Amazing Animals- by Maddy

New Orleans Swamp Tour

Today I am writing about the wildlife!!!  

So, in Kentucky, we went to Mammoth Cave where we saw two bats, cave crickets, and a cave salamander. Also, at the campsite there, the office staff had a cat that Zach and I named Patch even though that wasn’t its name. We never learned what its real name was. 

In Tennessee, at the campsite, there was a speckled gray cat who kept coming to our site, looking for food. I earned its trust and it kept coming to me so I got to pet it. I named it Graystripe (from the book series Warriors, if any of you have heard of that. ) 

At the campsite in Mississippi, there were woods, a lake, and a playground around the corner. At the playground, I found a slug. Some of the people reading this might not like slimy slugs and whatnot. In the woods was even better!! I saw birds, bugs, and more! There was a creek running into the lake. I took an underwater video with my camera. It wasn’t that exciting. :( There were some water skiers zooming around in the deep part of the creek. And also, guess what!? We (Elliot and I) found a snake!! It was most likely a black rat snake. 

See the friend on Maddy's hat?

Next we traveled down to Louisiana and visited the Insectarium where we saw active butterflies, leaf cutter ants, leaf bugs, katydids, a variety of beetles, termites, millipedes, spiders, water bugs, cockroaches, and much more! They also had other wildlife such as frogs, and coy (the fish). If there were any others, I don’t remember them. 

I already wrote a post on the Louisiana swamp tour, but for the people who didn’t read that, I’ll give you the memo. I got to see wild alligators get fed marshmallows, hold a young one, and feel their scales.

At the campsite there was a playground near the bathhouse and relatively close to us. There were lizards on the bathhouse and butterflies on the trees. There was a frog hopping on the trash can there. There were some woods behind the park with a gap in it so you could see a small part of it. I saw a wild cat in that gap just sitting there! Mom said it probably wasn’t wild but I thought it definitely was! On the last night here, we were all going to take showers and an armadillo walked across the road!

On our last night at Louisiana, while walking away from the ferry, I saw a pure white moth.

Pondering at Padre Island

At Padre Island National Seashore, off the coast of Texas, we visited the Visitor Center and saw their pet pufferfish, hermit crab and other pet fish. I also got a book about snakes there. Okay! Out on the beach! We had gray pelicans fly over us a few times. I saw many birds including seagulls, sand pipers, and a great blue heron which I got to get close up to. While walking on the shore I came upon a dead crab and catfish. Two footprints were seen belonging to a dog and the great blue heron I had seen. 

Colin on Dunkel

Buckaroo

Big Bird the Rhea Bird

We drove down to the middle of the state to visit our Uncle John and Aunt Jane. They have about twenty-eight antelope, a bird that’s like a smaller version of an ostrich, four cats, a dog, and an Axis deer. The bird’s name is Fred, or Big Bird, the dog’s name is Sarah, the cats names are Cotton, Tinkerbell, Trekkie, and I don’t remember the other one, and the Axis deer’s name is Buckaroo. I got to feed and pet Buckaroo, feed Big Bird, pet and sit with Sarah in the house, and pet Trekkie. I also got to help fill the bird and hummingbird feeders.

        Aunt Jane's friend Mrs Bonnie, invited us over to ride horses, Blaze and Dunkel. She also had a speckled black and orange cat. I found a brown lizard there. It was really fun! She also had an RV and an ATV. Dad rode out on the ATV and gave us rides.

Then we went to the Alamo National Battlefield and I saw horses pulling transportation wagons.

In New Mexico we headed to White Sands National Monument where we saw a darkling beetle perform its defensive pose. 

In Arizona we went and camped at the Grand Canyon and Elk greeted us on our campsite! After that they just hung around in the shade. I got a wildlife book of the grand canyon that helped me identify some birds on the trail we did! We walked a trail called the Bright Angel Trailhead. A cute little rock squirrel came right up to us (Elliot and I)! We were able to get some really great pictures. 

