September 30, 2010   9:33 p.m.

Day 8 was Sept. 11

We woke up in Rapid City, South Dakota.  The temperature was 49 degrees.  The odometer read 27,361.  We fed the van about $46 worth of diesel.

The day began with a yummy KOA breakfast at the outdoor pavilion, even though it was a chilly day.  We had the pleasure of getting to know, and being served pancakes by the cowboy poet and songwriter, John Horton.  This gentleman was friendly and personable as can be, and he could cook up the best pancakes.  He asked our kids what characters they liked --- Sponge Bob?  Spiderman?  Mickey Mouse?  But as our children cannot relate to characters, they said whatever, and Mr. Horton made up a really neat Mt. Rushmore pancake.  How 'bout that?

Pancakes in progress (incl. Mt. Rushmore pancake).

Mt. Rushmore pancake.

See the windscreens at the picnic tables?

After purchasing fuel, we hit the road for the Black Hills.  It is remarkable how different this landscape appears from what we drove through yesterday.  These "hills" are actually what we call mountains in the eastern part of the U.S.  The altitude has been gradually increasing as we have driven across South Dakota - from about 900 ft (in Iowa) to near 3000 ft in the western part of the state.  Now we are going higher still...from my travel journal..

Picnic on Iron Mountain Road.

We are on the Iron Mountain Road now -- did the first pigtail bridge - 15 mph! -- just caught a glimpse of Mt. Rushmore after the second pigtail bridge.  We just saw Mt. Rushmore as a straight view through a tunnel!

We also drove the Needles Highway, which was pretty neat, and we drove by the Crazy Horse Memorial, but when we found out the cost of going in there, we declined entrance and just took a picture from nearby.

The Needles Highway.

The Sprinter got through, but we had to fold in the mirrors.  Fun!

Self-Reliant Man, hanging with the bikers.

Needles - yet another notch on the Sprinter's belt.

Crazy Horse Monument.

We had a nice visit to Mt. Rushmore and the children earned their Junior Ranger badges there.  It is the Shrine of Democracy, and we felt it was extra special to be there on 9-11.  The flags flew half mast all week, culminating today.  It was a nice experience to stand there and see this famous monument in person.  I never would have guessed that I would get this chance at this stage of my life.  Yes, we've been there now.

Christmas card photo, perhaps?

 Then we drove on into Wyoming, although this piece of driving took longer than I thought it would.  The Wyoming landscape is very unusual to this eastern family with strangely shaped hills and buttes.  There were houses built in the middle of nowhere.  I have to say that we were a little disappointed in a certain k*mpground in this area (whose name I won't mention, since I've made my point by now), especially after such a good one at Rapid City, but you win a few and you lose a few.  It is more rustic than most, restrooms in some disrepair, and all the neat activities they describe on their website (nightly movie, cafe, hayride, gift shop, etc.) didn't happen.  Guess it wasn't their "peak season", although there were still plenty of campers. If you are going to advertise operating hours and activities, you ought to indicate on your advertisement when they end, and when your shop closes earlier instead of the posted hours.  I don't like when businesses think their post-Labor Day clients deserve less.

Making soup for supper.

Camping for the night, very close to Devils Tower.

The bright spot, though, was that we got to see so many stars in the sky that night!  The sky was perfectly clear and dry, and the Milky Way was quite evident.  Once our eyes got adjusted, we found we were able to track satellites across the sky and we saw several shooting stars.  When I got up at 3 a.m. to go to the bathroom (I kind of did this on purpose just to see the stars again) I could see all the early winter constellations, too, including many of the faintest stars.  What a treat!  Will I ever get a chance to see this kind of night time glitter again?

September 30, 2010   8:51 p.m.


Day 7 was Sept. 10

We woke up in Interior, South Dakota.  The temperature was 56 degrees.  The odometer reading was 27,256.

We toured the Badlands, today, and it was incredible and unusual, like a moonscape.  It contained various shades of tan, rust, black, white, and the lowest levels were yellow, revealing countless years of geological deposits.  Chips and Sweet Girl both earned their Junior Ranger badges by completing free activity books and being  sworn in.  We saw some antelopes and yes, some prairie dogs, too.  They were cute!  Also, various rabbits, and many cows.  No bison yet, though.  I will add that Chips takes his Junior Ranger status very seriously, and will not hesitate to dress down anybody who is breaking the rules (littering, not staying on the trails, etc.)  I know.  I've heard him myself.

