Roadtrip Update

This will likely be my last post regarding our roadtrip. While we have enjoyed much of the experience of travelling and seeing new places, we have also learned that travelling does not come easy to everyone. In particular, the girls have had a hard time with the lack of structure and rhythm that this type of travel requires. As a result, the kids and I will be heading back to Sandpoint on Wednesday while Mark continues the journey alone for now. We have much to be thankful for, including many great memories as well as a lovely home & friends to return to.

Thanks for the opportunity to share our adventures!
Kelli & Family

Boston highlights, October 6 – 28

Replica of Mayflower, Plymouth, MA

While we have been in the Boston area for nearly 3 weeks, we honestly haven’t spent too much time sightseeing. We spent one day doing a trolley tour of downtown Boston, and saw many of the historical sites in the downtown area. Mark & I spent one day touring Plymouth and part of Cape Cod. I returned the next day with the boys as I thought it was worthwhile to show them where the first white settlers arrived. There was also a re-creation of a ship similar to the Mayflower that allowed us to imagine ourselves at sea for nearly 3 months, shut in with very little light, ventilation, extremely limited food selection, and no modern conveniences. The boys were especially interested to learn that the only beverage likely to be available to both adults and children was beer. It was explained to us not only how difficult it is to keep water fresh, but also how the general thought of the time was that water had no value to our body since it was clear, odorless, and tasteless.

On the same day that I took the boys to Plymouth, we drove into Boston so Kyle could go to the MIT science museum. The MIT science museum had a whole different feel to it than other science museums we went to because it was supplied by student expositions. It was pretty neat to see what the gifted college students came up with, and Kyle fancied himself possibly attending MIT in the future.

One other experience worth sharing is the day we wanted to get a bite to eat at a nearby restaurant and see the movie, “Where the Wild Things Are”. The New England Patriots play at Gillette Stadium, which is about 5 miles down the road from the campsite. The Stadium has a multipurpose parking lot which is shared by an adjacent open shopping mall. The mall has the typical mall shops like Game Stop, Baskin & Robbins, etc. We wanted to try a burger place that someone had told us about called 5 Guys, Burgers & Fries.

We left about 4:30 pm, about the same time that we noticed that the rain that had been falling most of the day seemed to be changing into snow. As were got out to the main highway, we also realized that this was a game day, as traffic cones marked off the flow of traffic. As we got into the parking lot of the mall, the snow was coming down steadily and a steady stream of football fans were heading out. These fans were dressed in parkas, snow hats, rain ponchos, boots, etc. Imagine the looks of perceived child abuse as they saw our 4 kids walk through the snow in their sandals, t-shirts, and light jackets! I don't know if you can see Kenna in the picture below, but she is wearing an outfit that is best suited for a 60 degree day!

Montreal, Quebec, October 13-16

We headed north to Montreal so Mark could show our software at a usergroup conference organized by one of our resellers. On the way to Montreal, we passed through the town where Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is made. Well, we couldn’t very well pass up that educational opportunity, so we stopped by. The factory wasn’t nearly as large as we expected, and both the plant and the tour paled in comparison to the Tillamook Cheese Factory in Tillamook, Oregon. Unfortunately, we got there just minutes before closing time, so we planned to return on our way back to get the full tour. The sacrifices we make for education!

Ben & Jerry's Tour


We got through the border around midnight. We were a little nervous driving the RV into Canada, wondering how difficult the border control would be. We were pleasantly surprised at the brevity of their interview. As we got close to the border, we discovered to our dismay that most of the RV parks had already closed for the season. So, we ended up dry camping the first night in a Canadian Walmart parking lot. The next two nights we stayed at the conference hotel, and moved the RV to a new parking lot every night. This was partly to be considerate and not take up too much parking space at the other Walmart and Costco we used. But, the main reason was to prevent another tragedy of the freezer running out of power, and ruining the contents of both the freezer and the fridge.

Mmm, breakfast at Starbucks, downtown Montreal



Two aspects of Montreal stood out. The first was that it felt more European that other large cities we had been to. And the second might have been related to the first: French is the official language in Quebec. Fortunately, they were very accommodating of us English-speaking Yankees, but we definitely felt like foreigners as we tried to read the signs and pick up on things.

Overall, our tour of Montreal was brief with just a few highlights. We enjoyed a large indoor, below street level shopping mall. We also went to the Montreal Science Museum. The Museum was much smaller than others we had been to, and although it was modern & up-to-date, it was almost completely vacant. It was even challenging to find someone who worked there. However, small though it was, we really enjoyed the various science activities, especially the ones on the second floor.

A couple of the science activities that stood out to us were a seat attached to a pulley system that allowed you to lift yourself off the ground about 18 inches. There was also a spinning gyroscope that messed with your center of gravity, a huge bubble that enclosed you (Erika’s favorite), and a perception display where you tried to draw a line through a maze while only viewing the reflection of the maze in the mirror. That last one was a surprisingly simple, yet extremely difficult task! We enjoyed walking around the cobbled streets near the science museum in search of lunch.

