2018. The Tennessee experience & Flordia trip

We’ve completed the first leg of our trip in Knoxville, TN. Our camper (in an interesting RV Park) was sleeping quarters for 5 nights but Samantha was on campus with her team! The 12 hour overnight trip was well worth it!  It was 5 busy days of Destination Imagination Global competition for the KMS team! The ‘Banana Launchers’ made it after regional competition that led them to State competition. Their Third place state award took them to Global competition with teams from at least 17 countries all over the world for different types of challenges. There were 17,000 people wandering the streets of the Knoxville college campus there to compete and support the teams. It was amazing! Many favorite activities were the pin trading, expo center & nightly events. Of course seeing other teams perform was way awesome too. They had two parts that added up their score in the competition, Instant Challenge and their teams presentation that they developed over the course of the 2017/18 school year.  

 For their ‘Maze Craze’ middle school level performances they earned 10th place out of 85 teams that made it to Globals. Such an incredible and amazing opportunity and experience!! 

We are now on the trek to our previously scheduled Disney World vacation. We are taking our Airstream to Disney Fort Wilderness campground. Almost there and so excited. More to come... 

Beginning of Badlands trip

Weekend start of our big trip began with a great get together and celebration of Christopher and Kathleen's wedding. And Saturday night ended with a bang, lots of bangs and close up fireworks craziness. It was a private show over the lake and it was loud and amazing.

We left early afternoon on June 2nd, 1/2 day school for Sammie's last day of elementary school followed by a 3.5 hour drive to Hide-A-Way Haven resort in Lac du Flambeau, WI. We arrived and decided that down by the cabins would not be an option to park the trailer because of the big tent in the drive way. So up by the house and garage with a little power for the fans helping the dogs stay cool in the heat. Amazingly enough the rain stayed pretty much at bay during the hours we were outside.

The resort is owned by my step sister Julie and step brother in law Randy. It was a lot of good food, fun and fishing! Started of with a great brunch, even with pine needles in pancakes. Fruit was amazing too. Jason went in a kayak with Emmett first while Sammie was out on the paddle boat with Grammy fishing. She caught a 13.5 inch bass. Then Sammie joined Jason out on the lake with her own kayak too. She was a little wobbly but did great.

The chicken and ribs for dinner was good and the fish cookies were fun too. 

The band was cool and it was a good time ended with some fun dancing. Kids were exhausted after fireworks. Amazingly enough we got up early due to random Yogi yipping. We left 45 minutes ahead of time even on Sunday. Destination Buffalo River State Park Minnesota in 7.5 hours.

Grand Canyon Trip

A look back at our trip

Mesa Verde

Monday- traveled to get to Cortez, CO. From Central City, CO. Started off 41 degree in mountains at 7am, Emmett was so cute and said Thank you for taking him to the beautiful mountains. Entered Utah at 11:45am 75 degrees and Moab at 1:41 for a quick fuel up. It was nice seeing where we would be coming back to later on the trip too. Arrived to Cortez at 4pm and the hit up the town visitor Center and Walmart, of course the pool was the next hot stop for the kids.  

Tuesday- it was 46 degrees waking up and we decided to get to park earlyish at 8:30. Started off at park visitor center and we're happy to hear that Emmett could probably do the tours we were told he couldn't the day before. They tested the ladders and tunnel and we were set for two tours. Sammie picked up junior ranger packet and started working on getting her badge. Stopped at high point overlook Park Point for great views. On the way to the first tour saw a wild horse in the park. Sammie was ecstatic to see a beautiful creature roaming in the park. At 10:30a was our tour of Balacony House cliff dwellings. It was a huge 30 foot ladder to get in and kids loved the tunnel had to go through also. Foot holes were used on side of cliff too. This was our favorite of the day with very good park ranger guide with Sammie has a junior ranger helper. 

