Lessons Learned

Thanks to everyone for reading, encouraging us on the road, and meeting up with us! We had an amazing trip with too much driving, not enough hiking, and just enough family time. We have jumped back into life at a breakneck pace and are enjoying our new little spot in the woods.

We learned a ton this year but this is about all we can remember!

Don't wait until July to camp in a tent in Louisiana.
In Texas they have gas station with shooting ranges.
Daddy Long Legs sleep in nests that at first glance look like a clump of hair.
A cow killer ant doesn't actually kill cows.
Texas dumpsters make you think twice about throwing things away.

New mom bats and pups eat 100% of their body weight every night and others eat 60%.
Bats can hear the footsteps of desert centipedes on the ground.
When mom bats give birth their offspring is 40% of their body weight.
Wolf and bat young are both called pups.
Each square foot of the Carlsbad Cavern cave contains 200 adult bats or 400 pups.
The Brazilian free-tailed bats that live in the Carlsbad Cavern have bodies no bigger than the size of two adult thumbs put together but their wing span is much bigger.
95% of the formations in Carlsbad Caverns are dry or inactive.
While most people are frightened of bats, only 6 people per year are actually bitten and that is because they are usually trying to help a sick bat.
Flies in southern California don't like the smell of Vicks vaporub.
I can always watch a sunrise.
Of the 42,000 Native Americans that served in Vietnam, 90% volunteered for the service.
Approximately 1 in 4 eligible Native Americans served in Vietnam compared to 1 in 12 of the general population.
Kangaroo rats have pouches but not for carrying babies. They are on the outside of their cheeks and are used for carrying seeds back to their burrows.
This is what the bark of a pine tree looks like that has been visited by the Acorn Woodpecker. He works hard hiding those acorns!










The Golden Gate Bridge opened for traffic on May 28, 1937 after more than 4 years of construction. Work on the bridge is never finished. To prevent corrosion steel has been painted continuously since opening day.
Owls sitting on a picnic table in the dark look like big cats.
Cougars were once found in all 48 contiguous states and now only in 14.
Cougars are obligate carnivores since they must eat meat to survive.
Because of their height Redwoods fog provides the moisture the top half of the tree needs.
Oregon cormorants use bird poop to keep their nests together.
Skunks only spray as a last resort because it takes a week to build back up.
Ryan's eyebrows still go up and down right before she wakes up.
California male sea lions can grow up to 850 pounds and 7 feet in length!
Mt Rainier has 25 glaciers!
The ways we tricked and swindled all kinds of Native American tribes of their land is embarrassing and sad.
The total men enrolled in the Civilian Conservation Corps were 3, 463,766.  40,000+ enrollees were taught to read.  125,000 miles of road was built by the CCC. That's one successful program!
We drove from tsunami evacuation zones to volcano evacuation zones.
Humans are the greatest threat to both bats and wolves due to habitat destruction and killing them because of human fear and misunderstanding.
Bats pollinate many types of foods including peaches, cashews, and avocados.
Bat guano is one of the world's best fertilizers.
In the days leading up to the Mt St Helens eruption in 1980 the interest rate was 20%!
The 2 month period leading up to the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens had 10,000 earthquakes.
Having a sick kid on the road is no fun for mom or kid!
I will never camp in or near a place with the word "Death" in it.
An overnight at a hotel can refuel our family like almost nothing else.
Walmart grocery bags in California are SUPER strong and thick, washable, and reusable up to 125 times. New Mexico only uses paper bags. Both charge 10 cents per bag.
Sequoia tree bark is up to 31 inches thick!
In the Grand Canyon when we were visiting the Phantom Ranch (campground inside the canyon) temperature of the sand 150 degrees! I guess I need to stop complaining!

12,367.7 miles, 51 days, and 1.2 million laughs later we arrived home. Thank you for coming along on our journey with us. I'm not sure what future summers hold for the Clarke family, but I will certainly post our next adventure here!  Keep exploring!

Lessons

So yeah, this year's lessons are a little late. We seriously hit the ground running when we got home and have barely stopped to breathe! I miss being on the road exploring all the little towns and big towns. I miss learning something each and every day, sometimes every few minutes! I miss connecting with my kids and laughing so hard with them that my belly hurt.

