Yellowstone: Our last stop

Well this is our final entry. Our trip ended with a bang (not a 4th of July bang but a wow look at this bang) in Yellowstone. This is somewhere we need to come back to again. Everyone really enjoyed seeing all the thermal activity in the area. Not just the geysers but the mud pots, steam vents and boiling pools. It was something none of us has ever experienced before. End that up with a hike along the Canyon and the Yellowstone River. The upper and lower falls were breathtaking. We took a hike from the upper falls to artists viewpoint and it was suprising devoid of people. All in all a great way to end the trip.

We hope everyone has enjoyed sharing our adventures. Feel free to leave your comments and thank you for joining us.

Devils Tower

As we left the Blackhills on our way to Yellowstone we stopped off at Devils Tower for a couple of hours. We took a hike around the base of the tower and marveled at how mice and ants have made their way all the way to the top. We also marveled at the idiots, oops, I mean people, who were also climbing to the top. We decided that Devils Tower looked best from the bottom.

The Blackhills

The next couple of entries are going to be catch-up. We did not have very good internet coverage on the last leg of our trip. We left the Badlands and took a short drive to Custer State Park and the Blackhills. Our first day we of course went to Mt. Rushmore. It is quite a feat that was achieved there. The amount of skill it took to carve out the four presidents so accurately is truly astounding. John was quite impressed (picture 1). We also took in Jewel Cave that day. Jewel Cave is the 4th longest cave in the world and it is filled with crystal formations. We saw many varieties including the longest know cave straw in the world, measuring in at 8ft.

The second day was a little rainy so we first took in a hike of the needles area. Here the rock formations have been eroded into long, thin peaks. We walked up the mountain to a tree grove where we got a view of Little Devils Tower (picture #2 shows the view and you can make out Little Devils Tower in the distance). We then spent the afternoon at Sylvan Lake. It is a lovely lake in the Black Hills. The kids waded around trying to catch fish and later they took a paddle boat ride. We also went to a fossil museum in Hill City during the rainy part of the day.

The Badlands

It has been a while since we posted because we have been camping and have not had internet access. Our next stop was South Dakota and the Badlands. It is a place with a very harsh climate, hot summers and frigid winters. It is considered semi-arid in that it gets only 14 inches of rain each year. The formations in the badlands are also the fastest eroding structures in the world, eroding at a rate of about 1 inch per year. We spent the day driving and walking around, watching a group of archeologists dig up ancient pig bones, seeing roaming herds of buffalo and enjoying a beautiful sunset.

Cedar Point

After a short drive to Sandusky, Ohio we went to the Cedar Point Amusement Park. It boasts 17 rollercoasters which range from insane to tiny-tot. Nathan and Dad went on the most coasters, including the Millenium force, which ratcheted up to over 300 feet and had three 90 degree drops. It was quite the ride. Dad hollered so much he was hoarse the next day. In total we rode about 9 or 10 of the coasters. Carolyn was not up to the fast ones, so she rode the woodstock express and Gemini Jr. The Woodstock ride was actually pretty fast reaching speeds of 25 mph or so. Elizabeths favorite coaster was the Gemini Jr with top speeds of about 10 mph. We all enjoyed the ice skating show, driving the cars and doing the various other rides. It was a very fun day. The photos show Carolyn with the Peanuts characters and one of the insane coasters, the Dragster. It accelarated you to 120mph in about 5 secs and sent you straight up 400 ft and spiraled on the way up and down. If you look carefully you can see the car going up the right side.

Next we are off to the Badlands and BlackHills. As we will be camping we do not know if we will have internet access, so this may be our last post for a few days.

Niagara Falls, Pittsburgh and Canton, OH

Our next stop after a fair bit of driving was Niagara Falls. We were more expecting to see the falls in a park or some other quiet area, however Niagara Falls is in a relatively large city, both on the US and the Canadian side. The falls were awesome, even though the New York Power Authority sucks more than half the water off to make electricity. We got close up views of the American Falls, Bridal Veil Falls, and Horseshoe Falls. Some views were really close, so much so that you had to wear ponchos to keep from getting soaked by the spray. We also toured the power plant. The scale of the project was enormous. Two trenches were dug and pipe laid from the upper part of the river to the lower part. The pipes were on the order of 60 ft wide and 40 ft tall. Anyway, the whole project gave New York 10% of its needed power while trying to preserve the beauty of the falls.

Next we drove down to Uncle Jerry, Aunt Julie, Nicholas and Alex in Butler, PA (which is near Pittsburgh). The kids played hockey non-stop, except for the time we spent at the Carnegie Science Center, catching fireflies and having some ice cream. The Carnegie Science Center is Pittsburgh's form of OMSI. It was a lot of fun; we particularly enjoyed the sports area where you could play a huge version of table hockey (the hockey with the little men that move and spin around). Carolyn and Dad beat Nathan and Uncle Jerry 1-0. We were only able to stay two nights and one day before moving on to Canton, OH and the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The museum is very well done with lots of NFL Film Archives to see. At the end there is a really cool movie where you sit in a "stadium" and see football films on a huge hi-def screen. It made you want to get a scrimmage going right away. There were lots of Chiefs stuff to see which made everyone happy although we would have liked to see more Chiefs in some of the films. We ended the day with the NFL bloopers film, which are always fun to watch.

Acadia National Park and Yummy Ice Cream

It has been a couple of days since our last post. We have started heading west now, which means we are heading home. We still have two weeks and a lot of things to see but it is a little sad to know our trip is rounding the last turn. Just before heading west, we stopped at Acadia National Park in Maine. The park is on an island with granite mountains and cliffs ending in crystal clear ocean. It is a very beautiful place. Even though we were there on a Saturday there were not huge crowds, which was very nice. We went out at low tide to investigate some of the tidepools. They are very different than what we see in Newport, back at home. Lots of periwinkles (aka snails), some small star fish and larger crabs. Very little color. Anenomes and urchins are very hard to find and if you do find them they are not as colorful as what we see at home. Never-theless, the ranger guide made the experience exciting and fun. We took a couple of hikes, one along the beach and another up to Gorham Mountain. The kids enjoyed scrambling over the rocks on both hikes and we were rewarded with wonderful views on the mountain. Acadia is definitely a place we would like to come back to.

The next day was a lot of driving as we started making our way to Niagara Falls. We did make a stop in Waterbury, VT to tour (and of course to taste) Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory. A couple of guys with a $5 correspondence course on how to make ice cream turned a local ice cream shop in Burlington, VT into a global business. It was a fun tour and of course the ice cream was excellent. John is shown here next to the Ben and Jerry's van. Apparently this van drives around the country giving out free ice cream. The first van burned up years ago in Cleveland so this is the second van. They called it the world's biggest "baked alaska!"

Check back with us to see views of Niagara Falls. After that we are heading to Pittsburgh to visit with Uncle Jerry and Aunt Julie and see the Carnegie Science Museum.