Afterwards, we drove to Wall, South Dakota, and had lunch at Wall Drugs.  Apparently this is the commercial place to go for visitors to this part of the state, as there is not much else for visitors once they have finished up with the park and the byways.  It was an entertaining place for the afternoon.  We explored their shops for an hour or so, and Chips bought himself a liquid-filled compass as a souvenir.  We then drove on for about an hour to Rapid City where we stayed at the absolute best KOA Kampground we've ever seen!  This place gets a 10 rating in our book.  It is, perhaps, the best KOA in the country.  They offered nice pancake breakfast, playgrounds, bathrooms, game room, level campsites, and friendly people.  Even our campsite neighbors were very friendly, and we enjoyed talking with them a bit.  One thing that floored me was that there were people swimming in the outdoor pool.  It just seemed kind of cool to my Florida self.  Well, I have particular fond memories of the evening we spent at this campground, exploring it, using the playground at night, wondering about the folks who lived in the subdivision nearby, observing and talking with the people there.

It would prepare us for our next morning encounter with cowboy John Horton.

Checking out the impressive scenery.

I couldn't get enough of staring at these soft rocks.

Riding the Jackalope at Wall Drug.

Enjoying a better than average KOA playground.

Sweet Girl and Chips here to show you .....

.... that sleeping in a Sprinter van can be cozy!

September 29, 2010 7:53 p.m.

Day 6 was Sept, 9, 2010

We woke up in Onawa, Iowa.  The odometer read 26,820.  We will enter Mountain Time zone today, gaining an hour.  I can't believe we will be entering South Dakota this morning!  We will be seeing the Great Plains!

later...We stopped in Mitchell, South Dakota because I was of the impression that there would be few restaurants and fuel stops after this.  Prior to getting into town, as I was driving, a car passed us on the left and crossed over in front of us, delivering our first ever rock chip to our windshield.  This bummed out Self-Reliant Man a bit, but he said something to me about the fact that living in Florida guarantees this will be repaired for free on our comprehensive insurance and that, for this reason, it was the "best" damage we could have, so after an hour we scarcely thought about it anymore.  I even kind of grew fond of it, because it reminded me of Mitchell, SD.

Driving through South Dakota, land got flatter and emptier, and then a remarkable transition took place once I-90 crossed west of the Missouri River.  One could say we entered "the West" at that moment.  The landscape changed suddenly to a series of mogul-type hills, and the land grew even emptier, even becoming void of trees.  After 200 miles of driving  after Mitchell, exiting the highway near Interior, South Dakota (yes, that is the actual name of the town), we quite suddenly came upon the Badlands National Park.  Its beauty exceeded our expectations.  We drove through part of the park to get to our campsite assignment at the KOA, with the desire to immediately return to the park after getting established at the KOA.

When we got to the KOA, we definitely knew we were in a new and different setting than normal, for everywhere we stepped, dozens of grasshoppers hopped out of our way.  It was the strangest thing to me, and the children thought it was hilarious.  My mind went back to Laura Ingalls Wilder books when the Ingalls family was deluged with grasshoppers, and I wondered if this would be happening to us, now.  The KOA I would give a 9; it was a pretty good one, although we would be spending very little time here.  Although thunderstorms were forecast for the area that night, the office person reassured us that they usually go around  Interior, and that turned out to be correct.  It grew overcast after dark, and we did see distant lightning, but no rain fell.

We returned immediately to the Badlands NP, and walked a nature trail.  During this time, we really appreciated this unusual place, and we got to see some deer, and rabbits.  A doe even patiently posed for photographs.  Tomorrow we shall spend more time at this park.

Sweet Girl with windblown face.

The Young'uns.

The tired (but happy) parents.

The Mama deer.

September 28, 2010   6:06 p.m.


Day 5 was Sept. 8, 2010

We woke up in Montgomery City, Missouri.  The odometer reading was 26,394.

The Lazy Days Campground, outside of Montgomery City, is an independently owned RV park, and it was a gem.  We really enjoyed the creativity of its owner -- whimsical paintings inside and outside of the buildings, including that of chubby beach ladies in the ladies' room, horse stalls in the men's room, wood carvings out of old tree stumps (still in the ground), a crystal swimming pool, and gardens all around with sheds decorated in a pleasant way.  It was also in a very peaceful setting surrounded by woods.  The children enjoyed interacting with frogs in their ponds.  We would rate this campground a 10 (we often find that the best independent campgrounds are better than the best KOAs).

