A Little R&R

The kids requested a slow down to our hectic pace, so Wednesday we hung around Durango to let everyone rest a little. We did do a short whitewater rafting tour, but I didn't take the camera. Last night we took in the camp movie, The Incredibles. We leave this morning to go up to Silverton and Ouray and will likely see a gold mine and some other stuff. We only have a few days left...

Four States In Just a Second

Tuesday we drove from Moab to Four Corners. I didn't realize it was run by the Navajo Indians. This meant we couldn't use our National Park Pass and had to pay $15 to enter. The area is surrounded by "flea market" booths selling the Indian's wares. Missy and Katelyn bought a few things and the boys had snow cones.

We continued on to Mesa Verde National Park, driving to the top of the Mesa which was again a lot of fun in the RV. I never thought about the desert having so many mountains. We got our ticket for a ranger guided tour of some ruins that was to start in an hour. As we were leaving we noted a park ranger watching a small fire to the south of the visitor center and we all thought that was pretty cool since we never see fires that much. We drove on towards the start point of the tour. (About 8 miles or so) We we took the turn to go to the tour and immediately noticed a lot of vehicles coming toward us. We were about to make the final turn when we saw a park ranger directing traffic. He stopped us and apologized, but told us that part of the park was closed for the remainder of the day due to the fire. So we improvised and saw some smaller ruins that were still open.

We drove on to Durango, Colorado, to stay for the night. We ate at a Mexican restaurant called Tequila's, but it was not like our people.

Arches National Park

Monday we visited Arches National Park. We had hoped to take one of the ranger guided tours of the Fiery Furnace, but none were available until Tuesday afternoon. Not wanting to spend another day, we decided to guide ourselves. We spent the most time at the Windows area and looked at Twin Arch. I was amazed at the sheer size of the arches and how hard they were to climb and then get down once we got up.

In the heat of the afternoon, we hiked to Landscape Arch in the Devil's Garden area. We all think it should be called delicate arch instead of the one that is called Delicate Arch. Landon and I continued on another 1.2 miles to Double O Arch. It was a very difficult hike that was uphill all the way and crossed over some scary ledges. We were all worn out when we got back to the RV.

We finished our evening by eating dinner at the Moab Cafe. It was excellent and I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting the surprisingly pleasant Moab, Utah.

Driving and Driving

We have now driven around 2,500 miles. Today we did more of that as we drove from Wyoming to Moab Utah. Tomorrow we see Arches National Park. Trying not to kill each other...

You Gonna See Those Teton's Man

Saturday we pulled out of the resort and moved toward the Tetons. We decided to do 2 things in depth and skip the rest. We first drove to the top of Signal Mountain. It was a little tight with the RV, especially right at the top, but we made it safely. From there you can see the entire valley and the beautiful mountains just behind them. We went further south to Jenny lake. Being a Saturday it was a bit crowded, but we took the boat across the lake to make our hike up to Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point a little shorter. The falls were amazing and overall was the prettiest thing we have seen on vacation to this point. It was uphill both ways and worth the effort. On the way back to the boat dock we were greeted with an hour's long wait, so we hiked around the lake back to the RV. It was about 5 miles or so. Still no moose...

We stayed next to the snake river after passing through Jackson Hole (much nicer that I had imagined it) and ate at a Pizza Hut. It was sort of like being at home. The wifi at the campground was out. Lincoln still having withdrawal.

The Circle Wilderness

Yellowstone is made to to be a drive through park. I wonder if the designers planned it that way so the not-so-interested would just drive through and leave the wilderness for them. Friday, we did just that. We made the driving loop that took around 9 hours and saw all the major sites Yellowstone is known for. In hind site, it wasn't unlike any other long driving day coming out here.

We started first at the only place open on the north side of the Yellowstone canyon. It was by far the best place of all the ones we walked to see on Wednesday. We continued on to see Tower falls and make the 1.5 mile hike to the base. Guess what, it was closed. Arghh! Shortly thereafter, we saw a large elk, 13 points, and moved on to the northern end to see mamoth spring and the huge calcite city it has made. It was very interesting, but it was one of the few places that made it difficult for RV's to park. We visited several other thermal sites including Glory Pond (see the picture) and of course Old Faithful. My excellent planning skills were evident with OF as we parked, walked up, sat on front row seats, and OF did its thing 1 minute later.