        At the campsite in Arizona there was a park, a pool, and a small trail. Elliot, Zachary, and I went on the trail and saw lizards and ants with their larvae. At the park, I saw two little caterpillars. At the pool I saw a Flameskimmer Dragonfly. 

In Utah we traveled to Zion National Park we took a hike and I saw a beetle, Mule deer and a squirrel. 

In Arches National Park, I saw a some lizards, and chipmunks. While we were coming down a wild gopher snake slithered by our path! 

We camped at Coral Pink Sand Dunes I saw red beetles and there was a pet gopher snake in the Visitor Center.

There was a place near our campsite that we didn’t know about until Mom checked the newspaper. Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. It’s where the workers take in hurt and abandoned animals and take care of them. The domestic animals get adopted. They have events such as strut your mutt to raise money for the Sanctuary. They take in wild animals, rabbits, parrots, cats, dogs, horses, goats, and sheep. Our family got a free tour and got to visit all the places in the Sanctuary, including visiting the cat and dog houses! And guess what?!?! Dad treated for the first year and I became a member!!! :) Now I am going to donate $25 each year. I will get a magazine every two months to keep track of what’s going on. I got a gift bag for becoming a member with two magazines, a calendar, post-it notes, memo papers, and more in it! It was awesome!! :) 

Then last, but not least, is the South Dakota campsite, where bison roam around! We drove around a wildlife loop and saw many wildlife including pronghorns, prairie dogs, burros,  bison, and a gopher. 

Burros are grazing animals related to donkeys. A nice lady at the Visitor Center for the park said that if you open your window or door while near them, they would come right up to you! And that’s what they did! Boy, we were surrounded! But two of them were cute babies! 

Arizona Awesomeness– by Colin

Our Jeep

Recently we went on a Red-Rock Jeep tour, and it was awesome! I was sitting in the middle of the jeep part of the time, and in the back part of the time, and the back was much bumpier. Our guide was named Rocky, and was great at being a guide, as well as driving the jeep, and being humorous all the way through. We drove up the mountain parallel with an old wagon trail with Rocky telling us all about the history and geology of the area. One amazing thing about the rock was that from a distance a certain line of rock that went through all the rock formations parallel to it looked maybe three feet high, and turned out to be THIRTY feet tall. No matter how I looked at it, it still looked three feet tall.  

Sedona, AZ

Also in Arizona, we went to Petrified Forest National Park. It is not actually a forest anymore, because after millions of years under silt and water, certain chemical reactions were performed and, grain by grain, the wood changed into rocks. It was a thriving forest when dinosaurs walked the earth, scientists have figured out.  Once a tree fell into the river, however, it flowed downstream and was covered by silt. After millions of years, the tree would have been turned to stone, and in this park, there were many petrified trees that were composed of multiple colors and precious rocks. Many were so intact that you could still count the rings in them!

Painted Desert/Petrified Forest

Old Dogs, New Tricks Part 2

Zion National Park

“When the virus of restlessness begins to take possession of a wayward {wo}man, and the road away from Here seems broad and straight and sweet, the victim must first find in {her}self a good and sufficient reason for going…Next {s}he must must plan {her} trip in time and space, choose a direction and a destination…Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process; a new factor enters and takes over.  A trip, safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys.  It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness.  A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike.  And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless.  We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.”

~John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley

Nearly everywhere we go, someone asks if we’re on vacation.  I always answer no.  For in a very real way, what we are doing is not a vacation.  It’s a journey.  The work level is high, especially for Jason and me, and one of the expectations that I had to let go of very early on was one of free time.  There really is not much of that at all, as evidenced by our sparse blog posts and my empty art journal.  

So vacation, this is not.  It is so much more, and carries much more meaning than just a leisurely jaunt to a relaxing place.  After the first two weeks we began feeling comfortable on the road, comfortable as a camping family, and comfortable with our vehicle {“Napoleon”}.  Time has started to compress, speeding by regardless of how well we are giving each present moment our focused attention.  We chat more easily with the other campers when we see them, and laugh more together as a family.  We have routines and private jokes, shared memories and visions of beauty that will forever join us.  