Bubbles!

Normandy Farms Campground, Boston, MA

The Lodge

Our guardian angel at the RV Park, Kathy:

Inside the kids loft in the Lodge (we supplied the legos)

View of the pool & fall folliage from inside the Lodge

We have been settled in the Boston area since the 6th of October. Originally, this was going to be about a week long stay before heading up to Montreal, Quebec for another business meeting. However, the campground has proven to be so nice, that we rearranged our schedule to return here.

There are several things that make this campground unique and worth extending our stay. The first is that they have a large recreational lodge that has an area where we can hang out during the day. The lodge has a large multi-purpose area, a business center, an arcade, an indoor pool, a ping pong room, and 2 lofts: one for adults, and one for kids. Mark & I typically hang out in the kids loft during the workday as we can supervise the kids while they read, play games, or watch a movie while we tackle our work commitments. We sometimes sneak away in the evening to the adult loft for a game of pool.

The RV park also has lots of activities and amenities. On the weekends, they host family friendly activities. The first weekend we were here was Columbus day and they played bingo, the ever popular candy bar bingo, did crafts, and even hosted a dj for an all ages dance. The following two weekends were Halloween weekends #1 & #2. They again hosted bingo, had costume contests and hosted a daytime trick or treating extravaganza where the kids were able to trick or treat at all 400 campsites.
Halloween Weekend #1
Princess Erika:

Kyle is the "Hello My Name is:"

The motley crew: a skeleton (Kenna), 8 Ball (Blake), and the princess

The Loot!


During the weekends, the schedules are very busy, but come Monday morning, the campground is at about 10% capacity and it feels like we have the place to ourselves! Some other great things about this campground is that it has 2 baseball fields, horseshoes, a huge playground, and 4 swimming pools! It really is more of a resort than a campground.

Above all, what has impressed us the most about Normandy Farms are 2 things. The first, is that this land has been family occupied since 1779! For 150 years, generations of the Daniels family have been living and gaining their livelihood on this land. It has been an RV park for the past 25 years or so, but I see they still operate a Christmas tree farm. The tale of how this land came to be in the Daniels family is very interesting as well.

The second thing that has really impressed us is how well taken care of this place is. The staff is always on top of keeping the place clean. The buildings and other improvements are in a phenomenal state of repair, unlike the majority of other RV parks we have been to where things look nice as long as they are new. Even during the Halloween party, the crew pulled out vacuum cleaners to vacuum the stray leaves and pine needles that had migrated into the lodge.

Here is a link to the website if you would like to take a look yourself: http://www.normandyfarms.com/

New York, NY

Erika meeting Elmo in Times Square:

View from the "Top of the Rock" with Empire State Building in the background:

Central Park - a family favorite!




We spent a couple of days travelling to Albany, New York and the Harwinton, Connecticut for business meetings. Mark had a couple of business meetings scheduled in New York City on the following Monday & Tuesday, so we opted to spend the weekend in New York City. With such a large family, it is sometimes difficult to find hotel options for us. We opted for the Doubletree Suites in Times Square, which proved to be a great choice for our short stay!

New York City is an overwhelming place at first. Kyle looked absolutely shocked as he got out of the truck as Times Square is the heart of the tourist area for NYC, where the ball drops on New Year's Day. There was a palpable sense of traffic, noise, and wall-to-wall people! By day 3, I noticed the kids took it all in stride.

Some of the highlights of our trip were going to the 'Top of the Rock', top of Rockefeller Building, seeing the Lion King on Broadway, and visiting Central Park. Mark and the boys also made a trip down to see the Statue of Liberty while the girls napped Sunday afternoon before seeing the Lion King.

Niagara Falls

We made an overnight stop near Niagara Falls on our way to Albany to see the falls. We saw the American side of the Falls at night, and crossed over into Canada to see the Falls from their side the following day. It had rained most of the morning, but we lucked out with a brief dry spell to view the falls. Kyle says they are overhyped, but I thought they were amazing. I could have spent a lot longer time enjoying the view, but hungry tummies got the best of us.

Inside the visitor's center, there were a couple of food choices. We chose the healthier deli option and ordered our food. We were surprised to learn that they didn't take Visa, only Mastercard, so we couldn't use our debit card to pay for our meal. Having paid a toll to get over the bridge into Canada and another hefty sum for parking, we were running low on cash. We managed to scrounge up enough money with borrowing a little from the kids to pay for our meal. On our way back into the U.S., the Border Agent asked the usual questions along with the question of if we were bringing back more than $1000. Mark laughed as he answered, "No, in fact we have exactly 17 cents!"

Cedar Point Amusement Park, Cedar Point, Ohio

Erika up on stage with the witches, who asked her what she wished for. Erika's answer? "A horse" (of course!)