I don't miss fighting kids. I don't miss the long miles on the road. I don't miss packing up camp. I don't miss hours in laundromats.  And I definitely don't miss days on end with only part of our family together.  And now on to the lessons....

• A child listening to their new music smiles wide and sings loudly.
• Listening to a headphone-wearing child belt out wacky lyrics to songs is guaranteed to make me laugh.
• Seeing a sign for an area of town called "Butt's Corner" is guaranteed to make all of us laugh.
• New music can keep a child entertained for hours.
• River otters have coverings for their eyes, noses, and ears for swimming.
• River otters can hold their breath for 8 minutes.
• River otters are known to be lazy by targeting the slower fish, taking over beaver dens instead of building their own, and playing most of the day.
• River otters do not know how to swim when they are born.
• The only building that was locked on a mountain farm was the smokehouse, which contained a families most prized possessions and precious food.
• A 60 degree night is a welcome end to a 95 degree day!
• Sitting in the middle of a beautiful park with 50-ft trees, it's hard to believe this area was once clear cut for lumber with no habitats for native animals.
• The Oconoluftee River is exceptionally cold.
• The woosh of the river at night is a much better lullaby than the cicadas and frogs.
• The best gas prices I found were in Georgia - $1.74 - I almost filled up again just on principle!
• A mink can hold it's breath underwater for up to 16 minutes!
• Moths are relentless trying to dive bomb a tent when they see light inside.
• Crawfish aren't only in Louisiana!
• My kids are obsessed with camp ball.
• The wildflowers in West Virginia are just beautiful along the roadside.
• Sometimes the air of Pennsylvania country roads smells like there is a cow in my passenger seat.
• Don't let Brayden be in charge of cleaning up snacks on the ground of our campsite.
• When the kids can try anything on a pretzel, I will be surprised what the end up liking.
• In the 1830s, coffee pots did not have filters. Eggshells and codfish scales were used to settle the coffee grounds to the bottom of the pot.
• A porcupine has 30,000 quills.
• There are 28 hospitals in Boston.
• I was surprised several times by the amount of information my kids actually remembered from history stories we'd read together!
• Hollyhocks used to be planted to discreetly guide visitors to the outhouse.
• The mosquitoes in Rhode Island are as big as house flies!
• When you had a kid a camera for a few minutes, there's no telling what crazy pictures you'll find they've taken.
• Boston's subway system is so much easier to understand and find than New York's.
• There is an unreal number of Dunkin Donuts in Boston. Seriously, on a map you are never more than 2 blocks from one!
• We need to learn more about Teddy Roosevelt. Some of his quotes are so inspirational!
• The Liberty Bell weighs 2,080 pounds.
• The only person to sign both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution was Ben Franklin.
• I need to stop complaining about having to find $1 to go over the Pensacola Beach bridge as the Ben Franklin bridge into Pennsylvania costs $5!
• A ton of all kinds of math goes into animation.
• Amish children only go to school until 8th grade.
• Amish boys usually receive their own horse and buggy at 16 years old.
• A married Amish man starts growing a beard once he is married and does not trim or shave it.  He does not keep a mustache.
• You have to be born into the Amish culture. You cannot just choose to be Amish.
• The Washington Monument is 555 feet 5 inches tall.
• The Washington Monument sat unfinished for 20 years when the project ran out of money.
• The World War II Memorial has a few secret "Kilroy was here" cartoons on it.
• The Kennedys had another son that died when he was one.
• Abraham Lincoln is the only president to hold a patent.
• There are no direct living descendants of Abraham Lincoln.
• Robert Lincoln was eerily present at the assassinations of Presidents Garfield and McKinley.
• Americans throw away 300 million tons of plastic every year, much of it ending up in the oceans.
• An elephants height  at the shoulder is about twice the distance around its front footprint.
• We miss Michigan ice cream.
• There is quite possibly a Mattress Firm in every suburban city. And I thought there were a lot of Dollar Generals!
• While I miss communicating with my kids and listening to their audio books, there is something to be said for NPR undisturbed for hours.
• Every year as dusk comes and we see the first lightning bugs, we all point and run around like we've never seen them before. It's easy to forget about those little guys when we only see them a little each year.
• This year for some reason I was terrified of losing my keys so I used a lanyard. Best. Purchase. Ever. 
• Leaving the quiet woods for the city was startling each day.
• Rhode Island has the shortest stop lights on the planet.

