AmLo's Great American Vacation

Made It!

I do apologize for not updating this for over a month - work has been absolutely insane lately and I just didn't have time to wrap it up.
So we made it home after 3 months of travelling. Thanks to everybody for your help, and it was great to visit every single one of you.

Here comes the Math-

Miles on the ManVan: 10,600 (approx) - the trip odometer reset at 10k.

States Visited : 18

create your own personalized map of the USA

Miles in Air (per person) - 4780

Cumulative travel distance of 15,380 miles per person. This does not include land miles in Hawaii.

Total travel distance (sum of each person's distance): 61,520: that is 2.27 times around the earth at the equator.

Pulled over: 2 times. Once in Kansas on day 3 - no ticket. Once in Texas on day 88 - ticket.

We leave on Oct 24th for Amlos Vacation part 2 - we are heading East to Naples, Florida for a month. Check it out at Amlos part 2

Hey everyone...well we made it..;) what a trip!! it was great fun, but is always good to get home too! hehe As JaAmlo said above, we are going to Florida in a few days, more work than play though. Then we are staying put after that for awhile..;) Hope you all enjoyed this little travel diary...and thanks to everyone for making it such a wonderful experience for us!!!

3 days Straight

From South Dakota to Texas, there are no major highways running North to South. We took a pseudo farm road for 3 days. We drove thru some interesting areas, such as huge wind farms and delapidated farms. At one point we were excited to see other cars.
The panorama is where we pulled over for a diaper change of the wee one.

It was wonderful to pull into the Lo's house in Austin to reunite with them, right where the trip kicked off (even though we had just seen them at the funeral). We had so many stories to tell, we must have seemed like completely different people than when we left.

Rushmore and Crazy Horse

We left Grand Rapids early the next day and hit Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse. We were surprised at how small Rushmore is, and how HUGE Crazy horse is.

Then there was Crazy Horse.

On our way out of the Balck Hills, I noticed a house under construction. We turned around and drove up to the site to check it out. The reason we stopped, is because it was being buildt out of styrofoam block (one of my architectural interests). The workers were nice and showed me around and told me about what they were using. Pretty cool to finally see it in real life.

Grand Rapids, Deadwood, and the Cabin

We made it back to our friends' house in Grand Rapids after a full day. The LAmLo and her friend were stoked to be back together and played hard for oh, 3 days straight. They were all excited to get moving and to deadwood.

We made it to Deadwood, and discovered that there was a vintage car show on the main road. Twas pretty cool, and made the place feel "old". Our buddy grew up there, so we got the insider tour.

We then went to the cemetary, which was my favorite part of the town. It was so unnique, and had so much history. Wild Bill, Calamity Jane, Bullock at the top of the hill.... and many many more. Just walking thru the woods, we found unmarked graves... and SNOW.

We then headed up to a great cabin in the hills. There was plenty of snow up there and stuff to do. The downstairs area had a heated concrete floor with a great finish on it.

Venturing Back to Dakota

After the funeral we were very, very sick and stayed in the hotel for 36 hours or so recovering. Broken AC, 2 sick little ones, and us both running fevers. The drive was pretty nice actually. We went thru the Great Sand Dunes of Nebraska and then the Sioux Nation. There were very very few cars out there, and I actually used my first outhouse (sorry no pictures). The following is a video of the ManVan control center, as we blasted thru the nothingness of Eastern South Dakota.

Goodbye Grandpa Joe

We found out on the morning of September 12, 2006 that JAmLo’s dear Grandpa Joe passed away. These photos are from the beginning of our trip. We made Grandpa the first real stop and are so glad that we did. He smiled much of the time and truly enjoyed the girls and getting to know XAmLo. The night before we left, we went knew things had taken a turn as when we went to say goodnight, his nurse told us he’d been sick after dinner and so had gone to bed and was already asleep. JAmLo went in to tell him goodnight and we don’t even know if Grandpa woke up all the way to realize. It is with great sadness that I say goodbye to Grandpa. I didn’t know him for long, but he was always so kind to me and inclusive from the moment we first met when LAmLo was little. I truly appreciated his generosity and his love. I am proud to know that my girls share in his legacy and can only hope that I live as long and full of a life with the same amount of grace he exhibited. Thank you Grandpa Joe, for all your love, your kindness and your support. You will be missed…

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Going through the Roosevelt Arch at the North Entrance into Yellowstone National Park was very cool. It felt good to be able to put this park on our list of National Parks we’ve visited on this trip, as it was the very first National Park in the system..:) LAmLo and I immediately started looking for bears. That was our goal, to see some bears! Unfortunately for us however, the bears were being shy, so we had to settle for a wolf, some elk and several bison…oh and plenty of crows! No matter, it was still beautiful and we were having a grand time.