Missouri is like a piedmont area, not too unlike most other places in the east.  But as we drove North from Kansas City toward Iowa, along the Missouri River (and the Lewis and Clark trail), we noticed a row of huge mounds (rather large hills) to the east of the highway as the rest of the land became flatter.  We even noticed a few wind turbines in the distance.  And of course, the ubiquitous corn fields and soybean fields.

We were very happy to find a Fazoli's when we needed a dinner stop in Council Bluffs, Iowa.  It felt just like home. I did not forget that I had a bloggy friend who lived approximately in this area on the other side of the Missouri River, in Nebraska.  We waved as we went by the highway to your town, Dawn.

The Onawa KOA was wonderful. We give it a 9 for warmth, friendliness, and the availability of entertaining activities (and an office that doesn't close too early, either.)  A kindly gentleman, named Jim, was very welcoming to us and gave us tips for our visits to Yellowstone and the Black Hills.  We even played a family game of basketball, and I personally scored 22 points.  Amazing! 

So thankful that campgrounds have playgrounds.  Notice the cornfields?

Onawa, Iowa, KOA.  There was a nice lake and a state park on the other side.

 September 28, 2010  5:25 p.m.



Day 4 was Sept. 7, 2010

We woke up again in Horse Cave, Kentucky, and drove all day from the rolling hills of Kentucky to the heartland of Indiana and Illinois.  It was great fun to drive over the Mississippi River (we had never done that before) and to see the famous shining Gateway Arch.  We are officially in the Midwest, now.  We figured that out when Sweet Girl attempted to order sweet tea at Applebee's and the server told us they didn't have it.

Spent another $52 on diesel fuel.

Another thing -- all day we have seen thousands and thousands of acres of corn, corn, corn!  Who is eating all of this corn?  Are we feeding the world?  Or is that much of it for E85 fuel?  It is inconceivable how much corn we are growing.

The children filling a lunch "order" out of the back of the van.

Best shot I could get of the St. Louis Arch.

Missouri - sinks that apply soap, wash, and dry hands all in one spot.  Must have been invented by a lazy person but we had great fun with them, over and over and over.  Hee hee - so much for the intended energy savings.

September 28, 2010 4:36 p.m.

We are used to evidence of political correctness in our children's textbooks.  Minorities are portrayed in a disproportionately large number, and that's cool with us.  There is also gender bias, and we see this when girls are shown achieving something better than boys nine out of ten times.  The girl is often jumping higher, scoring more goals, winning more trophies, you get the idea.

But we found one yesterday that was worth sharing here.  A problem in Sweet Girl's Math book, which read as follows:

Mrs. Rodriguez knitted 126 baby hats.  Mr. Lake knitted 291 hats.  How many hats did they knit in all?

I'm sorry, but the mental image of a grown man, Mr. Lake, knitting baby hats (and so many more than Mrs. R!) just pinned our Funny Meter.  We all had a big laugh over this one.

September 27, 2010 9:23 p.m.

Day 3 is Sept. 6 .


We woke up in Horse Cave, Kentucky at the Horse Cave KOA.  We had an interesting and exciting visit to Mammoth Cave.  We were happy to get our National Park Passports stamped.  We have two of them.  One passport I began back in 1991 during my first visit to Yellowstone with my brother and dad.  The other passport is for national park visits with my husband and children.  We have had the second book since our Blue Ridge Parkway and Shenandoah NP trip a few years ago (before we had the Sprinter van).  We enjoyed out stay in this KOA Kampground.  It had pretty grounds and mini-golf and play equipment.  Our main complaint the first night was the dusty location - there was a big Labor Day crowd and every time someone drove by our site, they kicked up a bunch of dust that prevented us from being able to use the picnic table.


Besides visiting Mammoth Cave, it was also a good day to relax a bit and to fill up on groceries at the local Mal-Wart in Glasgow, Kentucky.  We ended up having to call the Discover Card folks to get our card turned on again.  They had shut it down after seeing "unusual" activity.  This is a nice feature of Discover, but it can also be annoying and embarrassing.

Mammoth Cave is huge.  We took a tour that was two miles long in the cave, and we only saw a tiny fraction of it.  The ranger leading the tour was careful to weed out the folks who might not be up to the experience by explaining all its challenges up front.  He described it all so vividly, that I nearly changed my mind.  In reality, it was a good deal of fun to go through all the narrow and small passageways, but it sounded scary at first.  I was surprised that there weren't any stalagmites or stalactites in this cave.  I guess I thought all caves were kind of similar, but I was wrong.