While we learned SO much and enjoyed time in the cool museum buildings on our travels, I sincerely missed being in the woods this year. I think we only participated in a handful of programs and hikes which is usually the foundation of our trips.  

We will see you again here next year! Our plans are in the works....

Thanks and Lessons

So we've been home for almost a month.  It takes about that long for us to get through the laundry and stowing of camping gear, get back into a routine, and start missing the road again.  I was looking through some pictures from the trip yesterday and the beginning seems more like 6 months than 3. We might be changing up next year's summer trip plans.  Kinda spread out the fun a little bit.

My list of thanks is very similar to years past:

• Thank you first to Dave who works all the time to make these trips possible.  As grumpy as he gets while we are away I do believe he might be getting a tiny bit used to them.
• Thank you to Grammie for traveling along with us and making our adventures way better along the way.
• Thank you to the inventor of the stinky stick up.  I'm not sure it really made a big difference, but Dave did not complain when he got in the car the first time so possibly it did. 

• Thank you to all you readers checking in and keeping up to date on our adventures.  And thank you for all the comments, texts, and messages of advice, encouragement, and laughs.
• Thank you to all the children's authors out there as my kids devour books, especially on these trips!  This is a quick picture of some of what was read along the way not counting audio books and a few we donated to the libraries we visited!

I try to keep up with my lessons as I learn them along the way.  This can be difficult as I am (1) getting old and can't remember much so I have to write it down, (2) am driving on winding roads and cannot write, and (3) I ended up accidentally throwing away what I did write down.  Fortunately, I did remember some of the lessons and made sure to type them up as I wrote about our days.

• Fried food can cure a stomach that has been riding in the back of the car on winding back roads.
• Kentucky has some beautiful barns along the interstate.  So beautiful I bet there is a calendar.
• No on but me seemed to think it was strange that cows were galloping down the interstate in Alabama.
• The AT&T skyscraper in Nashville looks like Batman.
• Trader Joe's cookie butter is addictive.  Don't even try it.
• Illinois "county" roads should have a sign requiring 4 wheel drive.
• While gravel floors are terribly uncomfortable to sleep on, they drain rain exceptionally well!  Grass floors look so lush and inviting, but they are unforgiving when it comes to rain! 
• There are massive amounts of corn and soybeans grown in Illinois.
• Being on the border of time zone changes always seems to make me feel like I'm going to be an hour late somewhere.
• Putting in a cd of Brayden's music from last year's summer trip is guaranteed to get his head to pop out of a book and his hands clapping to the beat!
• Mastered the art of getting pants on in a wet shower and figured out the perfect angle to place flip flops outside the tent so I can step right in them when getting out.
• The military in the Keneewaw Peninsula could only grow potatoes in their garden.  Even our potato-loving Ryan said she would get tired of them after a week!
• The washboard in the 1850s was called the knuckle-buster.  
• Falling asleep next to the gentle waves of Lake Superior sounds very similar to those of the Gulf of Mexico.
• Copper miners only made about $1 a day for a 10 hour shift.  If their candle, which they had to buy themselves, went out they were to sit until another crew member or their supervisor came. If it was the supervisor, they would be docked their day of pay and still be expected to work the rest of their shift.  Ouch!
• It's so nice to be able to have conversations with another adult after being solely with your kids for almost 3 weeks!
• Most of my worries along the way were not even worth the attention I gave them.
• My kids will do just about anything with the promise of ice cream.
• People in the northwoods of Michigan mark their driveway with very interesting designs of reflectors and antiques.
• People in campgrounds in Canada mark their campsites with very interesting collections of reflectors, hand-carved signs and lots of Canadian flags.
• Canada highway boulders are filled with inukshuks along every ledge.
• Quiet nights and mornings by the fire while children sleep are better shared with your better half.
• If someone in the tent is about to get sick, don't let them be in charge of unzipping the door to get out.  And don't leave your keys by the tent door.
• A hummingbird has 1000 feathers and a swan has 25,000!
• There are bats that don't hibernate in caves.
• Laundry machines in Canada don't know the difference between American and Canadian quarters.
• The emerald ash borer is threatening a lot of forests across our continent.
• Given a 30-minute limit on wifi time, I can type REALLY fast!
• It is a refreshing change in Canada for every attraction not to be over commercialized. Except when Grammie would like to find a place to buy t-shirts for the kids!
• There are 44 types of orchids and 6 different varieties of ferns on the Bruce Peninsula.
• The ferry to Manatoulin Island is so large it looks like a small cruise ship!
• The call of the Northern Cardinal sounds like a Star Wars Fight.  Pew! Pew! Pew!
• The call of the Northern Cardinal at 4:45am can be quite annoying.
• A vulture projectile vomits when it's feeling threatened.
• Sometimes Ryan loses her pajama bottoms in the middle of the night in her sleeping bag.
• While trying to make our parks better by planting non-native trees, introducing non-native animals, damming lakes and completely preventing forest fires, man has had a large role in the extinction of some animal and plant species.
• Biologists and scientists are still learning and are struggling diligently to bring back severely threatened species of animals and plants as well as help forests and parks return to their more natural state.
• The world seems way bigger when your mom leaves.
• Climbing out of the tent in the morning right into a spider's web will make me do a funky dance!
• The Macinaw Bridge is the longest suspension bridge in the U.S.  There are 4 larger in the world in China, Japan and Denmark.
• Deer antlers are the fastest growing tissue on earth and can grow up to 1/2" per day!
• I am a little more apt to cave in on buying new t-shirts when we are needing to do laundry!
• I found where the Bonaroo festival is held in Tennessee.
• Road kill takes many shapes and forms.
• At first I was surprised that county fairs are held in July in Michigan and Wisconsin until I realized that having them in late October like ours wouldn't work there!
• An empty laundry bag and full clothes bag can feel almost as refreshing as a good night's sleep. Like I can do this for another month!
• Residents of Michigan and Ontario take their recreation seriously!  The campgrounds and comfort stations inside them are SO nice!  Private shower rooms that can easily fit a family and power at every site!  We were spoiled!
• Fresh skunk spray in the middle of the night can wake you from a deep sleep with choking breaths.
• Grammie gets the best parking spots and if I rub her arm before she leave I luck into them too!
• Once we're home, it's so nice not to have to remember to buy ice every time we get gas or groceries.
• At home, it's so nice not to have to scramble to find quarters for laundry.
• Once we're home we head to the library pretty quickly and I realize on the way home how much I miss that quiet with three kids' noses buried in books.