The next tour for the Cliff Palace one that we rushed to at 12:30 and had quick sandwiches in the car before. The artwork in the tower was amazing. Also saw they now use clothes and slinkys to keep birds out of the dwellings. Then we did the mueseum and Spruce Tree house and got to go down into a Kiva and Sammie got her junior ranger badge. Stopped at some ruins on the top of the quesa also and overlook of? Then the kids got tired in the way out of the park and passed out. Got back to site and Sammie made rock sculptures, they swam some more and we packed up for the next day of travel to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon!

Mesa Verde - In Photos

We had a great day at Mesa Verde, so great in fact that I don't have much energy left to write up any sort of post.  I'm headed to bed to get some rest before our travel day tomorrow, next stop Grand Canyon South Rim

But I did upload some photos from our day, enjoy

On the Road to the Grand Canyon - Day Three

We woke up bright an early again today and were greeted with a great view out our windows, the skies were clear and although the temperature had fallen to 41 overnight, it didn't feel that cool.

Good Morning from Central City, CO

By now we have settled into a pretty good routine as we headed west from Central City at 7am and got out on I-70 headed towards Utah.  Originally I was thinking we were going to brave it out and take the more mountainous pass through Colorado on our way to Cortez, but I had a change of heart late the evening before and decided to change our plans a bit.  The route through Moab UT only added about 45 minutes to the drive and significantly reduced the stress for the day.

As we headed out, Emmett said "Thank you for taking us to these beautiful mountains"

We climbed up through the mountains along I-70 and hit 10,000 feet at around 7:30 and the temperature had dropped to 36 degrees, the Highest point along the route was somewhere above 11,000 feet, which I think was near the entrance to the Eisenhower Tunnel

The family was enjoying the views out of the window and Kelly was able to catch a few photos out the window.

We crossed the border into Utah just before noon and stopped for lunch about 30 minutes later at a rest area, by then, the day had grown sunny and 75 on us and the kids enjoyed stretching their legs a bit at the visitor center which was part of the rest area.

We found out on our lunch stop that 11,000 feet was apparently too much altitude for some of our groceries,  we found some popped snack bags and a milk container that had popped it's lid and splashed milk all over the inside of our fridge.

After our lunch break we headed on to Moab, which is were we will be later in the trip when we visit Arches National Park.  We got a glimpse of what's to come as we drove through.

After another few hours drive from Moab, UT we crossed back over the border into the southwest corner of Colorado and arrived at our destination for the day about 4pm. We set up camp Cortez KOA and had a nice relaxing evening, including some pool time for the kids.

On the Road to the Grand Canyon - Day Two

It was warm and humid overnight in Nebraska, we slept will all the windows open and the fans running all night long which kept us comfortable.  We got an early start to the driving, leaving our "urban camping" spot at 7am sharp and headed out of Lincoln towards Denver, CO

Nebraska is flat

For a while there wasn't much to see out the window as Nebraska is very flat and the landscape doesn't change much as the miles go by.  When we got closer to the western edge of the state the plains were broken up by smaller rolling hills and more trees.

As we did yesterday we stopped for a quick lunch at a truck stop parking lot, and again just as yesterday we were very efficient and were on the road again in under 30 minutes.

We stopped again for fuel when we got closer to Denver.  As we got into Denver, my navigation unit started to give me some strange directions, but we have learned to trust it as it's usually routing us around some road closure or some area that's not safe for large trailers (we have an RV specific GPS).  This time though, I had entered an incorrect destination.  In fact I somehow entered a point on a dirt road about 16 miles from where we wanted to be going.  The good news is that in order to get to that point, we ended up driving through mountains just west of Denver that were absolutely stunning.  Kelly and I even joked about telling everyone that we made the detour on purpose for the views.

Our next surprise was that the campsite I had booked was also in these same stunning mountains.  I hadn't looked into the details of the campground we selected for this nights stay well enough.  We have had very good experiences for these overnight stays at KOA campgrounds, so when we were planning this trip, I just looked for a KOA near Denver and booked it.

