Homeward Bound

This will probably be the last posting on this travel blog. After leaving Wisconsin, we spent a couple of days in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and are now now heading straight home ( via I80 through Ohio, Pennsylvania and NJ, right to the GW bridge and home

Places We Liked Best On Our Trip:

Grace: Everything, but maybe California the best

Lucy: Little Town On The Prairie, KOAs in Petaluma, CA & Hayward, WI, and Disneyland

Mike: Yellowstone/Grand Teton, Black Hills, SD & all of Calfornia Coast (esp Redwoods)

Irene: Same as Mike, but would narrow California down to Southern California coast

Places We're Glad We Saw, But Probably Wouldn't Visit Again:

Grand Canyon: Everyone absolutely must see it once, it is as beautiful as it's reputation. But now having seen it, we felt, personally, that once was enough for us.

Glacier National Park: same as above

Mount Rushmore: A little anti-climactic

The entire Southwest section of the US. (Way, way too hot)

Places We're Sorry We Missed And Hope To Catch On A Future Trip:

Rocky Mountain National Park

Crater Lake NP

Yosemite

All of the Pacific Northhest

Northern Minnsota & Wisconsin

Next year, we hope to do a more abbreviated road trip where we will revisit and spend more time in Yellowstone/Grand Teton and try to vist a few of the other places above which we weren't able to see this time. (As well as catch a few old favorites along the route).

Hayward, Wisconsin

We just spent two days in Wisconsin's North Woods. The topography's a little different for a New Yorker. We associate forests with mountains; here its forests & lakes and pretty flat land (at least where we are). Where we've been staying, Hayward, is a big vacation area (maybe year round). We're on the Namekagon River, which is part of the St Croix National Scenic Riverway, a big canoe area and even bigger fishing venue. In the Winter they hold what looks to be a major nordic ski marathon.

One thing that struck us about the Midwest, is how friendly and happy folks seemed at just about everywhere we stayed. (This might just be a lame tourist observation, but we wouldn't say the same thing about the West, for example, or for the part of the world we come from).

So we think there must be some good things going on in the Midwest, since people seem so agreeable even in places where the climate is just awful. Another tourist factoid: the Minneapolis area has extremely aggressive drivers, almost as bad as NYC. A little odd, since it's hard to figure where they're all rushing to.

A Little Bit About Road Trips With Children

Before we started this summer-long car trip, we loosely envisioned staying about five days a week in public campgrounds with the other days in budget hotels (to do laundry, etc). We realized pretty quickly, however, in some states (California comes to mind), it is hard to get a campsite in state and federal parks without reserving sometimes months in advance (not feasible on this type of trip). We also realized that, on some more off-the-beaten-path routes, campgrounds can sometimes be scarce.

Most importantly, though, our children, especially, our younger one, Lucy, (aged 5) are bored in campgrounds. Lucy is not yet a big fan of camping generally.

So, our travel planning has evolved on this trip. Camping will work in public campgrounds with a lot of activities/ amenities. (The national parks are good for this if you can get a site: there are usually ranger programs and often concessions where you can rent boats, etc).

We also learned that tent camping is tricky in some places: on the prairie, constant winds makes things a little bit of a hassle and the Southwest was too hot for us to camp.

Finally, there is a little bit of legwork in setting up camp, this is sometimes too much trouble if you're only there for one night.

So, what we learned: a good KOA can often be the best choice for our kids (emphasis on good,

they vary widely in quality). A tentsite runs about $25 to $30 for a night, camping cabins about $60 to $70. The camping cabins don't have bathrooms, you still use the shared toilets and showers, but they do give you some privacy (usually a problem at KOAs) and are easy if you don't feel like throwing up a tent. And, the big plus side of KOAs are the activities: pools, hayrides, gameroom (tv room), movies, structured activities, petting zoo, jumping pillow, mini golf, internet; the list goes on and on. They are our girls' favorite places to stay. Again, it's important to stay at a good one; you can check out amenities at the KOA website.

Towards the end of our trip, when we were just staying one night at a place, we would stay in a budget chain motel (with pool, tv and internet) or a KOA camping cabin if there was one around. At "destination" sites: Yellowstone, Redwoods, we would tent camp, though, here too it was often a KOA. We signed up for loyalty cards at all of the chains as well as with the KOA; this will give us a couple of free nights down the road.

If we do this trip again, we probably would try to plot out the itinerary a little more in advance and then try to reserve more campsites in more National Park and State Park campgrounds, because it is really nice to be right inside the parks. Many of them, in addition to providing campsites also have cabins and sometimes lodges, all pretty affordable; we would like to hook into those a little better next time around.

But it's been a nice learning experience this trip: trying to figure out an extended vacation that works for all four of us. We've definitely gotten much better at it along the way.

Above is picture of the inside and outside of a camping cabin in the KOA in Hayward, WI, as well as a photo of the girls on the jumping pillow.

New Ulm, Minnesota

New Ulm is very proud of its German-American heritage, and the town has a lot of attractions celebrating this. We stayed at a German-themed Holiday Inn (which is much better than it sounds; it was actually a great hotel). The town has various German festivals (Oktoberfest, Bockfest, etc) and next month is planning a huge celebration to commemorate the 2000th anniversary of Hermann's defeat of the Roman legions. For those who, like ourselves, never heard of Hermann, he is a teutonic Braveheart who united the clans to defeat the Romans, paving the way for an independent Germany. In addition to a huge party next month, they are issuing a commemorative coin and a special label beer from the town brewery.

One of the things most enjoyable about this trip is seeing how Americans all around the country celebrate their heritage, whether its honoring heroes from the old country, building a monument to Crazy Horse (or to Hermann the German), holding priairie days and pioneer days or building little Denmarks (or Norways, Swedens, Bavarias, etc). And let's not forget the county and state fairs where we celebrate who and where we are today.

Here's a picture of a monument to Hermann which is on top of a hill overlooking the City of New Ulm.

More Life On The Prairie

The Laura Ingalls Wilder tour was such a hit yesterday, we spent the morning at a living history attraction on the site of the Ingall's homestead. It sounds hokey, but the girls just loved it... wagon and pony rides, lots of animals and old equipment and prairie buildings. Grace was mortified she had to wear a prairie dress at the school session; Lucy just wanted to spend the day washing towels on a scrub board. Here's some photos of the girls, inlcuding one where they are driving the covered wagon.

Badlands & Little Town On the Prairie

After leaving Hot Springs, we did a quick (too quick) visit to Badlands National Park. We spent the night at Oacoma,SD, on the Missouri River then headed on to the small town of De Smet, South Dakota, childhood home of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little house On The Prairie series. Irene is a big fan of the books and insisted on taking the guided tour of points of interest related to the series. (It was actually quite a nice tour).

Here are a few photos of Badlands as well as a photo of the one of the Ingalls' homes.

Douglas, Wyoming

We spent the night in Douglas, Wyoming on the way to South Dakota. Douglas is the home of the world's largest jackalope and here is the picture to prove it.