Grand Teton's

  We made it to the Grand Teton's today, the 13th of July. I will say we were a little slow on the move today, soaking in a much needed nights sleep. The bummer about leaving later in the day to a National Park your not doing yourself any favors in hopes to see wildlife as the optimal times are Dawn or Dusk, not after lunch.  The other downside today was that it was cloudy making me yearn for the sun to come out as the peaks were shrouded in clouds.

   It was odd. We expected the Grand Teton National Park to be much larger. I mean after spending two days in 2.2 million acres of amazement, we wanted nothing less going forward. As expected, we didn't see too much wildlife. We did see some deer. Also, the Bison didn't disappoint. However, after many attempts to grab the Teton Mountain Range in all its glory but feeling denied by mother nature, I told Dale we need to  take in at least one good hike. It has been a tough proposition as Luke has dictated how far he wants to walk these last few days, some good, some not so good. We told him he could be he leader and we would go where ever he wanted. We chose Tarrget Lake. It was a small hike, 0.6 mile. I guess you could call it a stroll. However, it had a fork in the road and like every young adventurer, he chose the path less traveled which was 2.2 miles.
  I was excited as I wanted, as mentioned before, to go on one "good" hike. We get about a mile in and Luke is done, I mean meltdown done. I was determined to continue on. We got another 1/2 mile in and Luke drew the line in the sand. It was starting to thunder and rain was imminent. This time Dale took charge and onward we went. We were like .2 miles from our intended target and everyone in a mile could hear Luke tell us in no uncertain terms he was NOT happy with any of us now. I was ready to let Dale, Tim and Craig go on and I would start back with Luke. Tim came to the rescue, lifting Luke on his shoulders. It would so happen that we ran into a steep incline. We made it to Tarrget Lake, 3 miles up from where we started. It started to rain but it didn't matter, it was a breathtaking view even with the clouds covering the peaks. As Tim took a picture of Dale and me, we saw a Bald Eagle soar above.
  Tim carried Luke down the second part of the circled loop. We stopped. We saw a Black Bear 50 yards from us. It was a cub. We watched it for a bit until it disappeared into the brush and ventured on. About half way to the bottom, we saw a Moose and its baby grazing. They were 20 yards from us. Again, we gazed in wonderment.
  We finished our 0.6 mile trek that became a 4.8 mile hike in the Grand Teton Mountain range seeing a Black Bear, a Moose and a Bald Eagle. So glad we kept going. Another Great Day in the state of Wyoming.

Yellowstone.

  On Thursday afternoon, we made it Yellowstone National Park. Wow! That clearly is a pretty lousy description to a place that is awe inspiring. However, that is the first word that came to mind. This was our first night camping, and possibly the last on this trip. Don't get me wrong, it was definitely the right thing to do. I mean how can you go to one of the coolest National Parks in the U.S. and not camp? I'll get into that later.
  We got our tents up and decided to go exploring. We saw Bison, and lots of them. I would clearly estimate we saw a 100 or more on both sides of the road grazing. They were not far away either as shown by the picture on the right. They got so close in fact that there was some serious congestion with people waiting for the Bison to cross the street as they took their sweet time. It was quite the spectacle. One Bison and calf blocked traffic in one lane for like 15 minutes as the calf was feeding from its mother. Another time, the Bison was so close to the car, Tim turned the side and yelled, "Holy Schnikees!" as it was quite large. We also checked out some of the Falls and then went back to the campsite. We got a good fire going and cooked hotdogs over an open flame. For dessert we had none other then the famous Smores. This might have been the moment of the trip listening to the kids telling each other jokes and laughing uncontrollably.

   So, we eventually went to bed. Dale and I had a blown up mattress and shared the tent with Luke. So, every time we tried to fall asleep, something happened. Someone's car alarm went off. Then Luke woke us up because he needed to be changed. Then it started to rain. Dale and I slept in a V as our butts sank to the ground, legs up in the air. We re-inflated the mattress but still ended up on the ground come morning. As Dale put it, it was quite comical. Needless to say we were pretty tired the next morning.

