Vacay Day 4 ~ Yellowstone

When I was a senior in high school our family went on the only family vacation of my childhood .. a road trip to Virginia. I remember how excited my parents were to show us all of the places from when I was a baby. Me, my sister and my brother really could care less. We were typical sullen teenagers and pre-teens. We each had a cassette (yes, I said cassette) headset that was stuck to our ears the entire trip. We had car trouble all the way there, were disappointed that the only place to eat on Christmas night was a dirty Waffle House, and were in the car for hours and hours. We took a day and went to Washington, D.C. I had a new outfit and new boots I wanted to wear. It was the week after Christmas and COLD! I refused to wear a coat because it didn't match my outfit. I bruised my achilles tendon and heel by wearing those boots. At one point my dad slammed on the brakes and yelled at us to turn off those #@&@@# headsets! But I have fond memories of us going on a vacation as a family.

This day in Yellowstone is the day our family fell apart.

I will protect everybody's dignity by not giving specifics, but we all have something to be ashamed of .. many things, actually! Things were said and done that were hurtful to each of us. We actually considered ending the vacation at that time and going home. We were tired, dirty, cold, rained and hailed on, sick of each other and selfish! The worst part of each our personalities had been in full swing since that morning (mine included! in fact, mine had been there for a couple of days!) Every problem we have as a family came spilling out.

We did see Old Faithful that day, but I can't say I enjoyed even one moment of it. I was too distracted. That's unfortunate.

Here is a photo of the kids in front of it.


And here is a photo of us having lunch right before things went south. It literally started moments after this.

After Old Faithful we came back to the campsite and fixed burgers and hot dogs and had a campfire Family Team Meeting. It was heated, and I don't mean the campfire.

We got it all out, resolved to try to leave our selfishness behind so we could enjoy the rest of our vacation, and went to bed.

Although I know we all carried our feelings through the rest of the vacation, we did enjoy the rest of it and saw some cool sites. We even had fun.

Vacay Day 3 ~ Heading to Yellowstone

Let's see .. where did I leave off? Oh yeah. The Thomasons had just found out that the transmission was blown on their truck and they were unsure of what their plans were going to be.

I hadn't explained what we were doing at that time. We had found a little state park with campsites. It was one of those that has no facilities at all .. you just pull in and put your money in a locked box. We spent the night there with the trains, remember?

The next day, while we were waiting on the Thomason's plans, we tried to occupy ourselves. We were camped right next to a flowing spring with a rope swing. So, the kids rode it. Well, Dawson did anyway.

Then we played on the playground. Yes, I said "we". What do you do when life gets you down? Just keep swinging, just keep swinging. (That's from Finding Nemo, if you haven't seen it.)

And, you climb giant rock sculptures.

After we had all of the fun we could find at the state campground, we packed up our pop-up and headed to Yellowstone.

It was, in my opinion, the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen in my life!

We drove up the mountain through Big Horn National Forest. Breathtaking!! Seriously! Going over the pass presented us with the most amazing canyons and flowing rivers. I have never enjoyed time in a car as much as I did there. Photographs cannot even begin to paint the picture of those mountains! It's impossible to portray a 3-D image like that with a 2-D photograph.

After the pass we headed toward Cody, Wyoming. It's the neatest little cowboy town and I wish we could have stayed there! There seemed to be so much to do! We were planning to come back through and stay a night, but then we hit the Grand Tetons and changed our mind. More on that later.

Here is the main street in Cody with the mountains behind it. Wow, to wake up to that every morning! It would even make running errands enjoyable!

We stopped in Cody briefly to eat at Wendy's, and Brynne had one of her acid tummy aches. That was not pleasant! Because all of our medications were in the pop-up, I had to unhook from it and drive to the nearest grocery store to get her some Maalox. I fed it to her right there in the cart. She got to feeling better and we continued our trip toward Yellowstone.

We got to drive through some mountain tunnels. The little guys loved that!

We finally arrived in Yellowstone that evening. I know that I am going to sound completely un-American when I say this, but it was a disappointment, especially after what we had just seen through Big Horn and Cody. We trudged on and got to our campsite right at dark. Rick started putting up the pop-up and we realized that even though we were across from the bathrooms, there were no showers. We hadn't had one in a couple of days. Yuck! That, and the fact that it was COOOOOLLLLDDD started our time off in Yellowstone on a sour note. We bundled up and hit the sack.

