Day 80 - HOME SWEET HOME!!

After 12,964 miles and 26 states, we pulled into Berryville tonight (Monday, July 28). The kids were jumping for joy and running to see their friends. What an enormous blessing to have this sabbatical to enjoy the many amazing sites across the USA. This moment comes as a bitter sweet end to the trip. The sweet things I am looking forward to include a nice comfortable bed, room to spread out, and just being home. However, the one thing I will miss the most is waking up to a new adventure every day. Since May 10, I have seen new scenery for 80 days straight. Every day was a new adventure with something new to see. Some of the sights are on the top 20 places to see in the USA, and other adventures included meeting up with family and friends, whom I hadn't seen for years. This trip has created many new memories that we will cherish for a lifetime! Thanks for keeping up with us as we traveled across the country.

Pictures Tagged Along our Route

Internet access has been really poor (or non existent) across the mid-west so I haven't been able to upload pictures to Flickr. Here are a few that track part of our route.

Days 75, 76, and 77 - Rockford, IL to Detroit, Michigan

We've spent the last 3 days moving across the mid-west and visiting friends. On Wednesday we got together with a very good friend of mine that I have known since I was 4 years old. Tim Fee and his wife Sharon live in Freeport, Illinois with their two kids. We played at the park and my kids enjoyed wild scavenger hunts for Matthew Fee's (age 7) secret hideouts.

On Thursday, we didn't see any friends or relatives, but we spent the day on a beach on Lake Michigan. I didn't realize Lake Michigan's water was in the 60's. Most of the locals didn't appear to swim in the lake, maybe it warms up by September?

On Friday, we reached the Detroit area and met up with Sheri's cousin, Melissa Coburn. We had a great evening viewing pictures and watching the video I took when we told the kids about baby number 6. That was our first review of the video and it was worth a good laugh.

We've crossed the 12,000 mile point and we only have 3 more days to go! Here is a quick picture of the states we have visited (and will visit) on our trip. I missed marking North Carolina and it looks like we may spend a short stretch of interstate in Pennsylvania on the way home. The total state count for this trip will be 26!

Days 73 and 74 - Badlands to Rochester, Minnesota

We are on the home stretch as we come across the country. On Monday we drove from the Badlands to Sioux Falls and on Tuesday we drove to Rochester, Minnesota. We did take the opportunity to visit the Minuteman Mission Control Historical Site. From 1960 to 1993, the US had 1000 nuclear missiles across the Plain states. In the 1990s, the US government decommissioned about half the missiles. They turned one of the missile silos and mission control centers into a historical site. We toured both. What struck me about these sites is that they are within plain view of the interstate. If you are ever on Interstate 90 in South Dakota, you really need to take a tour of the mission control center. You get to go down into the bomb proof capsule that held the two missile officers. At any given moment they were ready to launch 10 missiles from that capsule.There were many other capsules around the west with direct control of the other missiles. Each missile had the power of 60 percent of the total firepower used in world war two. With 1000 missiles, major destruction could have taken place. Thankfully, not a single USSR or USA missile was fired.

Day 72 - Mt. Rushmore to Badlands South Dakota

Today we traveled 2 hours from the Mount Rushmore area to the Badlands area. We spent some time at the park but given the heat (102 degrees F), we decided to take advantage of the pool at the campground.
The really neat thing about the Badlands is that they let you climb all over them. This was lots of fun for the kids.

Days 69, 70, 71 - Crazy Horse, Mt. Rushmore, Wind Cave, and horseback riding

We spent the last 3 days in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The Black Hills are a popular vacation destination and the sites here are pretty amazing. Unfortunately, the internet is painfully slow here so I won't be able to add pictures.

Crazy Horse monument is the largest sculpture in the world. They have already blasted about 8 million tons of rock since 1948, but the progress is painfully slow. Honestly, I couldn't tell much difference from 2007 to 2014. However, with the pictures in the gallery it does appear they have blasted more rock from the bottom of the mountain. Because it isn't complete, it just isn't as impressive as Mt. Rushmore. Mt. Rushmore took 14 years to create and the detail in the rock is quite impressive.

Wind Cave National Park is the 6th largest cave in the world. It has a unique rock formation called "boxwork", which looks like spiderweb rock that is formed by water dissolving the limestone but leaving behind other minerals.

Our final event here in the Black Hills was horseback riding. Bria has been begging to go horseback riding the whole trip, but most places require a minimum age of 8. When I found a place here that took kids age 6, I couldn't pass it up. We took a nice 1 hour stroll through the National Forest here next to Mount Rushmore. 

Days 67 and 68 - Medora, North Dakota and Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Have you ever been to a town where the whole city is dedicated to a single U.S. president? Take a trip to Medora, North Dakota if you really want to know about Theodore Roosevelt (T.R.). T.R. had two ranches in what is currently called "Theodore Roosevelt National Park". T.R. loved the outdoors and was an avid hunter. He vacationed at his cattle ranch and also employed folks to run it year round. The land he purchased was not typical of the other land here in North Dakota, it was the "badlands", which are hills with different layers and unique rock formations.

When his wife and his mother died on the same day, T.R. came to his ranch here to mourn and regain his strength. In the 1960s, the founder of Mr. Bubble (I forgot his name) decided to reinvest in the town of Medora to honor our great president. One of the unique ways he wanted to attract folks to the town was to create a broadway like musical production called the Medora Musical. It occurs each night here in the summer. If you travel to Medora, you attend the Medora Musical, it's just cultural. Personally, I thought it was a high quality production and well worth attending. Medora is a great little town well worth visiting.