San Francisco de Asis Mission Church, Taos, NM {oft-painted by Georgia O'Keeffe}

So on this non-vacation, we have had way too many “favorite” moments for me to possibly list them all, but here are some highlights, and things I have learned along the way.

• State parks are amazing places to stay, each with a personality and unique gifts to offer.  I have enjoyed the towering “cedars” in Tennessee at Cedars of Lebanon State Park; the wooded slope down to the lake in Natchez State Park in Mississippi; Padre Island National Seashore on the gulf in Texas {not a state park, but so unassuming and unpopulated it felt like it}; Davis Mountains State Park with its beautiful mountain landscape and dark, open night skies; the desert wind and wildlife of Oliver Lee Memorial State Park in New Mexico; the history and ruins of Homolovi State Park in Arizona; and the bizarre and beautiful colors of Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park in Utah.
• I need to be intentional about getting myself in pictures.  I'm always the one who is taking them.
• I love to drive long distances when there is space in front of me.  I’ve never minded driving, but when there are hundreds of miles of Texas plains, or Utah plateaus and mountains, on all sides of me, driving is almost a spiritual experience.  My mind opens up and my anxieties fade away, especially if I’m listening to my traveling music {which usually consists of a Jim Croce Pandora station.}

• Speaking of music, I have found a deeper connection both to songs that include names of places, and to the places themselves.  There’s something awesome about listening to “Black Water” by the Doobie Brothers while you’re actually crossing the river in Mississippi, or passing by the famous “corner in Winslow, Arizona" made famous by the Eagles in their song, “Take it Easy”.  “Dust in the Wind” takes on new meaning when you’re in West Texas, and “City of New Orleans” is just better once you’ve been there.  I could name a half dozen other songs that have become new favorites, but you get the idea.
• I will never again take easy access to internet for granted.
• The unexpected moments have been some of the best.  Finding a remote restaurant in Arizona on a small airport runway, and being invited to climb aboard a Blackhawk helicopter by the Army guys who had just finished lunch there, for example.
• I was thoroughly inspired by the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, NM.  It was definitely a favorite place for me.  And they gave the kiddos sketchbooks to work in too.

• I will forever feel cramped in the east.  I have learned even more deeply that I need to feel small in a vast expanse of space, that my relationship with our Creator God thrives on it.  Whether it’s the ocean, the desert, a mountain at night under stars I never see because of too much city light, or overlooking a place like the Grand Canyon, my heart and soul must have a steady diet of Big so that I can put things in perspective.  

Petrified Forest National Park, AZ

• Zion National Park was perhaps my best surprise so far.  I didn’t know what to expect, but even the simple act of driving the 13 miles in to the Visitor’s Center, winding through cliffs, rock layers, and colors, left me completely awed.  And feeling small?  Yup.  Nowhere else, even the Grand Canyon, gave me such a dose of blessed insignificance.

Seeking Adventure– by Zach

Hello everyone!  I have been having a great time on my trip.  The states that I have been to right  now are: Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, New Mexico, and now, we are in Arizona, the Grand Canyon state!!!

White Sands National Monument is my favorite place so far!  You can go sledding, which i did; you can run up the mountains of sand and it feels nice. It’s much softer than the regular sand at any beach, and I like it that way. We also did a Junior Ranger booklet!  The weird thing about White Sands is that it’s not near an ocean.  It was made by gypsum from the mountains. The dunes are moving constantly, caused by the wind.  We also did a really tiring hike.

Also while we were in New Mexico, Dad, Elliot, and I did a HUGE hike and we didn’t even do the whole thing but we did close.  It was three miles there and three miles back. The whole hike would be five and a half miles there, and then back.  Three miles doesn’t seem very long, but it is when you’re talking about REALLY steep hills, almost always going up, and even the way back was tough because it was really steep down.  When Dad, Elliot, and I got home– RV home– all of us three were SOOOOO tired.