  Tired or not, we were determined to see as much as we could of Yellowstone. We took in the rapids. Saw more Bison. We even saw a Bear. It was so close to my car, I could have pet it. As I am trying to take a picture, the Park Ranger is telling us to move along for safety. We saw the Mammoth Hot Springs and while there, Mule Deer and ended our day at Olde Faithful.  Onward to Grand Teton National Park. We passed through the Continental Divide. When we started, it was 82 degrees and dropped in a matter of minutes to 36 degrees and was sleeting golf balls. It was wild. I guess anything can happen at 8300'.  Made me think of the movie Day After Tomorrow. It slowly rose back up to the low 60's when we got to our cabin. Quite an eventful day.

Yee Haw!

  It's been a few days since my last blog. Although, once we reached Wyoming, I had limited access, if any at all in the National Parks.
  So anyway, on the 11th, we made it from Rapid City, South Dakota to Cody Wyoming after a 7 1/2 hour drive. The boys had had enough of the car. But we forced them for another 10 minutes as we went to Rodeo Night in Cody, Wyoming. They have a live rodeo every night at 8pm through the summer. We had read about this in one of our many books as we preplanned our trip. It was reaffirmed by a guy I know through baseball about being a great time. And a great time it was. The kids got to watch a live rodeo. We saw the traditional Calf Roping, Breakaway Roping, Team Roping, Barrel Racing, and Bull Riding, among many other events. The MC and Rodeo Clown were just as, if not more entertaining then the actual events. The Bull riding was my clear favorite, though. All these cowboys/cowgirls have kahona's of steel. Deliberately riding an angry bull has to take some serious stones, or a lack of brains. Just the same, you couldn't pay me enough to do it. The roping is clearly a skill. Something about riding a horse at full speed, twirling a rope and lassoing a calf in under 10 seconds doesn't seem possible.
  After we went back to the hotel, Craig couldn't stop talking about the Corn Dogs. Timothy thought it was pretty cool he got to sit on a real bull.

I would have to call the Cody Nite Rodeo a success.

Bear U.S.A and Mt. Rushmore

  We stayed another day in South Dakota. No way we were NOT going to make it to Mt. Rushmore as I have told everybody, if there was one can't miss stop on our tour x-country, Mt. Rushmore was it. The more I have read about it, the more I wanted to see the lighting ceremony that happens every night at 9pm this time of year. Obviously, we didn't think we could spend nine hours there, so we stopped at Bear Country, U.S.A. first.

Those of you who may not have been, it's a self guided tour by car to see many types of species of animals, most notably bears. We did see wolves, Mountain Lions, Elk, Buffalo among others but the bears stole the show, probably why they call it Bear Country, USA. The tour ends, in what they call the baby section where they have you guessed it, all sorts of babies. I was fortunate enough to catch these two cubs playing with each other.

  We finished up by going to the gift shop where we all found something to take home. Not hard to do.

  After some quality up close and personal time with the animals, we went onward to Mt. Rushmore. We did contemplate going to Crazy Horse first but the unanimous vote was to go to Mt. Rushmore to see the wonderful, historic carvings in daylight. We figured we would be able to go see Crazy Horse Memorial and then come back for the lighting ceremony at nine. Um, nope. When we got to Mt. Rushmore we were sucked in by all its glory. We took a Park Ranger Guided tour which was more informative then I could have ever asked for. I didn't know how they came to choose these four Presidents. (Should of spent more time paying attention in History class) Now I do. I also didn't know on the onset there was suppose to be carvings of Louis and Clark and how it became to be the Presidents. I also had no idea that there was a Hall built behind the Presidents that never got finished.
  Thinking that looking at this Historical monument would be enough, we got an even bigger treat. We met one of the actual Drillers of the monument, Nick Clifford, who worked on it from 1938-1940, a year before the project was finished and subsequently terminated due to the untimely death of the sculpture. He signed his book to us. I am looking very much to reading it. Can you imagine being part of something so historic?
   We stayed for the lighting, which was nice. However, the best part was when they had all military, past and present come up, fold up the flag and state what branch they were in. Truly a memorable day.