The Central City KOA just west of Denver is at 8800 feet at the top of a mountain and has gorgeous views from all directions.  We got to our campsite and were in awe with the view.  I couldn't have been more surprised or happy with staying here both tonight and on the way back.

Some storms passed nearby shortly after we got settled in here, and after the rain passed I was able to get this photo of a double rainbow over our campsite

We ended up meeting some great people, one couple was on their way through from Wisconsin heading towards Yellowstone, The family in the site just behind ours was from Memphis and had their two young grandchildren along with them, so Emmett and Sammie got to play with them for a while. They even joined us as we ended the night with some s'more's around the campfire.

We are heading out in the morning to Mesa Verde National Park near Cortez, CO

On the Road to the Grand Canyon - Day One

The air was calm and cool and the sun was just starting to glow above the horizon as we all loaded into the truck and headed southwest towards madison for our first leg of the trip.  We even ended up leaving about 15 minutes ahead of schedule at 4:45am

Leaving town

We drove straight on through Madison and made it all the way into Iowa before we needed to make our first potty / fuel stop.

We drove on and made a quick lunch pit-stop near Des Moines.  We've gotten pretty good about keeping these on-the-road stops short.  We ended up at about 25 minutes for our lunch stop, which is great!

Lunch on the road, in a parking lot

It seemed like almost no time and we were crossing the border into Nebraska and our destination for the day was only a few hours away.

Welcome to Nebraska

We are visiting some family that live in Nebraska so we are up for some urban camping this evening, parked near their house.  It was great that we could work in a quick visit with them while we are on our way!

Urban Camping

We plan on heading out of here at about 7am tomorrow morning as we make our way to our next stop just outside of Denver, CO

Route to the Grand Canyon

The trip to the Grand Canyon is a bit longer than our last trip to Yellowstone, just long enough that it would be uncomfortable for all of us to stretch it into a two day route.  So we'll be spending fewer hours in the truck each day, but we'll be adding a day to total three days driving to and from.

As we did on the Yellowstone trip, we'll be breaking the driving up a bit by staying a day at some additional destinations on the way out and on the way back.  We will be spending a day around Mesa Verde National Park in southwest Colorado and at Arches National Park on the way back.  We also have overnights in Omaha, Nebraska and Denver, Colorado on each trip.

According to our Garmin, the trip totals 3,814 Miles, here is how that breaks down by day.

Miles per Day

Wish us luck!  We are heading off to our first overnight bright (well maybe dark) and early in the morning.  We'll be posting here photos and stories of our adventure

Amazing Yellowstone - The Beginning

So it all started many months before in the planning of the Yellowstone vacation. We had no idea how to start planning for such awesomeness. So what did I do, lots of internet searching for good sites that would be able to make recommendations on what to see and how much time each area took. Not only did I find what I was looking for but got a little more with the distances between attractions and how much time to allow for them. One could say I got a little extra planning in that way but it felt good to have some sort of a resemblance of a plan. That site I mainly used was http://www.youryellowstonevacation.com

I made a big long doc of screenshots really of what I thought was really important in the planning process. I had the pages split out by section of the park and a list of how long it would take to travel between areas so I had a general idea of how many things we could get done in a day.  

First things first, on day one of five days in the park, was travelling to the closest visitor information station and bookstore in the Madison region.  This stretch of road that was from West Yellowstone to Madison took us about a half hour to 40 minutes each day, one way.  Of course on the way there we saw our first bison and we were watching on the other side of the river just chilling and we couldn’t be more thrilled. Funny thing is that he decided to cross the river and come over by us. We weren’t sure it was such a good idea to stick around but he gradually just moseyed his way across the road in front of us and went on his way. The funny thing about that we had no idea how many bison would be in our future. We even had Sammie start a journal of what animals that she was seeing in the park. There were times when we could barely count how many there were in the distance. Wow, the bison are definitely a plenty.