By the way, we are going to the Grand Canyon right now!!!  On a train!

High Time in Texas! – by Elliot

Hello everyone! I have had a great time on our trip! We went to Padre Island in TX; IT WAS AWESOME. We have a game that we would play on the shore where you would make a quick castle using, and on, the wet sand. Then you would build moats, holes, walls, bumps, and dams. And after a little while, you would build another castle, but a little bit closer to the water, and so on! You are trying not to let the water knock down the castle\castles. You cannot rebuild any of the castles. We played that game a lot. But when we got back to the RV there were at least 200 mosquitos! It took at least 2 hours swatting them! 

We also went to the McDonald Observatory in TX and we got to see satellites, a shooting star, and constellations like Orion, Cassiopeia, the star Sirius, and lots more! It was really really dark because there were no cities, or lights for miles and miles!

Awesome Times- by Maddy

        We’ve had a really great two weeks so far! We went to Tennessee and saw Stones River National Battlefield where we got Junior Ranger booklets, which were activity books for the Battlefield. There were a certain number of activities that you had to do in order to be sworn in as a junior ranger and get badges. There was some good stuff in the Visitor Center too! We saw a small movie and did some of the activities in the booklet that were meant for the Center. There were also plaques all around the park outside and we walked to every one, which was all together about three miles long! We also went to a cemetery and saw the gravestones of all the fighters. After we were done with that, we finished it off by becoming junior rangers and getting badges and pins! There was a nice old guy, Mr. Bob Turpin, who swore us in as rangers and also told us a lot about the battle. After the ranger things were done, Mom told Mr. Bob about our trip and he said to bring brownies the next time we came. :) 

Mr. Bob Turpin telling us about the battle

Next we came to Mississippi and did the Vicksburg National Battlefield where we drove around in our mini van and saw all the monuments of the states of the soldiers that gave there lives for this battle. The battle lasted 47 days and the Illinois monument was a dome that had 47 steps!

The Illinois Memorial at Vicksburg Military Park

The RV park we went to next was in Natchez and it had a pretty lake next to it, woods, and a small park! Elliot and I explored a lot, taking pictures of vegetation, wildlife, nature scenes, and more. There was a small creek running into the river and on the end of it where there wasn’t much water there was a vine that we all swung across and it was really fun!

Enjoying dinner over the fire at Natchez St. Park

While we where in Natchez, we went to the Pig Out BBQ Inn where I tried BBQ sauce and I loved it! There was a picture of a pig with a huge, and I mean huge, smily grin on its face. :)  We also went to a Plantation house, the Rosalie House. 

Real southern BBQ

Next, we drove all the way down to New Orleans in Louisiana and met my Grandparents on my Mom’s side of the family. We went to a certain restaurant and ice cream place 2 times! 

We visited an insectarium where we saw many different kinds of insects from butterflies to cockroaches! We got souvenirs and the boys ate bugs like crickets and wax worms, but not me! Yuck! 

Maddy with a friend on her head

On one of the beautiful nights in New Orleans we went on a Dinner Jazz Cruise on a really big boat with a buffet and lots of yummy stuff like macaroni and cheese, catfish, and pork. Yum! 

For transportation we had to ride a ferry across the Mississippi River for 2$ a person.

The last awesome thing we did was a Louisiana swamp tour where we got to see real wild alligators, quite a few actually, and the tour guide (his name was Reggie) fed the alligators marshmallows and put one on one of the alligator’s heads! It was pretty fun and also really cool. We got to feel alligator scales and hold a real young alligator! It was AWESOME!! :) :)

Louisiana swamp friend

Personal Goals – by Colin

Hello everyone!