Thanks for traveling along with us and we'll see you next time!

Lessons

We'll we've been home for a more than two weeks and we're honestly still adjusting.  While it's so very nice to be in the air conditioning and under a roof, we all miss the woods immensely.  There's something to be said about just being in the woods and experiencing nature with all your senses.

First up are my apologies and thank yous:

• Thank you to everyone for reading and following along with us on our journey.  You have no idea how comforting it is to have people reading and commenting about a trip that took so long to plan and pull off!

• I apologize first to my dear friend Lydia who I'm sure cringed on many occasions as she tried her best to overlook my spelling and grammar mistakes.  I think I'm not supposed to be double-spacing after sentences anymore too?  That's going to be a hard habit to break beaten into me by my high school typing teacher!  

• I also apologize to those of you who don't know my kids and could care less about all the pictures I post of them!  They are really for grandparents and friends so feel free to just scroll past their goofy faces.

• Thank you to Dave for working so hard so we can take these fun trips!  We all miss him dearly when we're gone and we know it's eerily quiet at home without us no matter how many movies he watches!  

• Thank you to my mom for taking the time to travel with us and treating us to so many things while with us.  The kids enjoy their time with her so much they fight over who gets to be next and who had more fun!

• Thank you to the Cadenas and Clarke families for opening their homes to us, especially with how stinky we were!

• Thank you to the National Park Service and State Park Services of the 17 states we visited. Our stays in the parks were made memorable with friendly staff, fun activities, and beautifully maintained parks and campgrounds.

• Thank you to the complete strangers in West Virginia that pulled us out of the mud and wished us safe travels.  And thank you to the kids laundromat owner who went out of her way to make sure my kids were happy during the hour we were there.

• Thank you to Rand McNally for making a giant atlas that I could use to plan and navigate us through the country.

• Thank you to the many authors of 39 Clues to entertain us along the quiet roads.