We stayed the past 2 nights at Cedar Point Theme Park near Sandusky, Ohio. Cedar Point is built on a peninsula that juts out into Lake Erie. Mark & I were curious about the history, and learned that it is the 2nd oldest theme park in the U.S. dating back to 1892.

We bypassed several water & theme parks in the Wisconsin Dells area because we already had Cedar Point on our radar. Kyle was the one who planned the stop. Apparently, my brother Mark, aka Uncle Bob, had told Kyle if he wanted to go on a lot of rollercoasters, Cedar Point was the park to hit.

Personally, I don't enjoy amusement parks too much as I have outgrown rollercoasters (the last one I went on was about 6 years ago at Knotts Berry Farm with the family, my parents and Uncle Bob). However, I was pleasantly surprised at Cedar Point. First of all, it was huge! They had some amazing roller coaster which Mark & Kyle enjoyed. Plus they had several Camp Snoopy areas that appealed to Erika and Kenna. Overall, it was kind of a difficult park for Blake because he was too tall for the little kid rides and he doesn't really like the thrill rides.

The really fun part for me was the whole park was decorated for Halloween. They had all sorts of skeletons in various states of activity - some were painting, some were playing video games. One of my favorites was an old-fashioned popcorn cart with a skeleton selling eyeballs, spiders and other assorted ghoulish things. I think it was the best Halloween-decorated place I have ever seen.

We stayed 2 nights at the RV park in Cedar Point, even though we only went to the park on Saturday. I was able to walk the girls back to the RV when the girls got tired at the end of the day while Mark and the boys visited all the haunted houses that opened up at dark.

We are currently driving across I-90 in Pennsylvania, near Erie, headed towards Buffalo, New York.

We have moved out of Chicagoland, and are now in the Eastern Time Zone, in South Bend, Indiana - home of the College Football Hall of Fame & University of Notre Dame!

Today is a good day. We are finally full-time back in our little home-on-wheels. The weather appears to be officially fall, so we spent the morning swapping out shorts for pants, and tank tops for long-sleeved shirts. Our clothing bins in the back wardrobe seem to be working out well. The clothes that we swapped out will go back in the "basement" until we hit warmer weather, probably next spring.

Last night, we got all caught up on our week's worth of laundry by using the campground laundromat. We continued laundry in the RV this morning, washing sheets & towels. It feels really great to have a full-service connection again - it's been a while.

We are still trying to find our rhythm in this trip, and today's experience really brought to light the need to slow down a little bit. I think it will really help the girls a lot as we have seen a sharp uptick in the tantrums since we have started our journey. Unfortunately, the next week looks like it will be a pretty busy travel week. We'll leave here tomorrow, and head to Cedar Point, Ohio for a long-promised amusement park stop, then on to Buffalo, NY for a customer meet & greet and a quick peek at Niagara Falls. Mark has a Wednesday morning meeting in Albany, NY, followed by a usergroup conference in Hartford, CT on Friday. However, once we get to Connecticut, we don't have any immediate stops planned, so I hope we can do a little better at planning our time.

Legoland Discovery Center, Chicago



We had a little worry this weekend. Back in late July/early August when the kids were visiting my folks, Erika woke up screaming because her leg hurt. She's complained of her legs hurting off & on for probably 6 months now, but the complaints come & go.

However, on Friday she started complaining during the day that her leg hurt, and on Saturday I noticed that her entire posture changed. Sunday she had a good, solid limp. I don't know how it is, but my kids always get sick or injured either after hours or most usually on the weekend. So by the time the doctor offices around here opened this morning, I had googled all the likely causes of leg/hip pain and concluded that it was either benign growing-type pains, or something ultra-serious like a tumor or septic infection. After 4 x-rays, the dr. was able to conclude that the bone structure looked completely normal, so most likely cause was a strained muscle.

After having been in this hotel for the past 9 days, I sure am glad that we decided to bring a bin of legos with us. I don't know how thrilled the housekeeping staff is because the kids have the legos spread all over the floor, but in fairness, they are using them a ton & it is so nice to have an activity that all 4 kids can participate in.

We went to Legoland Discovery on Saturday for Blake's birthday. It was a really over-priced expedition, but they had a lot of variety of lego building activities for the kids, so we ended up spending about 4 hours there. Kyle & Blake competed in Aliens & Robots, and Kyle's chinese-waiter robot with chopsticks hands won! Kenna & Mark built a lego structure that grew to 10 feet tall (they were larger legos made out of the same material as Croc shoes). The kids also built a couple of lego cars and raced them down the raceway. All in all, it wasn't the best value, but it was a good Blake-birthday activity.