Our stop at the visitor center was a great potty break and way to get even more information. We learned that the road construction on the way from Norris region to Mammoth Hot Springs was going to put a slight damper in our travels. The visitor center staff is very friendly and gave us great tips.  We even got Sammie to get her Junior Ranger booklet for a small fee. She even attended her one ranger lead program – Tree Doctor. We all learned much about the trees of Yellowstone and how the fires that burnt through the park actually caused the pinecones of certain trees to heat up enough to let out the seeds that make up a ton of the new tree growth in the park. Very interesting stuff she had to share with us.

So we decided that the weather would be good for us to hit the Canyon region for the day. From Madison region to Norris was about 20-30 minutes and Norris to Canyon was another 15-20 minutes of driving time. So by the time we got there we decided to eat lunch at the Visitor Education Center. So our first major stop in the park was at the Lower Falls of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. We got to see so much from this. We even got hailed on while hiking. Which was amazing that the kids did great on the first hike even despite this. The waterfall view watching it cascade down was amazing. 

We got to see the Upper Falls from the brink of the Lower Falls but didn't actually make it up there on our trip. It was a just a beauty from a distance for us. Then Sammie and Kelly got to see an Osprey with her nest too while coming back from a viewpoint along the drive.

Then we decided to go drive up the way to Mount Washburn and even going up Chittenden Road. This is the highest road in the park which is a two-way dirt road about a mile and a half long. We stopped at the top and that is where we had our snowball fight. The kids loved it having snow in June! 

One tip for a future trip, if you haven't used the bathroom in awhile and you see one without a line, STOP. You don't want to be stuck in a bear jam or bison jam and need to use the rest room. While traveling with a toddler potty training it was even more important to find a bathroom without a long line in the knick of time. Just a little advice :)

So anyways, the first full day in the park was spectacular and we can't wait to see the stuff we missed in 14 years when we plan to go back. 

Route to Yellowstone

It may have been a long two days of driving but it was a great way to go the 1,300+ mile stretch from Wisconsin to West Yellowstone, Montana. The drive was only through 4 states but it was definitely the full width of those states! With stops we had about two 12 hour days on the road. June 12th 4:20am - June 13th 2014 4:45pm

We were mostly pretty efficient on pit stops and meals so that was helpful. I say mostly because luckily we are towing an awesome bathroom with us. We didn't even make a few hours away from home and we had to stop on an entrance ramp for the kids. When leaving early in the morning, remind the sleepy kids to empty their bladders was the lesson there. Then when we hit Minnesota we took a wrong turn in Minneapolis and found our selves stopped again on another entrance ramp taking a pit stop. Other than those hiccups in our plan it was a smooth first day. And smooth is no doubt the landscape we were encountering in MN and ND. 

The first KOA of our full KOA stay trip was in Bismarck, North Dakota. It was about 6pm when we rolled into the campground to get settled for the short night after driving ~730 miles. Luckily it even had a pool so the kids and I just basically jumped in. That's what is so great about the Airstream vs the pop-up. We could just grab our stuff right away vs having to wait for set-up. Loved it! It wasn't the warmest time of year for an outdoor pool (60 degrees) but it was definitely good to stretch our legs and relax. We even had a campfire and a great dinner. The campground even had a fenced in area for Yogi to run around in too. But he's getting older and it was right up his alley to be scrunched in-between the kids just snoozing all day.

Left early on the second day at about 6am and the first pit stop was done in 15 minutes in Columbus, MT. We drove past Theodore Roosevelt National Park and wish we had time to stop, Sammie would have loved the wild horses roaming. But alas we were on a mission to get to West Yellowstone as soon as possible! Along the way we started seeing the mountains and were getting more and more excited. It was even 60 mph through twisty road through the mountains. Except where we hit the dirt road construction next to the river, that was crazy but Emmett liked seeing all the big construction machines in action. Unfortunately it made the Airstream very dirty and in all the pics later on in the trip you can see the writing that Sammie made on the back in the dirt.

