshirts, so we stopped there. Score! Anna gets a Sturgis 2010 hoodie and the rest of us, random South Dakota sweatshirts. Of course the kids had to try on the crazy wigs/hats...they always do!!
So we buy the sweatshirts and head onto the local Ramada Inn! Once we check-in, we go to get Isaac's bed...we left his sleeping bag at home, oh well, we needed another one anyway. So we head to the local Walmart find a sleeping bag and then off to Burger King for dinner. (On a tight budget, it's lunch in the car from the cooler and fast-food dinners!) Of course one of the best things about road trips is the hotel pool. And this one was really cool. It was just off the lobby in the center of the hotel with rooms surrounding it. We've never seen one like this...
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| Now that's some indoor pool! |
Wednesday, July 13th
We wake up to the sound of rain. Great! Now, it's not only foggy, but rainy too. We bought sweatshirts, but not rain gear! Once we got back from breakfast, it had stopped and we hoped for the best. We didn't drive this far and not even try to see Mt. Rushmore. So we go! Did you know that there isn't a park entrance fee, only a parking fee and the parking pass is good for the whole calendar year, and only $11. That's my kind of deal! So if we are back in the area before 12/31, we can go again! :-)
Well, this is what we see!
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| 1st this... |
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| Then this...we are getting excited! |
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| Finally, this! |
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The Falkenstine 5 in our South Dakota sweatshirts!!!
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So, as you can see the fog lifted and we got to see the faces and hike the trail and see some more up close views! The plus side of the cool weather is that we hit the monument just a few days before the heat wave hit everywhere. A week later, we would have been sweating in the 100 plus degree weather. Thank God for small favors! :-)
Next stop, Wall, SD. I took a trip with the girl scouts when I was 12 (SarahE's age) and went all over, including Mt. Rushmore. I vaguely remembered a famous drug store and then I just happened to see a FB post of someone who was at Mt. Rushmore and he also had a picture at Wall Drug. That was the place! No one in my family had heard of it, but it was just off the interstate and I wanted to stop. Honestly, I was a little disappointed. Some of it looked familiar, but I didn't remember it being so touristy, but what else should I have expected! But we still got some fun pictures...
Funny story, we tell the kids we will buy them each a 'treat'. SarahE chooses a homemade donut, Mike and the two other kids buy giant jaw breakers. These things are so big Mike can't even safely get it into his mouth!! They immediately turn their mouths colors. Of course SarahE enjoys her donut and is done. Well, the jawbreaker crews, suck on their jaw breakers daily!! Mike finally finishes his on the trek back home a week later and Isaac finishes his first week home. Anna's is in pieces after letting Mike hammer hers in a baggie so it's more manageable. It's in her lunch box now and is eating pieces of it at school every day! :-)
Ok, onward...next stop Sioux Falls, SD. South Dakota, other than the Rapid City area, I'm not sure it has a whole lot of fun things for kids. So, I think they decided to make it up in hotel pools. I'm serious, my kids want to find a reason why we could travel back to the Sioux Falls area, just to stay in the Holiday Inn Express in Brandon, SD. This is what we see when we pull up...
We had seen a sign that said something about an indoor waterpark, but we blew it off until we saw this...It was dinner time, but the kids didn't want to 'waste' time going out to eat. So I agreed to go find a McDonalds or something and bring it back. Mike and the kids headed straight to the pool!!
It was quite the pool! The waterslide was something else, giant tubes, lifeguard on duty, a ride into the dark unknown back into the whirlpool landing!! Then there was a whole play structure with a bucket that dumped every 3-4 minutes (yes, I know, I timed it so I could let them know when to run back over to get dumped on!) And a hot tub for the less daring...Anna.