We have had a lot of good food here. We've tried 2 well-known "Chicago deepdish pizza" places, Gino's East & Giordorni's. We ate at a great chinese restaurant, called Big Bowl, that prides itself in local, fresh meat & veggies. And we've eaten at a few other diners around here. Surprisingly, the hotel itself has really good food as they make most of it here. Rumor has it that most of the staff at the hotel have been here 10+ years; the chef has been here for 28 years! Given the nature of the industry and the modern era, that really surprised me. My favorite restaurant so far is Portillo's. They advertise their Chicago hotdogs. Even Mark like them, which is saying something since he often gets ill from sausage & hotdogs. But it was their Italian Beef Sandwich that really caught my attention. My mom didn't make them often, but I was surprised to bite into one and immediately remember Mom's Italian Beef Sandwiches. Knowing that she lived here for several years, it doesn't surprise me that it came into her recipe book.

Still, as much as I enjoy eating out and love not having to do dishes, I am so glad to have the RV back to dine in. While the RV was at the shop, we learned that the propane refrigerator on the RV requires a little bit of battery power to keep running. It appears that a light was left on for the 3 days that the RV sat on the lot when we dropped it off for repairs (our fault, not theirs) So the kids & I went to Costco yesterday & reloaded the fridge. Today we got to enjoy omelets, ham & cheese croissants, and raviolis & garlic bread. Don't tell the kids I said so, but I think even they were relieved to be back on dish duty as they were complaining that they had no way to earn any money while we were in the hotel!

Chicagoland

Navy Pier, Chicago


Oprah's interview - She's the dot of red under the bright lights above the motorhome (like I said, lousy zoom :-)


It's been a little while since I've posted. We are still in the Chicago area. We spent the week of Sept 7 - 12 in downtown Chicago. It wasn't as fun of a visit as I had hoped, mainly because the city seemed to overwhelm the sensibilities of both Kenna & Erika.

However, we did go to the Field Museum, twice to the Museum of Science & Industry (the second time so Mark & the boys could see the Harry Potter exhibit which had stuff from the HP movies). We also went to Navy Pier, which was pretty quiet since it was after Labor Day & biked along Lakeshore Drive on the bikepath that runs along Lake Michigan.

The one unplanned surprise was we saw Oprah Winfrey as she was preparing for the opening of her tv show. They had blocked off all of Michigan Avenue for a free public concert, and had 3 blocks of standing room blocked off for people to attend. They were allowing people into the blocked off area from noon to 5. I wanted to see the chaos of the event, and so the kids & I walked along the sidewalk on Michigan Avenue around 11:45 - 12:30. The kids were thrilled that Vitamin Water was giving away free bottles, and Blake suggested we go past the booth several times, but sadly I wouldn't go along with that plan.

Just past the Vitamin Water display and before we got to where we spotted Oprah, Erika had the mother of all tantrums. They had music piped into the street to entertain the people waiting for the show to begin, and as soon as Erika heard the music, she insisted on getting out of her stroller to dance. After dancing for 20 minutes, I tried to persuade her to get back into the stroller, and apparently, that was a completely unreasonable expectation in Erika's realm.

Finally, I managed to get her back into the stroller, although she wouldn't allow me to buckle her seatbelt. We passed the main stage, which was just before where the Fox River (I think?) runs into Lake Michigan. As we crossed the bridge, I noticed a open-top red double decker bus parked on the side of the road with all sorts of audio/visual equipment. I looked up and saw the bright stage lights focused on Oprah giving what I assumed was her interview or opening for the performance. I tried to get my camera out of my purse while simultaneously trying to get Erika back into the stroller (again!) when a security guy verbally pushed me along and prevented a close up of Oprah. However, we stopped at the end of the bridge and looked on as we still had a clear shot of Oprah. I would have some really good pictures if the telephoto lens worked well on my camera, but I dropped my camera 2 weeks into our trip, and my pictures have gone from really fabulous to so-so. I had to point Oprah out to Kenna as apparently Kenna had never really seen her before.

From Saturday until now, we have been at Pheasant Run Resort, about an hour west of Chicago, attending 2 back-to-back conferences. The second one just ended today. We managed to celebrate Kyle's birthday yesterday and will celebrate Blake's tomorrow. Tomorrow night Mark flies to Fargo for another business conference and will return back to Chicago Tuesday night. The kids & I will stay at the Resort until Wednesday. Since we were scheduled in Chicago for so long, we opted to take the RV into the shop and get several items taken care of under warranty. We finally got it back today after being without it nearly 2 weeks, only to have the automatic step break when Mark stepped on it tonight, and the back-up camera tv screen not open up. The screen is particularly important because it allows us to see our blind spots when changing lanes and the rear when backing up, so it looks like our home-on-wheels may have to go back into the shop on Monday (I'm crossing my fingers that it doesn't have to).

We will be leaving Wednesday to head towards our next 2 appointments: Albany, NY on Wed, Sept 30th and somewhere in Connecticut on Friday, October 2nd.

Labor Day - Chicago

Erika hanging out like a monkey!


Kenna completed a puzzle at the Two Rivers Wisconsin libary.

