Favorite Memories and Trip Stats

Favorite Memories

James – Florida Keys, New York City, Washington DC, Gator Farm
Lucas – Busch Gardens, Gator Farm, Shaver-Hill Maple Operation, Meeting up with the Killams

Isabella – Busch Gardens, Florida Keys, Maine, Joe and Shelly’s

Eve – Texas, Busch Gardens, Boat ride in Miami

Zach – Disneyland, Busch Gardens, Carlsbad Caverns

Elizabeth – Disneyland, Busch Gardens, Swimming in the ocean and seeing jellyfish

Nancy – Visiting family and friends and meeting new people. She also loved the warm weather and humidity.

Rob – I loved it all!

Trip Statistics

Days on the road: 80

States visited: 45 of the lower 48. We missed North Dakota, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Miles driven: 14,700

Gallons of gas consumed: 2,100. The highest price paid was $4.50/gallon in Los Angeles and the cheapest was $3.35/gallon in Wichita.

Overnight stays at Walmart: 14

Pictures taken: almost 2000

Stray dogs adopted: 1

Memories made: countless

Would we do it all over again - ABSOLUTELY!

June 4 – Home

We spent the morning visiting family in Shelton and sharing details of our adventure before heading north toward home late in the afternoon. As we neared Duvall, the kids were cheering in the back of the RV. Although they were happy to be home, it wasn’t as if they were tired of all the travel. In fact, I think all of us would be content to jump in the RV and hit the road again tomorrow.

June 3 – Shelton, WA – Grandpa and Grandma Hunter

Another drive day today as we made our way up through southwest Washington stopping in Naches to have dinner with an old family friend. After dinner we headed over White Pass into western Washington turning north toward Shelton where we spent the night at my mom and dad’s place.

June 1-2 – Nampa, ID – Joe and Shelly Gorman

We stopped in Nampa on our way back into the northwest to visit Nancy’s aunt and uncle, Joe and Shelly, and their kids, Jimmy and Annie. We enjoyed a couple of nice fires in their backyard and we all went to the local Family Fun Center on Saturday and rode go-karts and bumper boats and played lazer tag, putt-putt golf and arcade games. Jimmy introduced us to his serious girlfriend, Leslie, and Annie made a great breakfast for us on Saturday morning. We had a great time here and wish we lived closer so we could see these guys more often.

Shelly, Jimmy, Annie and our crew

Elizabeth eating smores

James and Isabella eating smores in Joe and Shelly's pond

Lucas playing it cool in the drivers seat

Isabella doing bumper boats

Backyard fire

Eve in her bright yellow go-kart

May 30-31 – Yellowstone National Park – Fishing Bridge Campground

Yellowstone is the oldest national park in the country – and the world for that matter - having been officially designated in 1872. The park comprises about 3500 square miles with most of that territory between 7,000 and 9,000 feet of elevation. Most people are likely aware of it’s predominate features – geothermal activity, incredible landscapes and animals – lot’s of ‘em. We spent two full days in the park seeing buffalo – the herd here numbers about 4,000, elk - including a 5 point buck in velvet, antelope, black bear – including a sow with cubs, coyote and big horn sheep. We were hoping to see wolves and grizzlies but that didn’t happen this time around. We also took in Old Faithful and saw all number of hot, smelly pools of water and mud. This stuff was really cool and the kids loved it. We stayed at a great campground right in the park – the spaces were pretty tight but it did make a convenient home base while we were sightseeing. We felt fortunate to have great weather while we were here given that our friends came through Yellowstone less than a week before we arrived and had snow and treacherous road conditions. It goes without say that the RV and snow don’t get along.

Yellowstone is easily within reach of those in western Washington – a couple of 8 hour driving days away. It is a trip very much work making for those that have never been. Make plans to visit!! You'll be glad you did.

The boys and I glassing the hills

5 point elk in velvet - I'd like to shoot this one with something other than a camera :)

Waiting for Old Faithful to blow

Old Faithful doing its thing

Geothermal stuff...

Female big horn sheep

James and Zach standing near a fort the kids built at our campground

May 29 – Cody, Wyoming – Walmart

Today was a travel day as we made our way from the Black Hills in South Dakota to Yellowstone National Park. Nancy and I celebrated our 13^th wedding anniversary today with a family dinner at Granny’s Family Restaurant in Cody. It won’t go down as the most romantic anniversary. Cody is a great little town with a strong western theme.

May 27-28 – Custer State Park – Game Lodge Campground/Legion Lake Campground

We began our second day in the Black Hills with a visit to Crazy Horse.  This huge carving was started in 1948 by Korczak Ziolkowski who was an assistant sculptor at Rushmore. The scale of the Crazy Horse monument is amazing. The Mt Rushmore sculpture is about 90 feet high whereas Crazy Horse is slated to be around 600 feet high when finished. The pace is slow going here – it took them 50 years to finish Crazy Horse’s face - because the work is being completely funded by private donations and entrance fees. They have a nice visitor’s center with an Indian museum, restaurant and a number of displays that discuss the carving. In the afternoon we headed toward Custer State Park. There is a wildlife loop drive about 18 miles long that takes you through the heart of the park’s buffalo herd. It was quite a sight to see them particularly given that it is spring and there were many newborn calves. We ended up finding an open spot at Game Lodge Campground inside the park. Interestingly the lodge next to the campground was the summer White House for Calvin Coolidge in 1927.

We met up with our friends, Chuck and Michelle Killam and their family, later in the day and all the kids got a chance to play. At night we all headed back up to Mt. Rushmore and saw the monument at night. They had a great program prior to lighting the monument where they honored all the veterans in the crowd. Great stuff. We enjoyed seeing Rushmore at night but, if you have the opportunity, I’d recommend visiting during the day for a better view of the sculpture where the details of the monument are more visible. That night we made our way back to Custer State Park where we stayed at Legion Lake Campground. We got to the campground late at night and when we woke up in the morning there were 3 massive buffalo right in the campground not 50 feet from our RV. AWESOME!! Once they moved on the kids rushed over to one of the trees they scraped against to pick up some buffalo hair to add to their collection of artifacts.

A side view of the sculpture as it stands today. See the bulldozer on the flat spot in front of the face and the excavator in the lower right corner of the picture? Yep - it's big!



A scale model of the completed sculpture




This big guy was 50' from our campspot. We just stood and watched he and his buddies quietly grazing.




Mother and newborn calf. The herd at Custer numbers about 1400.