I was amazed to see the devastation that the 1988 forest fire caused there however. So much landspace just burned. The rangers had planted new trees, but they are still babies. This devastation didn’t affect me as much as the longing in Washington and Montana did. Those areas were just decimated and it broke my heart to see the bald mountain tops and to realize that 20 years ago those forests looked quite different. Now instead of healthy pines, there were tons of hardwoods taking up the space that the native pines would grow if they had a chance. Why do we believe this is considered sustainable logging practices? How can we allow this to continue? Very sad….

It was truly awe inspiring to see all the healthy rivers here in the northern U.S.. I am used to very different looking rivers, so I couldn’t get over how lush, clean and roaring these rivers are, even at this time of year. So beautiful. If the snow wasn’t such a huge issue, I’d definitely want to move to somewhere in the northern U.S…well, the snow and much of the politics. But that’s for a whole other blog…;)

The drive to Sheridan from Yellowstone was interesting, to say the least. According to the map, it wasn’t that far…however what we didn’t know what the road went over a major mountain range taking us up to close to 10,000 feet! It took us forever to get to our hotel. We were wishing we could have seen the sites during the day, but as it was night time, we only got to see the shine of the deers’ eyes as our headlights caught them. There were a lot of deer!! At one point it seemed that everywhere we turned our heads we could see one looking back at us or eating alongside the road. I was glad that Jason was driving, although I don’t know if he was too happy about it! We finally made it to the hotel and figured out our next step. We are headed to Rapid City, South Dakota and then on Thursday will hit the road for the long day to Sabetha and Grandpa Joe’s funeral. Then we will go back up to Rapid City on Sunday and resume our journey with our friends up there. The adventures never end for the AmLos!!

A loud Vent in Yellowstone

Old Faithful Geyser

We were stopped due to contruction on the East Exit for about an hour. If you see the van in the picture above, with the Plethora of Ribbons and Texas plates.... well that guy was behind us and decided to come tell us about Nam for 20 minutes or so. When I finally made it back into the ManVan, the guy in this video got out of the car with the most horrific atomic wedgie I've ever seen, and they way he was dancin.. I think he liked it. Enjoy - I know I did.

Museum of the Rockies - University of Montana, Bozeman

Dinosaurs!!! That’s right folks, we found a dinosaur museum and LAmLo couldn’t be happier! We got to Bozeman in great time and looked up by chance and there was a billboard for the museum at the university. So JAmLo got online and checked it out, then we headed straight to it. The first one we saw was “Big Mike” out front. There were tons of exhibits about the early geography of our planet, then the dinosaurs! We saw 3 complete T-rex skulls, a life size sculpture of a triceratops and tons of other rather large bones from various other dinosaurs. LAmLo had been wanting to see a dinosaur museum since being at my sis’s house and reading little H’s baby book on dinosaurs. ☺ It was wonderful to make one of her little dreams come true!

I have just one thing to say about the drivers in Bozeman though…”Take a driving lesson, or two!”

Glacier National Park, Montana

Wow! What an amazing place this National Park was. We got up super early in the morning and made the trek across the park as the sun was coming up. It was gorgeous! We saw a mama mountain goat with her baby following and LAmLo was excited about it! We looked for bears, but never saw any. The mountain range and peaks are awe inspiring in how dramatic and how old they are. Glacier National Park was designated as a Heritage site, making it one of the world’s treasures up there with the Taj Mahal and the Egyptian pyramids. I am so happy we were able to share this with the girls. I know XAmLo won’t remember, but hopefully LAmLo will. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves with this park. (We will add those asap)

After this, we headed across Montana to Bozeman. JAmLo was tired so went in the back to try and sleep. XAmLo fell asleep, so LAmLo and I had almost 3 hours of our own driving time. It was so much fun. The rolling hills in Montana are full of history. I kept imagining how it was hundreds of years ago before we came in and took it all from the Native Americans. A lot of spirit in those hills. LAmLo and I could feel it at every leg stretching stop we made. I feel very blessed that we have been able to make this trip and experience these things with my family. The only thing that could have made it more complete would be to have JoSpa with us. I miss him terribly and can’t wait to give my boy a big hug and spend some time with him. He is so busy right now with work and school…*sigh*

Anyway, here are some pics from this fabulous park.

We made it to Bozeman in good time and had more adventures there, much to LAmLo's glee!

Yakima, and the White Ridge gorge.

This is OUTDOOR! country. We finally get to see what people use all that Patagonia and REI gear for. Lots of Exterras and Wool beanies. The area is amazing though, at a random glance I saw a rock climber hanging on to a cliff over a hundred feet up. Many many kayakers and rafters... LAmLo enjoyed standing on the banks of the river saying hi and waving to them as they passed by.

Interesting country...JAmLo wasn't kidding when he said that this is every outdoor adventurers dream place. Lots of rock climbing and water to get your kicks at and in. The girls loved seeing the rafters. We ate at a really great Mexican place...can't remember the name though. Our final destination for this evening was Sandpoint, Idaho. Not a whole lot going on there. The hotel was so so...and the food was terrible. But it was a clean place to rest our heads before heading to Montana and Glacier National Park! Pictures will be forthcoming...