We left Yellowstone and went to the Flagg Ranch Resort to park our RV. It is just two miles south of the Yellowstone border. It had no wifi. Lincoln asked how it could be a "resort" and have no internet. I have to agree.

We saw most of the wildlife we wanted but were a little sad because no moose came our way.

The Rock is Yellow

On Thursday we drove from Cody, Wyoming, to Yellowstone National Park. We stopped at a small lake on the way, then continued on to the Yellowstone Canyon area. Unfortunately, the trails along the canyon on the north side were all closed except for one. We proceeded to the south side and started with the south rim trail and walked for about a mile and a half. The views were great along the trail and also just up the road at Inspiration Point where you can see in both directions along the canyon. As you can see, the canyon walls are really yellow. I wonder if that is where Yellowstone got its name? Wanting to feel the mist off the upper falls, we took Uncle Tom's trail down about 3,000 steps to what we thought would be an up close view. Reality was a distant view with a lot of steps back up.

We also saw our first bison and stopped off at the boiling mud pots. They smell awful and I could hardly stand it. Lincoln was sick most of the day with connectivity withdrawal as we went through the first day with no internet or phone connection.

That night at the campground, we had to wash a few clothes so Lincoln and I volunteered. Little did we know that two women would nearly go at it over the one big drier. I guess using two small ones just isn't as fun. Then we got locked in because they closed and we had to wait, and wait, and wait, till the laundry was finished or we wouldn't be able to get back in. It got pretty chilly in the RV that night.

Taming the Wild West

On Wednesday we left Sheridan, Wyoming, in search of mountains and mustangs. Driving toward the Big Horn Mountains we rose from an elevation of 4,000 ft. to 9,700 ft. We saw our first snow around 9,000 feet and the cool crisp air was wonderful. The view looking back to the east was extraordinary and we could see for miles. At the top of the mountain we stopped to walk beside a small mountain creek. All was well and good until we started the descent. We dropped over 6,000 ft. in less than 13 miles. That might not sound so bad, but the signs that said you had to stop at the top, check your brakes, make certain you know all the locations for brake cooling stops and locations for emergency runaway ramps did make be a bit uncomfortable. We started down and were amazed by the view of the valley before us. It was incredible and you could see all the way to the Grand Tetons. After a white knuckled drive, smelling my brakes and stopping a few times on the way, we made it to the bottom. I never knew I liked flat desert-like landscape so well.
Once we were in the Bighorn valley we stopped in Lovell at the wild mustang center. The folks were very polite and told us where to look to try to find some horses. We drove into the Pryor Range and hadn’t seen anything so we stopped to eat lunch and look at the Bighorn Canyon. While eating our food, Missy saw a big horn sheep out the window. It walked across the road and scrambled down the near vertical canyon wall. We continued our drive north crossing the Montana border. Our first real find was a small band of big horn sheep. There were 5 or 6 of them right beside the road. Not much later we saw our first wild mustangs. In all, we saw 7 wild horses up close and personal. The only downside, Katelyn stepped on a cactus and was stuck by a few needles that went all the way through her shoes. She is fine now. All in all, the challenging drive was worth the effort.
We finished our day going to the rodeo capital of the world, Cody, Wyoming. We all had buffalo or Elk for dinner before going to the rodeo. Needless to say Lincoln, Landon and me all rode the bulls. I stayed on the longest.

Cody rodeo

We went to the rodeo last night and Katelyn ran down to be a part of
the calf chase. She didn't win, but looked the cutest in her pink
cowboy hat. I'm sure you canspot her. I can't get the Internet so more
later.

The Devil's in Wyoming

We left the South Dakota area today after seeing some of the tourist trap shopping places in Keystone. We rode the alpine slide and I think I was the fastest one on the track. Afterwards, drove to Devil's Tower National Monument and hiked around the base. The rock formations on the Tower are very unusual and I found the hike around the base. There is one place where you can actually touch the base and Lincoln and I both touched it. The others just walked on by. Of course no hike with the Wallis kids would be complete without some off-trailing on the huge boulders that had fallen off around the base. We made it with no injuries. One small problem for Lincoln though, no cell phone signal. We were all so sad. We tried to get a family photo with the tripod. It proved to be quite challenging as there was no quick way to get from the camera to the rest of the family. However, I had been studying the ways of the longhorn sheep that we observed and on the third try I had success to the applause of about 15 bystanders who thought it was hilarious.

