Continuing with my theme of Top Ten Moments of our 2011 Road Trip, here are 3 more (again, these are in no particular order)....
4 - Mount Rushmore
Seeing Mount Rushmore both during the day as well as at night was amazing. Beautiful. Breath taking. Made me feel patriotic. I loved thinking about the artist that had the original idea and the thousands of man hours spent on the project. I also thought it was interesting to see all of the Asian tourists at Mount Rushmore. I guess I was just impressed that they were curious enough about American history to want to see it.
We hiked up the 350+ stairs to see Mount Rushmore. It gave us an entirely different vantage point.
Mount Rushmore is also THE BEST PLACE to look for license plates. I bought the 99 cent iPhone app to keep track of license plates and we cleared about 30-35 in the parking lot.
5 - RAINBOW!
This moment is one of those "ya gotta see it to believe it" moments. When we left Montana on August 1st to head to the Idaho house we all agreed on 1 thing: the government shutdown could put a major kink in our travel plans. If there were a government shutdown that could very well include the national park system, including YELLOWSTONE! So we agreed that we would see as much of YNP as we drove through it, even though that was against our original plan of spending the 1st day unpacking, finding the grocery store, etc.
We spent the day at Mammoth Hot Springs and Old Faithful (more on that later). By the time we arrived at the house it was dusk. After fumbling around trying to find the house for about 45 minutes (have you ever thought to yourself.."so close, yet so far away?") we pulled over and started talking to this 11 year old kid riding a 4 wheeler. He tried to figure out where we were going but he was just as confused by our directions as we were. The house is brand new so we couldn't find anything online.
About that time one of the kids noticed a rainbow. We all got out of our cars to find THE MOST BRILLIANT RAINBOW we had ever seen. It was a full rainbow and appeared to be painted in the sky not with the typical pastel colors. It was brightly colored, the brightest I have ever seen. Inside it was a smaller rainbow. It was amazing. If you've seen our pictures on Facebook, trust me...it doesn't do it justice.
Yes we eventually found the house. The directions sent us down a gravel road for 2 miles to turn into a new subdivision. We drove for 3 miles before we gave up. Finally we tried it again and we found it after 4 miles. Our house sat on 6 acres in a gated community. It was perfect for the 18 of us. It was 3 levels. The 8 girls shared the basement. There were twin over full bunk beds and a pull out couch. The main level had the main living area and master bedroom (the Soroski family won the coin toss!). The upstairs had 2 more bedrooms and a loft for the 4 boys.
6 - Junior Ranger program
I am so thankful to the national park system. Our tax dollars are well spent protecting and improving our national parks. They are worth protecting. Stepping off soapbox now.
The kids earned their 10th junior ranger badge in Yellowstone. They also earned Devils Tower, Grand Teton, and Little Bighorn Battlefield this trip. Before this trip they earned White Sands, Natural Bridges, Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, Bandelier, and Carlsbad Caverns.
The Junior Ranger program gets kids involved in learning about the national park versus just "visiting" the park. The Yellowstone badge was definitely the hardest that they have ever done. It was a 13 page packet! If you are planning a trip there I would request to have the packet mailed to you ahead of time so the kids could work on it on the way there.
Funny story:
When we arrived at Little Bighorn our 1st stop (as it always is) was the visitor center to pick up the junior ranger packets. I told the ranger, "I would like 12 junior ranger packets, please." First his jaw dropped, apparently he had never seen 12 kids before. Then he basically said that yes, they had a JR program but that it would be too hard for the kids and that we should just skip it. I respectfully told him that we would have 12 disappointed kids if we didn't do it so again, politely asked him to fork over the packet. He reluctantly agreed and left the counter to go get them. While he was gone we endured the usual questions from the other park ranger as well as other guests. "Where are you from? Are you related? Do you have a different shirt each day? Do you do this every year?" Apparently when 18 people in matching shirts arrive on the scene it always turns heads. Especially when the adults are outnumbered by kids 3:1. But I digress.
So the ranger comes back with the packets and again asks us, "Are you sure you want to do this? There's a lot of questions on this paper. Plus it's about a battle and it was a gruesome battle." Seeing as how our gaggle of boys were already drawn to the tomahawks and guns, I didn't think they would be too disturbed. :)
We all laughed when we saw that there were only 10 questions on the sheet! They finished it pretty quickly. We watched the video and then walked around the battlefield grounds. It was really cool! When we were done we went back into the building so the kids could be sworn in as junior rangers and get their badges. The park ranger was so amazed that 12 kids earned it that they took their picture and posted it on their Facebook page! So if you are in Montana please go earn Junior Ranger badges at Little Bighorn Battlefield...apparently they don't get much business.
Look for my 3rd and final installment of Top Ten Moments of the 2011 Road Trip soon.
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