Future Leaders of America

Dave's cute picture idea.  They aren't perfect unfortunately.  It was rainy and the kids were standing on a wall that they probably weren't supposed to be standing on.  So, we were trying to hurry.  Too bad because with a little photoshop work, these could be pretty funny.

 The first woman president?  If I had to bet, I would say not.  Not really her line of work.

Ok, the real one!

Reptile Gardens

Rapid City, South Dakota, is definitely a tourist trap of a town.  It was full of all kinds of touristy stuff. One of these was the Reptile Gardens.  We had watched a show on Animal Planet one night about a man that was killed by a crocodile (didn't see that one coming until it happened or we might not have watched it), and so my kids, of course, were all interested in crocodiles.  So, we thought they would enjoy this place.  It had a lot of crocs and snakes - not my favorite things in the world.  But, luckily, I did not have any nightmares.  I've had a few snake ones in my life.

Petting the python -- only Alex and Zack would do this.

The prarie dogs - we saw some in the wild later in the Badlands, but seeing them up close like this is the best view.  They are very cute little animals.

This is my kids acting like they are being squeezed by a snake.  Alex is smiling and Matthew is trying to bring the snake down.  Very Matthew like, I guess.

Oh no, Flat Zack is going to be eaten by this reticulated python!

One of the best exhibits in the whole place - old mirrors from some really old World Fair.  The kids had a blast with these.



Dave's new obsession

A few years ago, our family discovered geocaching.  For those unfamiliar, it is using your GPS to find a treasure box hidden and logged on the internet by someone else.  You’d be surprised how many there are all over the country.  We are apparently getting close to having found and logged 100 geocaches.  Dave has gotten excited about reaching that mark and asks pretty much at every stop if we want to geocache.  The great thing about geocaching is that it is free and usually takes a small amount of time – perfect for stops along a long drive.  We’ve taken to looking for them when we stop for lunch – found one at a Wendy’s and then beside Home Depot and then one near Sonic.  We’ve found them at rest stops when we make a quick bathroom break.  This one was a nice one in Montana, I think.  The film canister had actually fallen (or possibly thrown) under the rock, and it required teamwork to get it out and put back in a better spot. 

Occasionally, we cannot find it no matter how hard we try (even with my sneaking a look at the hints and other logs about it). Zack and Dave are the best hunters. They will keep at it for a long time. The rest of us put forth our best effort for a short while and then settle into watch them look, usually unsuccessfully by this point.

Ramblings by Jes, Part 4 - Dave

At home, I definitely run most aspects of our household. I am the planner and organizer, but that has a lot to do with my personality. Dave likes to leave things up in the air more than me and just see what happens. He also tends to procrastinate things a little. As a result, I’ve usually taken care of things way before he’s even thought about it. Planning this trip is definitely an example. I had mapped out a preliminary plan, including ideas of things to do in all the cities along the way – through Las Vegas. I got burned out and didn’t bother past that too much. That caught up with us a little, as we ended up in places without good plans of what we were going to do. We managed to find things to see and do, but I think we could have enjoyed ourselves a little more with some better planning. But, oh well.


The interesting part for me has been watching Dave. There is so much information about the national parks, and I tend to read about the main attractions and plan to do those. Dave is always looking for the really cool hikes or sights off the beaten path a little. He really got into planning all our hikes. He would actually spend some time researching the best hikes to do and send us on them. Sometimes I thought he was being a little too ambitious, but I think he is a better judge of our children’s endurance than I am. It was nice having him take over the activity planning for some of the days. He also tended to get up earlier than the rest of us when he was excited about these plans. Dave and I are definitely not rise early people, and this trip has adjusted our schedule to sleep in late (so late, in fact, we usually have to set alarms to make it to the hotel breakfasts that end at 9:30). But, Dave would be up opening the window curtains way before any of the rest of us were ready to get us started on the day. He was like a kid at Christmas sometimes.

The other surprise for me about Dave has been his lack of structured working out. For me, this trip has been full of workouts. When we’re not in the car (which, granted, is a lot of the time), we are hiking up steep canyons, climbing over rocks, racing to watch a geyser, or just trekking it through a city, usually at a pretty good clip. I’ve had plenty of days where my legs and butt were sore. But, I think Dave has only gotten in 4-5 runs this whole trip. A lot of it has to do with the fact that we don’t have time for him to run, but I also think he doesn’t need it the same way he does at home. I always say that Dave is just one of those people that needs to run. I can tell when he isn’t running because he is grumpier. I know that running helps relieve him of stresses. I think he’s just been stress-free most of this trip, if you don’t count the snowstorm in Colorado and the traffic in Chicago.