Some notes about Wyoming. There isn't much out here. They have railroad gates on the interstate so they can close the road. Cattle grates grace the exit of every interstate ramp. And lastly, every road is named for a creek such as Crazy Woman Creek, Indian Creek, Dead Horse Creeek, Prairie Dog Creek, etc.

Today we cross the Big Horn mountains...

Rushmore and more

It was about an hour and a half drive from the Badlands to Mt. Rushmore. The hill going to Rushmore is a 10% grade and we took it sort of slow. The monument was very nice, but I was equally impressed by the architecture of the Grand View Terrace and surrounding area. After visiting Rushmore we went to the Fort Hays Chuckwagon and dinner show. The food was pretty good and the concert was great. Overall is was a nice way to end the day. We barely made it to the campground before it dark and I was glad because the drive was a little challenging.

Gullies and more...

We started off our first real day of vacation by traveling to the Badlands. We did, however, decide to stop at the Minute Man Missile Historic site where we missed the guided tour by a few minutes. Later though, we did stop to see one of the missile sites and could look down through the blast doors to see the missile itself. Anyway, the distractions for getting to the badlands continued as we stopped to feed the prairie dogs and buy Lincoln a set of Longhorns. He wants to put them on front of the RV, but as luck would have it, there is no where to install them.

The Badlands are quite incredible if you just stand back and look at them. They certainly live up to their name and really couldn't be good for anything except looking. At the first overlook, Lincoln and Landon went off-trailing and we all ended up following along. The ground is so loose and soft that you can hardly walk at all. Some places would be dangerous to try to go through as there on no rocks or handholds and what looks solid generally isn't. Anyway we certainly enjoyed the drive and the frequent stops that we made. Our last bit of fun in the Badlands was capped off by seeing the fastest four footed animal in North America. They were only 100 yards off the road.

Travel Day

We got an early start from Davenport today, pulling out of the Wally World campground at 7:00 am.  It was really an uneventful day as the kids nearly stayed in their pajamas all day long as we traveled around 650 miles.  We don't have to worry about starving as the corn crop in Iowa looks great.  I was a little surprised at the hills they plant corn on.  It had been a while since I passed through.  We never did figure out why there was a field hat had 3 port-a-potties evenly proportioned throughout the field when there was nothing else around.  We also made a quick detour through Nebraska to let Missy check off another state.  South Dakota was made better as I imagined what it must have been like for Lewis and Clark seeing all those buffalo and very few trees.  Dan, you will be glad to know that we saw the sign  for the birthplace of Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I can't imagine why Michael Landon wanted to move there and live in a cabin.  L, we  saw multiple signs for the leaders of your people.  You would have felt right at home.  This picture is pretty much what we saw all afternoon long.

Davenport IA

We pulled onto Davenport about 1:30 am after driving through one of
the worst thunderstorms. I've seen in a while. We stopped at Walmart
to sleep since it is so late We got 7.7 mpg on the first tank.

Paying for the Trip

I thought about soliciting donations to pay for our family vacation.  After all, won't you all benefit from Missy being more relaxed and easy to live with.  However, I am afraid that you may need your money to pay for your gas going back and forth to work while we piddle and play in the great outdoors.  So please note that I added Google ads to the blog.  Please click often and generate a little cash to pay for my gas.

Thanks,

The RV

Just in case you wondered, we are renting an RV from AAron RV in Greenwood. Here is a picture for your enjoyment.

The Journey

A journey of nearly four thousand five hundred miles awaits us in just less than one week. We are again piling into a 32 foot RV and heading west! First stop, some unknown location in western Iowa or eastern Nebraska as we travel towards Mt. Rushmore in southwestern South Dakota. Along our journey, we plan to see many highlights of the west including Mt Rushmore, Devil’s Tower, the Pryor Range wild mustangs, Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, Arches National Park, Four Corners, Mesa Verde, The Durango and Silverton area, the Great Sand Dunes, Pikes Peak and Garden of the Gods. Of course, the highlight just might just be the drive across the never Kansas prairie.

We’ll be gone for a little over two weeks and really hope to grow together as a family and see what a great country we live in. And who knows, we may meet a few morons along the way.