This is Colin, and I apologize for not writing a post yet, as free time and wifi have not come on even terms with each other. So as a basic overview of what has happened so far on our trip: Mammoth cave was long, dark and very cool. History is one of my favorite subjects, so the Civil War re-creations and memorials were very interesting. However, the two most important things that I will speak of are my two personal goals: to try various weird foods, and to find the most amusing city names. Generally, for all who do not know me very well, I am very picky with food. I have tried, however, in these two weeks of being on a trip: squid, catfish, a bug, fried pickles, fried oysters, and Kentucky Hotbrown. It's pretty impressive, isn't it? As for amusing city names, I have found two: Murfreesboro, and Chunky. Murfreesboro is funny because I simply cannot say it with a straight face! It sounds like someone tried to rewrite the name Murphy, and failed miserably. I don't even have to say anything about Chunky, as the funny parts should be obvious. However, I will say that the best part about Chunky is that we went on a bridge over CHUNKY RIVER! Ewwww. Why is the river chunky, and with what? 

Eating a bug at the Audubon Insectarium

Old Dogs, New Tricks {Part 1}

Enjoying a KY meal at the historic Old Talbott Tavern

I could fill the Grand Canyon with the amount of things we've learned on this trip in the last week and a half.  Has it really only been a week and a half??

We've learned things the easy way.  {youtube}

And we've learned things the hard way.  {don't ask}

We found it amusing when people would ask us how much we've RV'ed before this trip.  We knew taking our very first RV trip for 2 months instead of just a weekend was risky.  We knew it the way a young pregnant woman knows that having her first child will be hard.  We knew it because people told us, but since we hadn't experienced it yet, we couldn't know exactly what we were getting into.

In a nutshell:

It was AWESOME to take on this adventure.  And we were also completely ignorant of all that it would entail.  But now we're relatively settled {though every time I have thought that thus far we've had some kind of minor catastrophe...} and having a grand ol' time in New Orleans.  I actually am happy we didn't have any trial runs first.  It would have totally changed the experience and taken away some of the great and stressful memories we have had so far.

Working on their Junior Ranger booklets

So let me fill you in on the past 10 days.

We left in a flurry of excitement on Monday March 9th bound for Kentucky.  In the course of that next day or two I realized I had forgotten only half a dozen little things, none of which were all that important or unable to be purchased at a Walmart.  Our very first learning experience was finding out that the RV with a tow behind it was very difficult to drive for someone {Jason} who had never driven something that large before.  He white-knuckled it to the local Kroger for gas.

Learning experience #2: when we realized we couldn't get out of said Kroger gas station we had to unhook the tow vehicle, drive it separately from the RV and re-hook it up once we were clear of gas pumps and other cars.

We made it about 60 miles or so when Jason cried uncle and we pulled off to unhook the minivan for me to drive tandem.  This changed things a lot.  And we weren't even in Cincinnati yet.  Even now we have yet to hook the tow up again, though we plan on trying again at some point, and so this means double the mileage and significantly more in gas money.  Thankfully, I really enjoy driving, so I don't mind taking the wheel of the van.  And I've even now clocked nearly as many miles driving the RV as Jason.  More on that later.

Our trip to Kentucky was a mixed bag.  We had yet to de-winterize the RV, so we had no water.  It wasn't much of a problem as we had gallon jugs to use at the campsite and a decent bathhouse at the campground.  We had driven 6 hours that first day, including stops, and Jason was totally beat from the mental energy it took to drive the RV for the first time.

Learning experience #3: you can't make as many miles traveling comfortably in an RV as you can in a car.  It's just too tiring to drive.

Our muddy mess of a campground in KY

So once we were at the campground, it was late- probably near ten pm- and we had never hooked up before.  And it was raining.  A steady rain that was to last the entire week.  The campground was a muddy mess and we were able to move our reserved site to one that was on higher ground so the pond/creek wouldn't flood.

It was an interesting night.

So we got our stressed and tired selves bunked in for the night.  It was cold and rainy, and the RV gets humid.  so learning experience #4 was that we need ways to release the humidity, or absorb it.  We had read about this of course, but reading is different than experiencing it firsthand.  Within the next couple of days we purchased some Damp-Rid containers and the weather also eventually dried up.