Vacay Over ~ We're Home

Just a quick note to say that we are home!

Everything here looked fine. Thanks to Emma for getting our mail and watering my flowers!

The only catastrophe was that it appears that our overly fat cat, Clifford, was shut upstairs without food since last Sunday (a full week .. gulp) when we had an open house while we were gone. Needless-to-say, he was slightly distraught. It makes me so sad because I know he stood up there, in the extreme heat, for 7 days and meowed and no one came! He walked around down here and meowed and meowed for a long time after we got home. He did finally go eat something. I know he's traumatized! But, he did have water in the toilets up there and only pottied on Kyndal's rug in her bathroom, so he survived. I'm really sad about it, though!

I'll start the rest of my vacation postings tomorrow.

Vacay Day 9 ~ Heading Home

It's now 6:40 a.m. I gladly got up at 5:30 so that I could take a shower and fix my hair. I feel like a new woman! 

I'm getting ready to get up the kiddos to feed them breakfast so that we can start our long trip home. Those last few hours are always the hardest, so be praying for us!!

I'll start catching you up tomorrow.

The first post will be about our trip from Ranchester, Wyoming, to Yellowstone. You don't want to miss it!

Vacay Day 8 ~ Denver Aiport Holiday Inn Express

Yes, I know I've skipped a few days. But did you know that they don't have Wi-Fi once you hit Yellowstone??? I was appalled! No cell phone or internet service for 5 days!!!

I will update you on each of the days I have skipped, I'm honestly just too tired right now!

I feel like this little Holiday Inn is a 5-star hotel compared to the week of camping in a pop-up camper with all of our kids with no services (which means no electricity or water or furnace, for those of you who have never camped!) We were blessed to have a bathroom right across from our campsite both in Yellowstone and the Tetons. And I gladly paid $15.00 for us to take a shower. We only had the luxury of two of them in those 5 nights (stinky, yes, I know!) Have I told you that it gets down to about 35 degrees at night, and that's pretty darn cold when you're sleeping in a soft-side pop-up camper?? And did I forget to mention that we had no furnace? We did have a portable propane heater, but by morning you could still see our breath. 

The bath I just took in this Holiday Inn felt like a spa treatment. And I guarantee that this bed will feel as though I am sleeping on clouds!! As a family, we have never smelled so good!

To hear all of that you would think that we had a bad vacation, huh? Oh my goodness! That couldn't be further from the truth! Yes, we had typical family drama. (Again, did I mention that we were in a pop-up camper with all of our children for 8 nights, and in a car with them for between 50-60 hours total?) Yes, we had detours. You can read about that in my previous posts. But most importantly we saw God's creation at its finest! I will post about each day, including photos, once we get back to Oklahoma. We're planning to leave here at about 7 a.m. tomorrow for our final 10 or so hours in the car.

Come back and hear about our fabulous vacation!

Vacay Day 2 ~ TnT'S North American DEtour 2009

As we were on our way to historic and beautiful Cody, Wyoming (home of Buffalo Bill), getting ready to ascend the mountain through scenic Big Horn National Forest, we just had to make a one-day stop at Connor Battlefield campground in Ranchester, Wyoming.

I'm lying.

As we were ascending the mountain through scenic Big Horn National Forest we looked behind us and realized that we hadn't seen Matt and Steph for quite some time. We had no phone service so we continued to the top of the mountain. Then we noticed a missed call from Dawson (he was riding with them). We called to learn that they were at the bottom of the mountain because their truck had overheated.

Well, not exactly.

What we found at the bottom of the hill was a dead truck .. blown head gasket or transmission or something.

So, we did what any other broken down, disappointed family would do .. we took pictures. I can't post them right now, but we took them. It was beautiful standing at the top of a steep cliff looking down at the pine trees. We threw rocks and pine cones off the bluff. And we waited for a tow truck.

Rick decided that we should definitely hang together, instead of us going on to Yellowstone. So, Steph and I and all 7 kids loaded up in our Suburban and headed back to Ranchester and found a campground while the guys waited for the tow truck. We set up our pop-up and started a campfire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows for s'mores and just as we finished eating, it started pouring ... again! So we all ran into the pop-up and waited for the men and the towed 5th wheel.

Sleeping was fine, except for the train that passed by us, full horns blowing all night!!

