The Great American Road Trip of 2012

Day 1

I am blessed to have two of the most amazing brothers in the world who unfortunately live half way across the country from us.  So this year we decided that we would take our first real "road trip"  as a family and go visit them both...Jesse in Chicago and Dan in Clarksville, TN.

We planned for a year on what route to take, which car to take (comfort vs. expense...expense won), what to see, and arranged every ones schedules so that we could make our adventure a reality. And on June 7th 2012 my pack-master husband magically got all of our bags and camping gear into our Civic's small trunk and we were on our way. 

Wyoming-#1

 First stop---our first state sign!

By half way through Wyoming Jon was the only one still awake which left him with the decision of whether or not to stop and wake us all up when he passed Martin's Cove.  It took him a minute or two to even realise what the place was after he passed and then another to decide whether to wake us and go back.  I was thrilled that he did.  As we pulled in, we were stopped by a Sister Missionary who was so sweet yet overly helpful.  She insisted on detailing every location and trail on the map.  While there we had lunch in their beautiful picnic area, that is until we warned of snakes falling out of the trees by another Senior Missionary.  We only had about an hour to spare so we had to be picky about what we saw and did.  We ended up watching the video about the Willie and Martin Handcart Company before taking the girls out to pull the real handcarts they had on site.  They tried the kid one and then got Daddy to pull them around a short trail in the large one.  And in an effort to get them to appreciate what the pioneers really went through I decided to tell them that Daddy had unfortunately died and that they now had to pull the cart themselves (with Daddy in it for weight).  The lesson didn't work to well. The trail was one of packed gravel and the cart was light making it all to easy to pull it around together and even alone. Luckily they got off trail on accident at one point and got to feel the true challenge of pulling a cart through unpaved terrain, and they barely were able to pull it the short distance. Then the girls insisted we go to the blacksmith shop so they could get a "desert diamond",which turned out to be a ring made out of a horse shoe nail.

We never did see a sign for South Dakota, so we took a picture by this abandoned fireworks shed.

South Dakota #2

 As we entered the Black Hills National Forest I fell in love.  Most people think of paradise as a sunny beach by clear blue water, but I dream of mountains and pines.  We rolled down our windows as we entered the cool mountain roads and the smell of the forest was absolute heaven.  Add that to the quite old fashioned tourist towns and I was soon dreaming of retiring here.

I should have taken note of the name of this small lake but as usual I didn't think of it till to late.  We came upon our second unplanned stop about 15 minutes away from the Mt. Rushmore National Monument.  A mountain road running over a lake surrounded by white rock and pine forest, all covered in a thin fog.  It was absolutely mesmerizing! 

The air was crisp and cool and the ground still held traces of snow and hail.  The girls enjoyed running through the woods and Jon and I relaxed while enjoying the beautiful lake.

Finally, at dusk we arrived at Mt. Rushmore.  Very cool to see again and the girls thought it was pretty awesome to be at a location they here about so much.  But at the same time sad to know that this monument is just a mountain that has been carved up.

Jon picked the perfect time to arrive.  We were able to do the Presidential Walk and read about each of the men on the mountain and to take a lot of pictures before going to the amphitheater facing the monument for their sunset service.  This program made this visit worth while.  The video talked about everything involving this monuments construction.  And my girls learned a lot about the artist, the workers, and the four presidents as well as why each was chosen by the artist in the first place.  Our favorite part was when the service men/women and their families from the audience were asked down to be appreciated during the national anthem. During which they displayed a huge flag and illuminated the monument for the evening.  It was really a very moving and patriotic experience.