We are in Chicago this week! We spent last week in Wisconsin. After Eau Claire, we spent 2 nights outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin. We were in an RV park attached to a motel, that was situated right across from Lake Michigan. Unfortunately, there was a 4 lane state highway that ran between us and the lake, so it wasn’t as pleasant as I would have liked. The RV park was pretty lacking overall, but because it was attached to a motel with an indoor pool, the kids made the most of it by spending lots of time in the pool.

Friday, while Mark was at a client meeting and we had to be out of the RV park, we relocated the RV to the town park and library. The library must have been fairly new. It had a lovely reading-readiness area with puzzles and other activities for kids Erika’s age. They even had a teen video game time that Kyle & Blake attended; they were the only ones to show up so they got exclusive use of the Nintendo Wii. All in all, we had a very enjoyable time hanging out in the library with so much reading material at our disposal.

We moved onto the Wisconsin border so we could go to the Jelly Belly factory in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. Fortunately, there was an Outlet Mall nearby that allowed RV parking, so we just stayed the night there. And of course, in the morning we enjoyed some shopping. Unfortunately, the Jelly Belly factory tour wasn't nearly as good as the one in Californina, because it's only a distribution center, and not a manufacturing plant. Still, it wasn't all bad because we each got a sample package of Jelly Bellys.

We were booked into a KOA campground northwest of Chicago, but after staying Saturday night, realized that it was too far from Chicago for us to really enjoy the city. With no other RV parks closer to Chicago, we chose to stay at an inexpensive hotel near Chicago O’Hare airport that allowed us to park the RV. We got drove along Lake Michigan towards the Museum of Science & Industry and enjoyed the Science museum for the afternoon. We have really gotten a lot of value out of our Pacific Science Center membership as this is the 3rd science museum we’ve gotten in using our Pacific Science Center pass. In all honesty, the museum was very overwhelming because it was packed. They have a special Harry Potter exhibit where they show a lot of the props used in the movies. It runs just a few more weeks, which they said was partially responsible for the crowd, but I’m sure the holiday weekend played part of it. We decided that we would have to come back to see it all again, and see the Harry Potter display then. It costs $15 per kid to see it and $18/adult, so I think perhaps the girls and I will pass.

Mark & I have decided that we really need to be IN the city to enjoy it. He has a jam packed week beginning Saturday with a conference he’s attending, so we took a risk in the “Magnificent Mile” area using Hotwire. Fortunately, we got the same hotel that I had been looking to book for less than half price. Right now, Mark is driving the RV out to the resort that the conference is at while I am watching the kids enjoy the pool. We’ll be heading in to the city here shortly; I am anxious to check into the hotel as I’ve never used Hotwire before and wonder if it’s too good to be true. We’re planning on hitting the Field Museum, the natural history museum, and should get into yet another museum for free using our Pacific Science Center pass!

Wisconsin

Mill City Museum, Minneapolis



We are officially in Cheese Country! We left Minneapolis Monday afternoon after Mark’s business meeting, boondocked in Eau Claire Wisconsin’s Walmart parking lot. Mark attended another business meeting Tuesday morning, and then we headed out towards Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Our first order of business before we left Eau Claire, though, was to find a propane gas dealer. We had stopped the night before at a gas station east of Minneapolis to get some propane. Even though they had the big tank, they only had the ability to fill portable tanks as they weighed the tanks before and after to determine the amount sold. Of course, our propane tank is mounted on our motorhome, so that wasn’t going to work. Fortunately, we did find a propane dealer to help us in Eau Claire. We use the propane for the refrigerator, stove, water heater & furnace, so going without is not an attractive option. I was pleased that this was our first propane fill since we have had the RV, so it seems to last pretty well.

I woke up early this morning because the house was cold. I’m sensing the season changing already. Mark noticed some of the leaves here in Wisconsin already starting to change color, and our last night in Minneapolis actually got below freezing according to the radio.

Mark asked his business associates in Eau Claire if there was any “must-sees” in the area. The only suggestion they could come up with was to be sure to stop in Colby, WI to see the Colby Cheese House, home of the largest cheese block. I was in the back trying to get Erika down for a nap when we rolled into Colby. Seems Mark blinked and rolled right on by the Colby Cheese House. I discovered there are other places besides Sandpoint where the majority of the roads are dirt, because all the side roads outside of Colby were dirt. Mark chose one road to turn around on. He ended up going around the “block” which was a 15 minute detour. The detour gave us the opportunity to see an official Land o’ Lakes dairy farmer. On our way back through town, we did see the Colby Cheese House but it looked closed.

