Day 38

I got up before the sun this morning to keep editing pictures. With Dave back to work I'm the driver so my writing and editing is done super late or super early. We got out of the campground pretty early as we had a long drive with a couple stops that would pretty much take us all day. Before we got out of the park we were stopped by a herd of bison walking in the road. They weren't worried about us at all.

The kids are getting pretty good at helping with the windshields each time we get gas. I remember enjoying this when I was younger for some reason as well. Helping on the RV is a whole other challenge!





Our first fun stop today was suggested by the museum guy back in Sundance, WY. Once the kids heard the words archaeology dig and mammoths there was no way we couldn't stop. Unfortunately Dave was working so he didn't get to enjoy it, but we made sure to tell him all about it once we got back.

In the movie we learned about 30 years ago a developer bought the land to make a new subdivision and as the bulldozer was clearing a hill on the land he discovered some bones. They stopped development, he sold the land to the newly-created Mammoth Site organization at cost and they began uncovering the mystery of the site.

We were taken to the dig area after the movie to view the progress of the last 30 years. After core samples were completed down, they determined there were bones and tusks at least 45 feet down. So far they have pulled out skeletons from wooly mammoths, Columbia mammoths, small-faced bear, and a few other animals only 22 feet down. They have many many more years left to go!

Once we went down we discovered there wasn't anyone working in the lab in the basement, but they had a great display set up of bones of all kinds of animals as well as the smallest of snail and reptile shells that had been found as well. This was the femur bone of a Columbian Mammoth!

We'd never heard of the now extinct small-faced bear before and we were all amazed by his statistics. He was almost 6 feet tall at the shoulders so he could look an average sized man in the face. Standing he was more than 15 feet tall so he would be able to peek into a second story window. And his claws, oh wow.

While we liked to see bears we were all thankful we'd never seen that one. We got back into the car and Dave was barely able to contain his excitement. After we passed into Nebraska we would be very close to his next stop!















We all were anticipating being able to see it from miles away with the flat landscape, but it was tucked away around a curve that we could only spot about a mile away. Dave had visited Stonehenge as a high school kid so he was more familiar with the set up of the stones, but we were all pretty impressed.

This summer had actually been the 30th anniversary of the structure. There had been other art sculptures added over the years, but other than replacing a few foreign cars with American made cars, Carhenge had basically remained just as we were seeing it today. The kids enjoyed spinning the tires and trying to open the doors. As we walked up the trail to other cars we saw a large buried car people could sign so I ran back to the car to grab a Sharpie. We hoped that if we ever stopped back by that we could find our notes one day.











The history and the idea behind the project was interesting too! We stopped into the gift shop and asked about the eclipse as Dave found out this was also a totality spot. She said there were 4,000 people there! I'm sure that was a very unique experience! We bought a few things with stickers and postcards and got back on the road to our next spot.

We found our next campground after driving over the dam next to it a few times. They were letting out water from the dam and the smell was overwhelming. I was really hoping it wouldn't be a part of our camping experience this night as I could barely hold in the snack I'd eaten a few hours ago. Luckily Brayden pointed out the smell in the campground was just campfires so I resumed breathing again.

Our little spot on the lake was calm and beautiful. After a quick dinner of pizza bagels, the kids and I played cowboys and indians until we could barely see them anymore. We've gotten into a routine of going to bed with the sun as our days are pretty full of long drives to get back home.

Day 34

I woke up this morning a little early and was surprised to find out the wifi could reach to our campsite! I wrote for a little while and started the long process of going through emails since we've been gone. I must check my email ten times a day when I'm at home, but on the road it just doesn't matter. Everyone who is important to me knows I'm not reachable so the rest just can wait!

We decided to make a quick breakfast of bagels and fruit and get on the road. We had a very long drive today with a grocery stop and a border crossing. Dave has become quite adept at packing up by now so I can just handle things as I have time in between wrangling kids and cooking breakfast. The kids definitely appreciate having the extra help instead of being the extra help!

We stopped for gas right around the corder as in these parts of Canada and Montana you might not see a town for 100 miles or more. The older Canadian versions of Jay & Silent Bob were standing outside smoking and noticed we are from Florida so they chatted with us for awhile about the hurricane. A guy on a motorcycle pulled up and starting chatting with us about where we'd been and where we're headed. It must be Dave because noone ever talks to me on the road. Or maybe they think I'm some crazy lady from Florida carting my three kids around the country!

Our next stop just down the road was none other than the World's Largest Teepee. I had a little help from Dave in planning this trip so this was one of his additions. We hadn't made it to many of his stops simply because our day was already long or they were just too weird. This stop was just down the road and I was pleasantly surprised by the sheer amount of information there was here!

Once we got on the road, Dave finally got a taste of my Montana and Oklahoma drives this leg of the trip with us not seeing any city for most of the three hours he drove. I don't think we saw more than 6 cars in the 2 hours to the border. He also did much better crossing the border back into the U.S. as our border guard was not having any funny business. I think Dave was a little concerned he was going to confiscate the beer he'd bought but the guard let us go on.  And we finally found a real welcome sign for Montana!!

After about another hour we found a Walmart for a stock up. It was the smallest Walmart I'd even been in and by the time we got to the check out lanes I was ready to be back in the woods. Perhaps I'm not quite ready to get back to civilization yet.

We pulled into our next stop - a real RV park - and after a little confusion were setting up as was our normal routine. Ryan and Brayden had watched The Lord of the Rings movie in the car so all the kids ducked into the tent to play the Lego version. After I threw a couple loads on laundry in the washing machines, we adults prepped dinner and snacked a little as we watched some football. Hooray for DirectTV in the RV!!

We had a delicious dinner of salad with grilled shrimp while we watched and looked for hurricane updates. We were becoming spoiled with wifi at the last two places! The building with laundry also had a few bathrooms - real home kind of bathrooms eek! - so I took a shower once all the laundry was finished and everyone was in bed. I took a little while to edit pictures but got to bed by 11 as Grammie and I had already decided to get out of town by 8 with another long drive ahead of us.