Thursday, July 14th
Driving day...It's still cool, still using those sweatshirts! Best $50 we spent! Still rainy. Matter of fact, it rained pretty heavy and steady all day through Minnesota, Wisconsin and into Illinois, well, with the exception of when I was driving...for some reason it was dry or sprinkling when I was driving. We saved the downpour for Mike's shift...what can I say? I'm not complaining! We spent the night on the eastside of the Chicago suburbs. Illinois has more to do for kids, so they don't care too much about their pools. This one, we could have skipped! :-) Dinner at KFC and then some pool time. In the morning we will explore Chicago! Oh, for the first time since we left Colorado, we see the sun!
Friday, July 15th
First stop, Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower), the 3rd largest building in the world and then the tallest in the whole Western Hemisphere! To the top we go!!
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| 103 floors! |
The line was quite long inside. We watched a movie and then got in line. We were at the right place at the right time, and 20 people or so, got to detour the line and get on another elevator. Score!! I wonder how fast the elevator was going, but we got up there pretty fast! The girls were the most daring and walked right out on the glass box observation area. Mike and Isaac carefully stepped out, I was the coward and stayed on a surface that I couldn't see through. I know, wimp! I'm okay with that!!
Next stop, Navy Pier. We found street parking and ate lunch in the car before we ventured out. We were beginning to feel the humidity. It was in the upper 80's, so that was nice for Chicago, but it was still draining for us as we walked to the end of the pier and back...
The van is holding up well, and turns a momentous 100K as we drive by Wrigley Field, and then we were off to Michigan!!
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| Welcome to Michigan!! |
We arrived in Holland, Michigan, in the eastern time zone in time for dinner with our friends, the Kloostermans!
Saturday, July 16th
Time to see what all the fuss with Lake Michigan is....Ok, we now understand the fuss! It's incredible! Beautiful sand, water as far as the eye can see, water you can see through down to your feet and no salt!! First on the schedule, go get the boat!! As the dads and big kids had fun on the boat, Katy and I were happy to just sit on the beach, talk, read and relax!! Although, we did get out for a cruise too!
The adults went out to dinner and left the kids to themselves...we did leave them some dinner, but they were fine on their own! We decided while we were out that when we got back we would take the kids out of ice cream...Captain Sundae's!
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| Anna, Sydney, SarahE & Jacob |
Sunday, July 17th
Day 2 in Michigan...beachtime again! We decide to take it easy in the morning and head out after lunch and plan to stay at the beach for dinner and stay for the sunset, which happens like 8:45pm! Katy's parents live in a house right on the lake, so they were gracious enough to let us invade for the weekend. It was great!
The day included more boating, more sun, more swimming, more reading and visiting!
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| We found a very comfy spot! |
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| The daily drip castle of any beach trip! |
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| Mike holding on for dear life!! |
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| How cool to swim in 80 foot deep water! |
As I mentioned the sun sets really late, so we went inside for dinner and back down to the beach to wait for the sun to set. The kids played in the water and they also decided to bury each other in the sand!
The clouds made the sun disappear, but it was still beautiful!! Another day of vacation ends!
Monday, July 18th
Steve and Katy had to go back to work after the weekend break. So we were on our own for the day. We decided to go to Silver Lake where the sand dunes are. It was kind of overcast and a light drizzle, but we decided to go ahead and go. It was about an hour and half north of Holland. It was still overcast when we got there, but we find the park area and had lunch at the picnic table (a step up from our car lunches!). After lunch we began the trek to the dunes, up the dunes, down the dunes and finally to a spot to set up camp for the afternoon! It was incredible how much sand there was!!
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| Our hike to the water area! |
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| At the top on the way over |
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| Mike, Isaac and SarahE climbed up the dune to see the view! |
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| A hard hike back to the car after a long afternoon in the sun! |
Back to the Kloosterman's for a spaghetti dinner...and the evening movie the kids did. They camped out in the basement in front of the tv every night and slept on the floor or couch...