On Saturday, before we left Minneapolis, we enjoyed touring the Mill City Museum. The kids & I had tried to go on Wednesday, but got there just an hour before closing, so they suggested coming back a different day. I’m glad we waited because Mark got to enjoy it with us. It’s a museum that tells about the history of flour making in Minneapolis. Minneapolis is where the Pillsbury Dough Boy and Betty Crocker got their start. We learned that flour dust is highly explosive, and about an ingenious man who in the process of selling an elaborate flour dust collection system, received the task of engineering the entire plant, stole ideas from flour mills in Europe. He rebuilt the flour mill by replacing the stone mills with roller mills, and thereby increased the flour production from 6,000 barrels a day to 51,000 barrels a day. There was also an entertaining 19 minute film of the history of Minneapolis, where we learned the origin of the city’s name & other interesting tidbits. Overall, it was an extremely well done museum with many different activities to engage the kids, and I would highly recommend visiting it if you are ever in Minneapolis.

[SWISH/(H^2)(E^2)R]xNOCIN/SI=?

Hi, This is Kyle typing. Right now we are in Wisconsin heading from Eau Clare to Green Bay, home of the Green Bay Packers. From now on, the titles of my posts will be a puzzle for you guys to solve. The first person to post the correct answer, is put on my Scoreboard and gets 10 points. The first person to get 100 points wins some prize that I haven't thought up yet. For this puzzle I am going to give you a hint. The hint is........ Algebra!!!!!

Minneapolis

It’s been a busy week for us. On my last blog, I said that we hoped to make it to Sioux Falls that night, which we did. We decided to try boondocking (dry camping) in a Costco parking lot, thinking it would be quieter than a 24 hour Walmart parking lot. We chose an out of the way spot so as to be considerate of the business. Unfortunately, we overthought our consideration, and ended up parking near the loading docks of the warehouse, which began operations in the early hours of the morning, even on a Sunday! We got moving pretty early (around 9 am) , excited that we only had a 4 hour drive ahead of us. I don’t quite know how it happened, but it seems par for the course so far on our road trip that we didn’t pull into the campground outside of Minneapolis until 6:50 pm.

I’ll get on to our week’s adventures in a minute, but I have to start with the campground itself. To be fair, this is only our 3rd campground stay so far this trip. However, the park where we are now is likely to be one of the nicest of our entire trip. It’s a 2700 nature reserve with 6+ miles of paved biking trails, a huge play area, and a lake. We have a spacious RV site, larger than any other we’ve had (except, of course, when we had the Lookout Pass parking lot all to ourselves!). The only drawback is that they only have electric hookups, not full hookups with water & sewer too, so we have to move the RV every 2-3 days to empty our tanks and refill the fresh water. Fortunately, they have very nice bathrooms with individual shower stalls.

We are located about 30 minutes from downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul. We have driven into the Twin Cities everyday except for today. On Monday, we went to the Mall of America. The huge attraction there was the Lego Store. They had quite a variety of lego sets which attracted Blake's interest, but Erika really like the pink foam sword and was willing to take on anyone that walked by, whether they wanted to duke it out or not!

Tuesday we went to the Science Museum of Minnesota. It was an okay science center, but the kids were most attracted to the putt putt golf course out back, and of course the gift shop.

Wednesday we were back downtown to go to the zoo. When we brought the kids to Minneapolis a few years ago, we went to the Minnesota Zoo, which is a huge zoo. This time, our co-worker, Jenn, suggested the Como Park Zoo which we tried instead. It is a little more run down and smaller, on par with the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma before they made all their improvements about 10 years ago. That said, we enjoyed it, primarily because the price was right - free or a modest donation (suggested $2/adult & $1/child). So for only $5, we got to see tigers, lions, some varieties of primates, giraffes, zebras & more.

Thursday we went to the opening day of the Minnesota State Fair. I'm not sure whether it has a smaller footprint or a larger attendance, but it was more crowded than I have ever seen the Washington State Fair in Puyallup. There were a couple of cool attractions that we enjoyed. One was the Miracle of Birth exhibit, where they housed expectant and newly birthed babies & their mamas.

Before we left for the fair, I told Kyle about this exhibit and he said "That's wierd." I said, "Why?" He said, " Well do they get paid or something?" I replied, "With what, some extra hay or something? What would animals want with money?" He laughed "Oh, I thought you were talking about humans giving birth." We got a good laugh out of that, and I agreed with him that it would indeed be odd to have pregnants moms sitting around waiting to give birth, and allowing anyone to watch them.

We didn't see any actual births, but they did have a video replay of a cow giving birth to a calf earlier that morning. The kids were kind of grossed out at viewing the deliveries but they did enjoy seeing the cute little babies.

The other exhibit that the kids enjoyed the most was a mini farm experience. It was really geared for preschoolers, but they allowed all the kids through once (they kicked Kyle out when he tried to go a second time). The kids went through a series of activities where they play-acted the necessary farm activities. At the end, they sold their harvest of vegetables, eggs, and wool at the mock farmer's market and received play money which they could spend at a modestly stocked store. This is what really intrigued the kids, because they got to walk away with a serving size box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal!