Badlands

  We are in our 10th day of vacation. Our intent was to just get to Rapid City and take in Mount Rushmore. We felt the need to put in a good day of driving in to keep us on pace for California. Afterall, we do need to eventually start at some point, back... but not just yet. Although, as we were traveling along, I was like The Badlands National Park is on the way. Not to mention we kept seeing all these Wall Drug billboards along I-90. As you can might imagine, there is not a lot on the side to view, so these billboards infiltrate the mind with STOP HERE. (Not to mention we had read about it in a nifty book given to us)
  Well, we went to The Badlands and so glad we did. The views are majestic.

 The boys had a blast running around The Badlands, singing Secret Agent Man as they climbed some of the rock formations. After each jaunt they came back begging for drink. It is truly amazing how vast and open The Badlands are. We were able to see animals roaming free in the wild. That in itself was worth the detour.
 
  After spending considerable time exploring The Badlands, one gets hungry and longs for some sort of civilization. What better way to embrace such things then to stop at Wall Drug Main st. It is it's own mini town. We ate at the Wall Drug Cafe where coffee is 5 cents and ice water is free.

  We took in the new T-rex and took the kiddos pictures with the Giant Bunny. You'll just have to settle with Luke, Craig and the Bear as the Bunny is on my camera charging right now from sheer exhaustion of taking so many pictures.

  After some sun and fun, we continued to Rapid City to our hotel. We showed up too late to make it to Mt. Rushmore evening lighting, so we just hung out at the pool with a most cool water slide that the boys were more then willing to test out. Then off to bed it was.

Shopping anyone?

  Last night we made it into Rochester, Minnesota. We couldn't quite make it to Bloomington. Although, we made it there today. Population of a little more then 85,000 people, you need a large place to hold them all. Mall of America is definitely one of those places.

It has so many stores. Like I told my sister-in-law today, just when you think you are lost or went the wrong way, the store you're looking for appears. All the stores seem like superstores. This could be partly due from being from a relatively small area. It had stores I hadn't seen anywhere before, like a Nike store or a Peeps store, filled with just peeps stuff. (That's Luke in the background seeing what he can get us to buy him.) In the epi-center of the mall is Nickeloden Universe. Anything you have seen on Nick is there is some way, shape or form. They have indoor roller coasters, a HUGE climbing

apparatus. A mini-golf course, a movie theatre and tens of other rides, attractions and what not. I got myself a mini Jimmy Neutron Plush doll. Luke took pictures with Blue from Blues Clues and The Back Yardigans. The older boys went on as many rides as they could. We did take a break and ate at Bubba Gumps. All kinds of Forrest Gump references. Can you guess what Tim got?

  We then took off towards South Dakota and we made it. We are in Sioux Falls, SD while I write this. We are headed towards Mount Rushmore. On the way through Western Minnesota I didn't realize how much farm country there was. They have an enormous amount of Wind generated power as well. As we drove through, I wondered why in certain parts the windmills weren't spinning? Not enough wind? Do they cost more to operate then what they generate at the time? Are they just down for maintenance? And how about all that corn? That's an awful lot of planting. In case you were curious, Iowa's corn is definitely taller then Minnesota's.

Is This Heaven?

  "No, it's Iowa." One of my favorite lines from one of my favorite movies of all time: Field of Dreams. We made the trek south west from Chicago to Dyersville, Iowa.

  We watched the movie on the way to the field. There are so many times when I get those indescribable chills when I watch this movie. However, without fail, it happens every time Archie "Moonlight" Graham crosses over the "boundary" to save the little girl who falls off the bleachers. Even though I couldn't watch the video, the audio came through the speakers and I can create my own visuals as I have watched it so many times.
   I played catch with my boys in Center field. We walked into the corn and disappeared to the "other" side. I pitched from the same mound (okay, a most definitely resurfaced mound) that Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) pitched to Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta). My son Timothy hit a bunch of balls, one almost into the corn down the left field line. When we got there, there were some people already on the field, hitting, pitching, fielding. It was like a pick up game with people from all over the U.S. Adults and children alike were sharing gloves, encouraging each other to take one more swing. You know, stop after that one majestic hit you just admire.
  Everyone was laid back, all with a simple purpose: to have fun and play like we all did as kids, carefree. It was truly a memorable moment and definitely a place struck off my bucket list.
  Another cool moment on the way: we crossed over the Mississippi River.