Arriving at the West Yellowstone KOA at 4:45p gave us some time to relax and get settled for a long stay. They had an indoor pool and Emmett was king of the pool on the stairs and said he had a green crown & castle. It was so cute. Our neighbors were from Oregon and were very nice.

All in all it was a great couple of days on the road with few timeouts in the car and lots of activities to keep the kids busy. I would definitely say that the next time around in like 9 or 10 years we will think about that route again! 

Stay tuned for the trip details in the next post....

On the Road Entertainment

It's especially challenging to keep children entertained for over 8 hours in the car. The longest day on the road for last year's Yellowstone trip was 13 hours! What in the world can the kids do that long without getting bored and driving parents batty? Well a lot of planning went into those travel days and I'm already starting the travel day planning for this this years trip. 

Here are some great entertainment things that I found... The first one is of course the behind the seat DVD player. If you can get them to watch a full movie for at least an hour that helps make the miles fly by. The other electronic device that we used was iPads. Lots of apps were downloaded and made to be fresh for the entertaining. Between using those two means of entertainment we did a number of things. By breaking up the screentime it helped them from being zombies to the devices.

So there was a lot of planning and purchasing that went into putting 4 bags together of things that they could play with on the trip. That was one bag for each day of travel. This helped keep the next days items fresh and new. We could always pack a few of the good things in the truck for everyday but having that special bag for the day was helpful. This was also a tricky task having enough different things for an eight year old girl and a two year old boy without breaking the bank. I also wrapped up dollarstore like items for them to unwrap after a certain amount of miles/time in the car as long as they didn't have to put a timeout bag on their head during that last window of time. 

Here are some items that I purchased for the activity bags last year:

I am already planning and purchasing for this year too. Got my order delivered and am so excited to share them. But in the interest of surprising the kids I will wait until on the road or after we get back. If you are interested to hear more just send me a shout out for a sneak peak or advice.

I love this site - www.travelkiddy.com

Some of the wonderful activities that we did out of the books, games and other things included:

• License Plate Bingo
• Game where Sammie and I had eyes closed and Daddy tried to trick us with making true or false statements about what we were driving around.
• I Spy
• Game where you had to start a story and each person had to add an item to it and repeat the list. How good of a memory do you have?
• Puppet Shows
• Coloring (make sure the are very washable markers)
• Reading books
• And so many others I can't remember right now.... 

So I'm a little nervous about the six days of 7-8 hours of driving this next trip. But never fear, Super Mommy is here....

Grand Canyon Phantom Ranch

There is a ranch deep within the inner canyon.  Last year when we were doing some preliminary planning for our Grand Canyon trip, this looked like something that I absolutely wanted to put on the itinerary.  

Photo Credit: Grand Canyon National Park Service - Flickr

When we started doing some deeper research we realized that this is one of a few things that might not be feasible for this trip. There are three ways to get to Phantom Ranch; an intensive hike, a raft, or a mule ride into the inner canyon. The hike takes about 4 hours down and 8 hours up and would be too difficult for at least one of our children to endure. Rafting is out of the question due to Sammie's current aversion to boats.  We looked a little deeper into the Mule ride packages, but the cost is much more than we are looking to spend. Staying at phantom ranch looks like it would be an amazing experience and it will definitely be something that gets added to our list to do when we come back to the park later in life.  

Take a look at the video NPS has produced about visiting Phantom Ranch, If you plan on including this in your plans, know that they recommend booking very early, reservations open up 13 months in advance

Grand Canyon Excitement

Sammie and Emmett are getting really excited for our trip as it has been a common topic around our house for the past few weeks.  We have our route planned and our campsites booked, now we need to gather some more information on the sights we want to see and the experiences we want to do.

Sammie's Arizona research notes

Sammie has been doing some research on Arizona as a state and has put together some notes that she wanted to share.  Emmett wanted to join in and talk about the big trip as well, mostly he wants to see "lots of animals" and "have a picnic on a big hike".

Listen to the Audio below