Mark has been busy all week with customer meetings and work, so he was only able to join us around 5 at the fair. Writing it all now, it doesn't seem so much, but the reality is that we have been slow to adjust to Central time. I don't think we've gotten the kids to bed before 10 all week, and with all the activities, neither of the girls have had much in the way of naps. So today, Friday, we stayed at the campground while Mark went into Minneapolis for a meeting. Today also happens to be my birthday. So for my birthday dinner, we went to Costco to pick up a chocolate cake as that was my request. We ate dinner at the Costco foodcourt, and then ate the cake with an ice cream bar from the foodcourt right there. The best treat of all was to not have to clean the kitchen or do dishes!

Black Hills, South Dakota

Needles Highway:



Mt. Rushmore:

Saturday Night, August 22nd

We are driving across South Dakota on I-90 right now. Time jumped ahead to central time, so it is now 9:50 pm. It's dark outside and quiet in the cabin. Kenna is sleeping on the dinette-turned-bed and Erika is laid out on the sofa. I don't think either one of them is asleep, but after failing to get them to nap today, I am relieved to have them both quiet.

We have been visiting the Black Hills area of South Dakota the past couple of days. Thursday we stopped at Devil's Tower on the east side of Wyoming, as we drove from BIllings, Montana to Custer, South Dakota. Mark really wanted to see Devil's Tower as it was featured in the Steven Spielberg film, "Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind"; I had never heard of it before. We learned that it was the first place to be deemed a National Monument and that it was known by Native Americans as Bear Lodge, but was documented on a map of one of the first explorers as Devil's Tower and that was the name that stuck.

We got settled into the RV park in Custer a little after 9 pm Thursday night. The next morning we woke to find the 32 oz honey container had fallen out of the top cupboard and broke open on the floor. So Mark & I spent the first 20 minutes of the day trying to coax all the honey off of the floor. Afterwards, Mark logged into work while I played Supermom, getting the kids breakfast and cleaning up after them. Fortunately, the RV park was really nice and the kids happily played outside. I am struggling to find time to get my work done, so am brainstorming ways to get a jumpstart on the day before everyone wakes up. The main challenge with this idea, which I didn't realize before we owned an RV, is that even with 4 jacks on the ground to make it level, the RV bounces with every move made, whether walking or turning over in the bed, giving away my early rising.

Friday afternoon we drove through the tourist-oriented town of Custer on our way to Mt. Rushmore via the "Needles Highway." The "Needles Highway" is a twisty, turvy road that is really narrow. The huge boulders on it were amazing, and even moer amaziing was the tunnels built into them, some as narrow as 8 feet wide by 12 feet high! Thank goodness we made the drive in our pickup instead of the RV. While we wouldn't have attempted it in our RV, were were surprised to see a full size tour bus coming through from the other direction - we noticed that the mirrors on both sides were all scratched up, indicating just how tight the tunnels are!

Along the way to Mt. Rushmore, we saw many different animals including burros (donkeys), wild turkeys, bison, deer and mountain goats, making the long drive a little more interesting. Mt. Rushmore was striking as I had only seen it in postcards, and so didn't realize how far up the mountain it was. We attempted to go to Crazy Horse for their laser light show, but after going to the RV to get warmed clothes and jackets, as the temperature had dropped with the sun going down, we were a few minutes too late to get in.

So we went to Crazy Horse today on our way out of town. Unfortunately, the visit did not go too well. To begin with, Erika refused to sit correctly in her car seat, and after Mark corrected her, she carried on crying and pouting for about 45 minutes. I went in to the exhibit hall with the other kids while Mark waited outside with Erika for her tantrum to pass. Just after the kids & I went inside, they had a movie showing how Crazy Horse was built. Unfortunately, our cell phones didn't work so I had no way to tell Mark where we were, and he ended up missing the movie. And last but not least, we had planned to take the Mickelson Trail, a rails-to-trails bike trail, the 5 miles back from Crazy Horse to Custer. Unfortunately, it got too hot for our comfort so we chose not to do it. All in all, Crazy Horse was interesting & I could have spent a lot more time seeing all the exhibits, but I was disappointed that the majority of the focus was on the sculptor and his family instead of the Native Americans and Crazy Horse in particular.

We left Custer around 2:30 pm, and hit Wall Drug in Wall, SD around 4:30 pm. I had never heard of it before, but they have quite a history and I got to read up on it while we were driving. Seems there was a young pharmacist who moved to Wall with his young wife and child just after the depression. They tried to make a living for nearly 5 years, but were on the brink of calling it quits when the wife hit upon the idea to advertise free water to the tourists travelling to the newly opened Mt. Rushmore exhibit. That moment of inspiration led to a $5M year business in the middle of absolutely nowhere! The kids enjoyed it; Mark & I tolerated it.

We plan to dry camp (not hookup to an RV site) in or close to Sioux Falls, South Dakota tonight and continue on towards Minneapolis tomorrow.