Tuesday, July 19th
Our last day in Michigan! One might think we've had enough of sun, sand and water after 3 days of it, but no, we've got one more day in us! First though, we had seen several blueberry farms and a few that were pick your own, so we wanted to give that a try. There was a place not from from the Kloostermans. It was pretty hot and humid and even at 10am it was a bit hot. Isaac and Anna knew this and wanted to stay back, so Mike, SarahE and myself just went. Yes, it was hot! But still a fun experience. We were handed a bucket and told what area was ready to be picked. We got enough to bring home and make blueberry pancakes, fruit salad, snack on them and enough was left for a smoothie with fresh blueberries!
We head back and pick up the kids and head to the beach for one last time. There is a local area just 5 or 6 minutes from the Kloosterman's, so we just went down there. The water was a bit warmer than it had been, and there were biting flies on the beach, so we spent most of our time in the water. We had bought some blow up rafts to float on and we had fun with those.
Back for the evening after a store run for taco salads...enjoyed one last evening with the Kloostermans before we headed out in the morning.
Wednesday, July 20th
"On the road again, I just can't wait to get on the road again..." Today starts our journey back home with a stop in St. Louis. During our road traveling time, we were playing with the truck drivers, getting them to honk. When we left Michigan we were at 17. Our goal for the trip was 30, so we're over halfway there. Nothing very exciting about our traveling day, other than we sure don't need those South Dakota sweatshirts any more! The heat wave in the central part of the country was in full swing! Of course one of the first things you see when you drive into town is the arch! Right after driving into town, we got our 50th honk!! :-)
Pretty impressive, but we will see just how impressive when we take a closer look in the morning.
Mike loves to watch "Man vs. Food". We've tried a few of the recipes we've seen cooked on the show. One of the episode they featured the Monte Christo Dog and it was from a restaurant in St. Louis. So Mike wanted to eat there, it was a bit early, but not worth the drive back to, so we stopped for an early dinner. The Iron Barley. It was more of a dive than a restaurant and most likely, formerly a bar! I'm not a huge fan of hot dogs, but Mike the two older kids order the Monte Christo Dogs. Have you ever had one? It's a hot dog cut in half length-wise and grilled. The bun is also grilled with butter and then strawberry jelly and then the dog is placed on the jelly and finally topped with provolone cheese...
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| One order include 2...the kids split one order and Mike had his own! |
Thursday, July 21st
After breakfast, we packed up and headed out, but not out of town yet. We drove down to the Arch area. We parked and then walked along the Mississippi River. We saw a statue of Lewis and Clark halfway under the water!
The Arch up close is really impressive!! We took a few pics outside and then we headed inside. Mike took the kids up in the Arch. I've done it before and that was enough more me. It is very tight quarters and a bumpy ride. Afterwards, we all watched a film on the making of the Arch.
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| At the top! |
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| Inside the elevator compartment |
Leaving the Arch, marked the end of our sightseeing part of our trip. From here on out, we were driving!! Since we were leaving St. Louis mid-day, we just drove through Missouri and into Kansas to Topeka for the night. We hit this area right in the middle of the major heatwave. Pit stops were brief in the triple digit weather. Topeka was HOT!! We ate at Pizza Hut and then to one last pool. We received our first complaint that evening. The people below were complaining that we were making too much noise. I promise you all we were doing was walking!!!
Friday, July 22nd
Before we head down to breakfast, the phone rang...I didn't answer because I thought 'Who would be calling us?'. A few minutes later we get a knock on the door, it's the manager, letting us know the people below were still complaining. He seemed nice about it, assuring us we probably weren't doing anything wrong, but he wanted to be able to tell them people that he had made it aware to us. So, don't stay at the Holiday Inn Express in N. Topeka, their subfloors stink!!
Onward through Kansas! We continued our honking game all the way into Colorado and home and for a grand total of 74! We had plenty that didn't play along and some that seemed clueless, but certainly they know the game!!
This was a welcoming sign for us to see!
This was one of, if not, the best family trips we've taken. We had a great time together. The kids are old enough now to handle the travel well. Technology helps a lot too!!
Time for an oil change!