The men got up this morning and headed into town to meet with the guys who are going to fix their truck. They brought back McDonald's and then we started cleaning out the pop-up. It was a mess and I just couldn't stand it anymore.

Right now we are getting ready to load up and head onto Yellowstone. We are skipping Cody. The Thomasons have a rental van and are having their 5th wheel towed to the town where their truck is, to wait for it. Hopefully they will join us tomorrow.

So ....

we are on the road again ....

stay tuned!

Vacay Day 1 (cont) ~ Crazy Horse and Mt. Rushmore

After we spent the afternoon enjoying the Flintstones campsite, we headed out for the real reason we were in South Dakota ... the Crazy Horse Memorial and Mt. Rushmore.

Wow ....

You know, you read about that stuff for so many years, and see so many textbook pictures of it, that when you finally see it you just stand in awe and think, "Wow .. it really does exist!!"

First we went to Crazy Horse ..

We watched a video about this and learned so much that we didn't know. Did you know that the first blast was in 1948 and the face wasn't revealed until 1998??? That's 50 years just to do the blasting on the face! When it's completed it will look much like this ..

I think I heard once that it will take 300 years to complete the full sculpture. Sadly we won't get to see it completed in our lifetime. Steph said Jesus will come back before then! I wondered what would happen if you were the guy who messed it up! What if you missed the blast by a foot and blew a huge hole in his face?? Just wondering!

Next we went and did something SO FUN! We went to the Alpine Slide. We first rode up the mountain on ski lifts. Brynne rode with Kyndal, Dawson rode with his friend Lauren, and Rick and I took Eli. I can only speak for Eli, but he loved it!!! At the top of the mountain was a restaurant and several places for pictures. I won't bore you with all of them, but I did take these cool shots of the everybody on some rocks ...

After we ate the yummiest burgers ever (maybe we were just starving), we rode the toboggans down the mountain. Fuuuuuunnnnnnnn!! I couldn't get the one of me and Brynne to post ... bummer!

And lastly we went to Mt. Rushmore. Breathtaking! You think it's huge, until you see Crazy Horse. The entire Mt. Rushmore sculpture would fit onto the face of Crazy Horse.

We're packing up camp today and heading to Cody, Wyoming, the home of Buffalo Bill.  We're going from Yabadabadoo to Yee-Haw!!!

Vacay Day 1 ~ Road Trip and The Black Hills of South Dakota

We left Owasso yesterday at about 2:00 p.m. pulling a pop-up camper behind our Suburban. If our copper kitchen sink would have fit somewhere we would have taken it .. seriously, we took everything imaginable!

We didn't even get out of town without a mishap. Brynne touched my friend's reflector guide by their driveway that is sprayed with fiberglass and she got fiberglass splinters in her hand. So, we didn't take a family pic of us in front of the camper until our first gas stop. Here we are in Kansas City.

Rick drove the first 4 hours, then I took over for the next 7 1/2. At 11:00 p.m. we stopped and bedded down the kids. I may be a bad mama, but we put the two little ones in the back of the Suburban on mattresses, Kyndal was layed out in the backseat and Dawson was layed out in the middle. At least they got about 7 hours of real sleep. At 2:30 a.m. we stopped for gas and Rick finished the last 4 or so hours to get us into the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Then .... it started pouring ... then hailing .... and storming so bad I thought I might cry! I was seriously worried that we would have an entire day of rain and storms. And I was so sad that the one thing Brynne was looking forward to doing would be ruined! We are staying at the Flintstones campground in Custer, SD, tonight. They have a little "amusement park" on site with a replica Bedrock City. But, once we pulled in, the rain let up and Rick and Matt were able to get the campers set up. Then it started clearing up and the day has turned out to be beautiful!! The kids have played miniature golf, swam for a few minutes and went to the amusement park (while daddy took a little nap). Here are the kids in Fred's car, and a couple of others.

We rode a little train ride that took us to a western town set. I took these fun pictures.

This afternoon we are headed to the Crazy Horse Memorial, for a drive through the Black Hills National Forest and then onto Mt. Rushmore!! I can't wait to see it all!

And We're Off ....

TNT's North American Tour 2009 has officially begun ..

Stay tuned for frequent updates!!!

(** BTW, "TNT's" stands for Taulmans and Thomasons and Suhrs.)

Rick Rocks ~ Because He Seriously is Taking This Family on a 45+ Hour Road Trip to Yellowstone

'nuf said.