Hubby has been on call with his present job for the better part of a year, not knowing when he will be needed on the work site. He heard that he wasn't going to be needed for a large stretch and we had been itching to take a family vacation so we jumped at the chance! It ended up that it was the week after Labor Day weekend, which I guess is one of the slowest tourist weeks of the year - woohoo! One of the perks of homeschooling! :) We had several directions that were on our wish list of places to go, but one that kept cropping up was Mount Rushmore. The kids had picked out National Treasure 2 (one of our family favorites) one night, and the next was a documentary on Rushmore on PBS. Was it a sign? Well, it didn't dissuade us:)
When we left it was working on being another terribly hot day in NE Kansas. We had high hopes of reaching cooler weather when we got north. Our first overnight stop was to be Scottsbluff, Nebraska. We found some places to stop and stretch our legs, some of which Hubby and his buddies had already visited on field trips on their way to yearly conferences. The first cool place was Windlass Hill in Ash Hollow State park. We didn't get up on the hill (you needed a park pass), but we did explore the "soddy" down below. The actual hill was where they lowered wagons along the Oregon Trail down the steep hills with a windlass (you can still see the marks in the rock where they did it).
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| the sign on the fence says watch out for rattlesnakes! |
Almost to our destination that first night was Chimney Rock, a famous landmark along the trails. The kids were super thrilled to get up close to it! And it was cool out by the time we got there - ahhhhh! It felt so good! They even have a little cemetery right next to it - beautiful!
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| can you tell the kids were cold? :) |
We pulled into Scottsbluff for the night, and took in some local fare - an excellent ice cream/dairy called the Platte Valley Creamery. Goodness gracious, it was yummy! It was started in the 1930s and still had the original building and it looked as if not much had changed since the 50s, but that was ok! Our lodging turned out to be horrible and we had to switch hotels, which turned out to be a blessing. There were only rooms left just down the street at the
Circle S Lodge, a small mom & pop hotel. I definitely wanted to give them a shout out because not only did they check us in at a late hour, help ease our minds, but the night manager also said that she'd be praying we had a good night's sleep :) We definitely ended up where we were supposed to!
The next day we made our way to Scottsbluff National Monument. It was a destination on the Oregon, and Mormon, and California trails. It had been 20 years since I'd been last. The kids were anxious to participate in the National Parks' Junior Ranger program. If you're going to a National Park and have young kids it's definitely something to try (kiddos aged about 5-12). The kids have booklets to fill out. They contain various challenges for their age ranges and it differs from park to park on the amount and difficulty. I really liked Scottsbluff's because it was very hands on and not just read the booklet to find the answers.
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| The bluff in the background |
You can drive up to the top and see the spectacular views! There were several trails to walk, the largest of which was the Saddleback trail which had a tunnel through the bluff. Hubby took the two older kiddos down from the top of the bluff while Shorty and I took a ride in the car so he could take a nap.
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| Saddleback trail tunnel | |
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After all their hard work, the kids had a swearing in ceremony before they received their badge.
We also went to
Agate Fossil Beds National Park that same day and fit in another Junior Ranger badge. More on that later. I would have loved to journal these along the way, but had forgotten my cord to download my pictures!
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