Some people ask me how I can stand having my husband work at home and some probably wonder how our family can spend 24 hours a day for 6 weeks together. But, we are loving it. Dave and I are so compatible. We balance each other well and like to do most of the same things. There has not been a moment when we’ve gotten on each other’s nerves. He pushes us to do everything we can at a park while I’m trying to keep some semblance of a normal eating and sleeping schedule, but we easily reach a compromise. It’s been so easy to be with him day after day. It has been an absolutely wonderful experience for all of us. I so look forward to Dave’s retirement when we get to spend every day together!

Brotherly Love

Ramblings by Jes, Part 3 - Homework

When I talked to the principal of the kids' school about the trip, I was prepared to take them out of school and handle homeschooling them for the rest of the school year.  As it turned out, the principal was excited and appreciated that the kids would gain a lot from the trip.  He said we could talk to the teachers about some projects for the kids to do to get grades while they were gone.  It all sounded good to me.  I actually worked on some ideas of things that I thought would make good projects for the kids.  I figured the kids could keep a journal, send letters back to their class, do book reports on the books that we listened to or they read, we'd learn the states and capitals, do a presentation at the end, etc.  It seemed manageable and easy.  The kids' teachers ended up giving us a significant amount of written work. Rachel had 3 math tests and 4 vocabulary tests that I needed to administer, along with all the workbook pages to prepare her.  Alex had 2 chapters in math and 3 chapters in religion and some reading comprehension sheets.  All this in addition to the stuff that I had suggested.  It was definitely a lot of work, but it seemed manageable. 

But, then, we got on the road.  Rachel can only do short amounts of work in the car before she begins to feel sick.  And, it's hard to concentrate in the car with 4 kids.  Not exactly quiet.  I've tried to have them all doing work at the same time, but then they all need me for something.  It is a huge challenge.  We had days full of activities and then driving late into the evening.  In the mornings, we were usually hurrying out of the hotel room in order to head to our next activity.  It has been almost impossible to fit in homework.  Occasionally, we get lucky and have an early night or a morning that we can dally a little.  I take control of all those situations and make the kids do something.  But, we are running out of days and still have a pile of work to do.  We may have to book it home to have a couple days to really just do homework.  The kids have only read about 50 pages each.  But, honestly, I've only made it through 1/2 my book.  Too much experiencing, not enough paperwork.  But, that's OK with me.  I know that the kids have learned an immense amount of stuff over this trip.  There is no way to quantify it, unfortunately, and the teachers need that for grades.

The day that almost wasn't

We had checked reports of the weather in Yellowstone the day before we headed there and it was showing snow (3-5") and temperatures in the 30's.  After our earlier experiences with snow, we did not want to mess with snowy conditions, so we decided to not push it. We looked for althernative ideas of things to do, but there wasn't anything else to do really.  So, we kept on the shortest path back East.  Fortunately, that path took us within 50 miles of Yellowstone.  We figured we could go to Mammoth Hot Springs, which is in lower elevations, and ask about conditions near Old Faithful.  Luckily, the weather held out.  No precipitation at all and temps in the 50's. 

We first stopped at Mammoth Hot Springs, definitely a unique environment. 

We drove up to the Geyser Basin and made some stops along the way.  This stop was cool..  There was a bubbling spring and a lot of steam coming out of the hole above it.  The kids got a big kick out of the steam.  Rachel dug a couple rocks out of the water.  They were very hot from the water.

 We got to Old Faithful, just as it was going off.  So, we needed to 93 minutes.  Riverside Geyser was due to go off  in 45 minutes, but it was pretty far away.  We thought we might be able to make it, so off we headed.  We were checking out the geysers as we went because we were going to need to turn right around and get back to see Old Faithful.   Our first geyser was Anenome.  It's a pretty small one, but the first one is always exciting.

The kids were getting tired and struggling.  We made it to Riverside Geyser just as it finished, and needed to hurry back.  Dave had to carry Matthew and Zack a little bit to give them the "energy" to make it back.  We got back with about 3 minutes to spare. It iumpressed as much as we had hoped.  Of course, the kids were distracted before it finished it's 4 minutes. 

Other geysers included this geyser that was spraying the kids with warm water as the wind blew.  This one erupted every 7-10 minutes, so we hung around to watch it again. 

This one went off almost continuously.  I thought it was pretty neat.

We saw a bunch of animals on our trip.  We saw elk, bison, deer, a grizzly bear, and a couple black bears.  Overall, it was a pretty eventfull trip to Yellowstone. I was so gald that we were able to go.  It was the kind of day that we needed - interesting things to look at and learn about without a lot of hiking.