Andrew - Badlands National Park

Hello I am going to be talking about Badlands National Park.  Some of the topics are the color of the rock, and what the colors mean, how it got its name,and how big it is.
  It got its name by the Lokata Indians and they called it Mako sica meaning land bad. Because there are briars and no no fertile soil so they could not grow crops. It is 244,000 acres of sharply eroded buttes, Pinnacles and Spires.  The colors that you can see in the rock are made up of the following:  The purple and yellow are Shale; tan and gray is sand and gravel; red and orange iron oxides and white volcanic ash.
  When you look at the rock you can see the different colors in the rocks. It looks very cool when there is more than one color layered on the mountain.
   Today we drove through Montana and are staying about 20 miles from the Canadian Border.  Tomorrow we will cross into Canada and a ton of snow.  Talk to you later.

                                                                                      Andrew

Pictures of the Adventures

We are moving and It's Great!!!

Tonight is Wednesday night and we are traveling through Wyoming.  We have made it through many states now.  I think the kids have listed them out for you.  We spent most of today in South Dakota seeing many wonderful things!!  Our first stop was in the Badlands of South Dakota.  The Bad Lands were named by the Dakota Indians (sica mako).  They named them this because of the harshness of the region.  As you can see from the pictures it is a pretty unforgiving terrain.  The soil is very light almost like sand.  I will attach a site link to the Badlands National Park website so that you can read more about it.  It was truly stunning.  On the drive in it was normal terrain.  Pretty flat with a few rolling hills and then you come to these beautiful desolate mountains.  The layering of colors in the mountains are amazing.

Our next stop was Mount Rushmore.  I was amazed as we were driving up the mountain and looked up to see George Washington Looking down at me.  Once again, I don’t think that the pictures will do it justice.  There is great majesty in the mountain.  I expected that it would be located in a busseling village, but that is not the case!!  It is out in the middle of nowhere.  The woods that surrounds it makes it all the more special.

We ended the days adventures at a place called Evans Plunge in Hot Springs, SD.  This is an indoor water park (small) that is fed by mineral hot springs.  The water is a constant 87 degrees at all times of the year.  The bottom of the pool area is smooth rocks that allow the water to seep into the pool area.  This spring and pool has been there for more than 100 years.  I will attach a link to the website that will give you more information on it.  A great experience!!

We are now driving toward Montana through Wyoming.  We hope to see the Montana Zoo in Billings tomorrow and then head for the Canadian Border.  This is truly a trip that is beyond what I had hoped for.  The kids have been great!!

Erin - 3/28/11

Hi, this is Erin sorry I haven’t posted anything yet I guess I just haven’t taken the time I will try to post more often.

          We just crossed into Iowa and we are enjoying the beautiful sights! So far we have gone through Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and now we are in Iowa! Today we have seen beautiful things but out of them all I liked the deer I saw. (Nobody else saw it but me!)  Probably the one thing that I liked second was the windmills that we saw a little while back.  They were huge with big white blades.  They probably appealed more to me because I don’t think I have ever seen them before.   Surprisingly I never thought I would say this but I am actually interested in the dirt.  It is much darker than the dirt in Georgia.  The dirt in Georgia is red clay and this is actual dirt.  The ground here is so flat.  

Today well this morning at the camp grounds we played on the play ground and we even went put put golfing!  Then it got a little cold so we decided to go in the RV and watch a movie.  Now we are looking out the windows at a very long train.  Yesterday we went and saw the Gate Way Arch in Saint Louis Missouri.  We saw the arch.   It goes up 650 feet.  It is even taller than the Washington Monument in Washington DC.   Unfortunately, we could not go up in it because it was booked but we are going to try to catch it on the way back.

          We will try to post some pictures tonight and I will post more tomorrow so you can look. Bye!

Erin

Andrew - Saint Louis

Andrew

Hello everyone it’s been pretty fun so far and we have went though Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and will go though South Dakota later today.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) we are going to the Badlands and hopefully Mount Rushmore. Up here in Iowa and Nebraska the ground is so flat!!  About  5 minutes ago we went through a town (Omaha, Nebraska). (I didn’t know there was a big town up here).

I saw the Gateway Arch in Saint Louis, Missouri. It is 650 ft tall! And it is beside the Mississippi River.

 We also had to switch RV’s. Later we are going to a water park that is heated by a hot spring.

Alaska ... Will we ever make it?

Just to let you know what has happened thus far.  We made our first target (West City, Illinois) but not without problems.  We pulled in last night at 10:30 central time (11:30) your time.  When we got within 2 miles dad noticed a problem with the drive shaft.  By the time we could exit the interstate the RV could not move anywhere else.  Needless to say we have not moved today.  A replacement RV will be picked up for us at 9:30 in the morning.  We will then have to transfer everything out of the old RV into the new one.  COL (crying out loud).

It was a pretty fun drive here though.  We started out in rain, then it hailed on us and last night there was snow.  Crazy adventure so far!!!

The kids will post their thoughts a little later tonight.  We will post pictures tomorrow as we don't have our camera in the hotel with us.

Pray for better luck tomorrow.

The Sardines

Welcome!!

Thanks for coming to our blog.  We will be leaving on Saturday, March 26, 2011.  We hope that you will follow our trip as we go from Powder Springs, Georgia to Fairbanks, Alaska via the Alcan Highway (The Alaska Highway). There will be many stops along the way...Mount Rushmore, The Badlands, Yellowstone, various hot springs.  I will be having Andrew and Erin updating the blog while we are gone.  I hope to include some educational things as well as some fun times.  Please find the link below to Mapquest that shows the route we will be taking.  More to come.... Please enjoy and leave us comments.

http://mapq.st/eZaeMf