Ain't we cute?

The kids have written about the Mammoth Cave and Lincoln Museum/Birthplace adventures, both of which were awesome, so I'll leave those trips to them.  Once we left Kentucky, we headed to Tennessee to see the Stones River National Battlefield.  It was a wonderful self-guided tour, with Junior Ranger booklets for the kids to fill out.  We have been so impressed by the rangers, volunteers, and tour guides at these historic sites!  They are so knowledgable and passionate about their parks and we feel so blessed to see things through their eyes!

Getting "sworn in" as Junior Rangers by Bob at Stones River National Battlefield.
He made them promise to bring him brownies should we ever pass through again.

Life in the RV has been an adjustment, but not as bad as I expected.  I didn't start sleeping well till we were in Mississippi, just due to the newness of it all and my constant late night worry that the kids weren't sleeping, or were hot/cold, but once I was well-rested I really felt I was "home."  The kids have had no problems at all, and we tear down and put back up the couch and dinette every day with their help.

Even though we've had crazy things happen, and the unexpected level of work to maintain this traveling life has taken us by surprise, I truly would not have changed a thing thus far.

{Our internet connection has been spotty, so we haven't been posting as often as we'd like.  Hopefully Colin will have a post up this week!}

NATIONAL PARKS- by Zach

I've been having a great time on my trip! The National Parks that I have gone to so far are Mammoth Cave, Abraham Lincoln's Birthplace, and Stones River National Battlefield. Stones River National Battlefield is interesting because almost 24,000 people died or were wounded in that battle.  We visited a cemetery and saw all the Union Soldiers's graves.  And in every National Park there is a Junior Ranger booklet with fun activities that you can do about the National Park you are in. also if you do enough of them, then you get a souvenir that you can keep for free.

Mammoth Cave was awesome! I saw two bats. One was sleeping and the other was flying. We got to go to two parts of Mammoth Cave, and one of the parts you had to go down 300 steps! and the other part of Mammoth Cave was cool and you had to twist and turn and do all that kind of stuff. Also Mammoth Cave is the longest cave in the whole world! There is lots of mammals in Mammoth Cave.    There is bats, beetles, eyeless shrimp, eyeless fish, salamanders, and lots more.

Abraham Lincoln Birthplace was cool.  His house was very small, but he liked his house.  It did not have a door. It only had one room.  One of his chores was chopping wood.  His one roomed house only had one window also. When he grew up he had four kids, and two of them were Willie and Tad.  Both of these sons got terrible fevers.  One of the kids's fever got better. and the other, Willie's fever got worse and he died.  When Abraham grew a little bit more, he became a President, but this was after failing a lot.  He got assassinated, but the man that assassinated Abraham broke his leg as he escaped.

Mammoth Cave Coolness

A little bat we saw hanging from the ceiling.

Today we went to Mammoth Cave National Park which is the  longest cave in the whole world! We saw a cave salamander, two bats, and a lot of cave crickets. They turned off the lights halfway down into the cave!  You couldn't even see your hands. It was creepy. 

Our first adventure of our road trip (Tuesday) started out visiting the Lincoln Museum and the Lincoln Memorial, Lincoln's birthplace. The Lincoln Museum had dioramas going through his life and what happened. I liked that best. We got to see the log cabin Lincoln would have lived in which isn't to big, 15 feet long and 12 feet wide. That was really cool.

The next day we traveled into the longest cave system in the world (Mammoth Cave)! We had two tours. One was a historical tour, and the other was a one about formations. One cool and amazing fact we learned at the historical tour was that a African American slave (Steven Bishop) was the first one to really explore the caves and caverns alone and made many daring decisions. He also made the cave tours a lot better because he learned a lot about caves and then shared the facts to the visitors.

Some of the wildlife we observed in the cave were an adorable little cave salamander, tons of cave crickets, and and two cute tiny bats! It was a very successful first time!