Pictures from this day:

Along the tour.

Strange photo.  I cannot remember why it came out this way.

Oh, and a funny.  Apparently, while we were lunching at a picnic area at this park, a person reported a wasp nest underneath one of the picnic tables.  A park ranger came out and took care of the problem.  He sprayed the wasp nest and did what he could to identify the hazard to potential picknickers.  I love the way the Federal Government addresses a crisis.

Nobody's going to want to get within a mile of this table for the next year!

September 27, 2010 9:05 p.m.

Day 2 was Sept. 5, 2010.

We woke up in Forsyth, Georgia.  The odometer read 25,520.  We had to feed the Sprinter $64 worth of diesel.

Today was an all time record for our family!  We got on the road around 7:15 a.m. (this, after eating a pre-sunrise breakfast at the picnic table).

It was a rare pleasure to drive straight through downtown Atlanta with very light traffic.

As we entered the moutains around Chattanooga, I especially enjoyed watching the altitude indication on the GPS as we rose 1000 feet in altitude within a few miles.  We ate our lunch over 2000 feet altitude at the Monteagle rest stop.  The weather was gorgeous -- not a cloud in the sky, dry, and in the 70s.  We continued on toward Nashville, Music City.  Throughout this segment of the trip, we enjoyed playing Mad Libs, reading aloud, and learning the catechism, although the scenery was often too lovely to be missed.

Chips has a job on this trip.  He maintains a food inventory for all the breakfast, lunch, snack and drink items we keep in the back of the Sprinter van.  So in the half hour before a planned eating stop, he takes orders, writes them down on paper, and then fills the orders after we park.  It is part of our plan to be time efficient, and so far it has helped. 

Lunch stop in Tennessee.  The weather is beautiful, so different from home right now.  Chips is checking out butterflies.

 September 27, 2010  5:41 p.m.


The day after, and I feel like I am in the acceleration lane of a freeway, hitting the gas pedal to get up to speed, now that I am home.  Life goes on and there are activities, lessons, and appointments as if we never left.  So I need to get productive, quickly.  I am now remembering why I normally don't have time to blog.

Nevertheless, I am going to take advantage of this relatively light(er) day to begin to type from my travel journal, and I begin with Day 1.

Day 1 - Sept. 4, 2010
Left home around 7:30 a.m. - Odometer = 25,094.

We immediately began with a technical issue.  We realized that the GPS device that a friend was lending us was not going to work.  The power cord had been crimped and wasn't making a good enough connection anymore.  So we began our trip by looking for a Best Buy; this we found west of Jacksonville, and stopped and ate at their outdoor picnic table for our first mid-morning snack.

Our lunch stop took place at the Georgia Welcome Center, which worked out nicely except we figured that the town we were in must have been called Gnattown.  The gnats at the picnic table were formidable.  Once we got back on the highway we discovered what the trouble had been.  We had unknowingly been just downwind of a flea market!  (that was meant to be a joke - hee hee).

We arrived at the Forsyth KOA around 5 - early enough for plenty of daylight to remain.  We spent the time enjoying the swings and exploring the grounds.  The weather was clear and warm.

Campground rating: On a scale of 1-10, I rate this KOA a 7.

Enjoying the afternoon at Forsyth KOA

Forsyth KOA

Sweet Girl likes to swing us, and it is very relaxing.

Gnat-town, Georgia

From Mt. Rushmore to Mt. Wash-more!

Spending our last night camping down upon the famous 'S'wanee' River.

Trying to stay cool in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Hanging out at a campground in Illinois!

The Mighty Muddy Mississippi!

At our campground in Kansas City last night.

Camped on the high plains yesterday.

Met up with a beautiful family in Kansas, today. Homeschool family of the blog 'Prairie Family Chronicles'. I have a like-minded soul sister in Kansas. We could have sat and talked the evening away if we only had the time. Our kids became fast friends. God bless you guys!

Hiking at 12,000 feet -- Rocky Mountain National Park

At Estes Park, Colorado in the Rocky Mountains. Weather is beautiful!

Sagebrush across Wyoming. I can.'t believe there can be so much land with NOBODY living on it.

Grand Tetons!

Here we are!

An all too familiar sight in Yellowstone . . . road construction!