Fall Break Trip Day 3

 Day 3 started at Scottsbluff National Monument, which was suprisingly cool! We then drove the endless corn field, barren, non-highway roads into South Dakota. What an interesting drive! We listened to a lot of Harry Potter and played a lot of the music game. Once we arrived in South Dakota, we hit up the Badlands pretty quick. It was really fun to see and quite unique. It is a small national park, though, so we easily got it down in an afternoon. We went on a really cool hike where you can walk across the dunes and to an overlook. Devin carried Flor for a lot of it cause he is a real trooper. These pictures got all jumbled, but oh well. They are all there.

One of the kids decorated the van with "Go Brewers" and indeed, we were rooting for the Brewers (who were playing the Dodgers at the time in the lead up to the world series)

Fall Break Road Trip! Days 1 & 2

We took a fall break road trip through Colorado, Nebraska, and South Dakota with the kids and Jen & her 3 youngest kids. It was a blast. I have always wanted to see Mt. Rushmore and we took a scenic route so that we could knock a few more states off our states list. Day one we drove from South Weber to Rocky Mountain National Park, except we took a really roundabout oopsie way and added 3 hours to our drive. OOOOPS. We survived! Our airbnb had a massive herd of elk right outside, roaming the neighborhood and driveways. It was crazy. 

Day two we toured Rocky Mountain National Park and picked up Hals, who had flown into Denver and taken a van to the park. She had a student body event the night before she could not miss. Rocky Mountain was really pretty and cool to see, but lacked a bit of the WOW factor of places like Glacier, Yosemite, and Grand Teton. We still very much enjoyed ourselves and because it was a bit colder, the lack of crowds was great!

We figured out how to travel with Flor. Front seat, ipad, good views, no one to touch...and anytime we went downhill, she thought she was on a ride. Win/Win!

Gotta show what states we traveled to!

15 passenger van for the win! With the back seat open for our snacks and luggage!

Right from our airbnb patio. Craziness.

Lizzie's photography, gloved finger included

That night, we drove into Nebraska...boy, what a state!