Setting out

Home Sweet Home:


The Monster Bike:

Kelli writes:

We finally headed out of Sandpoint on Sunday afternoon, August 16th. The last week was pretty challenging as it was tough to gauge how long it would take to get things completed. We were pretty optimistic that we would be done on Thursday, then Saturday, but we ran out of steam around 10 pm Sat night, and went at it again the next day. Even though we likely won't walk away with much money when it sells, it still feels good to leave with the house completed and looking good.

We had several stops on our way through Coeur d' Alene, and made it to Lookout Pass, 113 miles from Sandpoint, some 6 hours later. We parked overnight in the Lookout Pass ski area parking lot, and it proved to be a very quiet night as we were the only ones in the parking lot.

The next morning, after eating breakfast, making a sack lunch, cleaning the kitchen, and pumping up the bike tires with air, (all of which seemed to take forever) we headed 7 miles down the road in the truck to bike the Hiawatha trail. The Hiawatha Trail is a rails-to-trails bike path that travels downhill about 15 miles, through 9 tunnels, the longest of which is about 2 miles - in complete darkness!

Mark, Kenna & I rode in tandem with our trikes attached and Erika pulled behind in the trailer. The boys were riding their own bikes. We did well until just after the halfway point. The gravel road was really bumpy and the vibration seemed to loosen up a lot of things on our bikes. Blake's light that we bought to go through the tunnels kept falling off, and my water bottle came out of it's holder. The second time my water bottle jumped out, it startled me and I yelled out at the same time that I started to brake. Mark reacted to my holler, and also hit his brake at about the same time that he turned a little to the left. It was then that we learned that his tire had worked itself loose, because the braking and turning combined to release his front tire. Since we were all in a chain and travelling about 9 miles an hour downhill, the bikes kept moving even without the front tire. The end result was a bent fork and bent axle. As we were just past the midpoint, it was a really bad time to break down. Fortunately, Mark was able bend the axle and the fork back enough to attach his trike to mine, so I became the lead and we continued on our journey, albeit a little more cautiously.

We spent the next 2 nights in Missoula, and in searching for a bike shop to help repair his bent fork, Mark happened upon Free Cycles, a community organization which recycles unwanted bikes, bike parts, and provides shop space for people to work on their own bicycles. The kids were totally enthralled with the pile of bikes, rims, gears and the like, but especially with the skate bike, which looked a lot like a unicycle except it had 2 little wheels in front to stabalize it, and the green garden bike, a monstrous 3 seater bike-car. In the end, Mark's fork could not be safely repaired, so while we are waiting for a new one to arrive from Australia where they are manufactured, he and the helpful guy Jeff, fashioned a new fork to make due for now. We were all so inspired by this community bike effort that we made a special trip to the hardware store to purchase a few of the tools that seem to walk out more frequently and dropped them off to them before we left town, continuing on our eastward journey.

Kelli writes:

If you would have told me a week ago that we would really be ready to hit the road next week, I don't think I could have believed you. What a week it has been!

We had the good fortune in timing as weeks ago we had coordinated all 4 kids going to Grandma & Grandpa's at the end of July for a week or so. I can't really recall exactly what we have done in the week the kids have been gone as it's all a blur. Mark was able to tackle our last major upgrade on our house: laying travertine tile in the master bath shower & tub surround. We also sorted through all the kids clothes, paring down to just 10 short sleeve shirts, 10 long sleeve shirts, 10 shorts, and 10 pants to take with us in the RV. I had no idea what clothes-hounds we had become, but it felt good as we donated bags and bags of clothing and other household stuff to the thrift store.

Towards the end of last week, we made the flight down to Utah to pick up our selected motorhome. It is quite a story as we had come up with an extensive list of "necessities" to make this year long trek bearable. In reality, we could have lived without any of them, but with 6 of us occupying 1/10th of the space of our home, we wanted to be thorough in our selection. After narrowing it down to a few key features, including at least one set of bunkbeds for the kids, we found exactly 1 motorhome that met our needs and was available for purchase, and were pleased that it was located in the western U.S.

Having never even used a travel trailer before, we were in for quite the learning process in driving this mammoth machine. Mark drove it the majority of the way from Salt Lake City to Sandpoint, but I did spend about 40 miles behind the wheel. What has surprised us both is that there is no special licensing required to drive this 39' long x 8' wide x 12' high box on wheels down the road! As intimidating as it was to drive, I have to admit it was a pleasure to pull off at a truck stop, expand our bedroom, and crash for the night.

Getting Ready

It’s been an adventuresome couple of months, to say the least. We’re attempting to remodel our home, get our house on the market, buy an RV, pack up our things, and hit the road by August 15. Our hope is to spend the next year as a family road-schooling while promoting Rockton Software with strategic visits to our customers across North America. We have a bon-voyage party planned for August 11 from 1-7pm at our home in Sandpoint, ID. Once the party’s over, we’ll spend the next couple of days packing up and then we’ll hit the road… with not yet a clue where we’re going…