I've always told the kids I learn something every day.  This is definitely more apparent when we are traveling!  Lessons:

• In Tennessee and Virginia the interstate drive is almost as pretty as the mountain backroads.
• In Pennsylvania the mountains never end!  Each time we made it through a beautiful mountain pass, there appeared another wall of mountains!
• Mountain roads are exponentially slower than flat, Florida roads.
• You have no choice but to practice patience with a flaky gps signal!
• Charge electronics whenever there is an opportunity.
• The corn mother native american story is fascinating.
• Teenage bears act about as goofy as teenage kids.
• People can surprise you with their kindness and compassion.
• If you have the opportunity to take a shower at a nice place - take it, especially if it's free and hot!  
• Before you go to Quebec, learn French!
• Make more time to explore the small towns of our country.
• It never fails if there is a wonky spoon in your supplies, that is the first one you always grab.
• New Hampshire has some wonderful local beer!
• Ryan must be touching a person or holding something to eat effectively.
• You can take the boy away from the sports, but not the sports away from the boy.
• Time permitting, take a drive around a large park to get the lay of the land before planning anything.
• Sunsets and sunrises make the worst days so much better.
• It's easy to find happiness when you have lived without for awhile.  We were jumping for joy when we had free showers, electricity, and coveted wifi!
• I'll never get used to seeing a sign for "Moose Crossing"!

• When deciding the more enjoyable driving route, always follow the packs of motorcycles.
• If you need to stop for food, don't pass up a store thinking there will probably be one within 45 miles of your campsite!
• In northern states like Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, tents are the majority of campers while in the southern states of Florida, Alabama, and Georgia, RVs are our noisy neighbors.
• If you leave a few car lengths between you and the car in front in New Jersey, drivers in other lanes think you're inviting them to cut in front of you!
• Some of the car games we play to combat boredom are so fun for the kids, they want to keep playing well after we're out of the car and home.
• While it is refreshing to disconnect and sink into the woods, it's shocking to reconnect and read about things like Robin Williams two days after everyone else.
• Driving into a big city is a completely different experience than flying into one.
• There were so many moments where I had to start laughing as I imagined how funny my dad or Dave's mom would have thought some of our adventures were.  
• The beaches of North Carolina are markedly more rough than our protected little Gulf of Mexico.
• Evacuation for hurricanes for the people who live in the Outer Banks of North Carolina must be exceptionally painful.
• You aren't allowed to pump your own gas in New Jersey.
• There are Mt. Pleasants in a lot of different states!
• While most highways named "1" are a must drive route, I can't really say that for the Rt 1 of Deleware.
• It's easy being vegetarian in Vermont and New Hampshire!
• In Ontario, what makes an island is 3 square feet of land and 2 trees.
• Flexiblity is key when camping with kids and rain!
• If you plant a garden and leave for a 5 week trip, have someone take care of it!
• After camping, make a list and shop to restock bins so you're ready to go next time.

After our trip last year, I noted my take on the rules to live by.  I'd like to add one more from this trip - "this one goes to eleven" said in my best Nigel voice.

11.  Be graceful.  While I am quite the clutz, this is more about having grace in dealing with people. You haven't lived their life or walked in their shoes.  Respond with grace.  Apologize and forgive with grace.  Look for need in others with grace.  If everyone could do this on a daily basis, the world would absolutely be a much better place.

And so it goes to end another year of travel with The Clarkes.  We hope you will join us next time!

Lessons

So we've been home for about 2 weeks and we're fully back into the family groove.  First, I'd like to tell everyone thank you for reading.  Even though there weren't many comments to the posts this year, I heard from many of you that have been reading along our journey.  Just knowing that helped me feel a tab bit safer. And a big thanks to the Georgia State Parks.  I thought we were pretty spoiled touring some of the incredible national parks last year, but Georgia has put a lot of effort into making sure there are plenty of things to do and places to see in their state.

And last, thanks to family of course.  Without my grandparents, my mom, and Dave this trip would have been difficult and exhausting to say the least.  They were there to hold the hand of a child who lost the race to mine, kiss a scraped anything, listen to silly stories, and be the extra parent that was such a nice break from being solo.

And so on to our lessons:

• Forget painting your toenails before camping for 3 weeks.  You know you will forget extra polish, remover or both and they will look downright scary within a week.
• Always use bug spray when hiking in the Georgia wood.  I still have areas healing on my overbitten shins.
• On all future trips, make sure our visitors drive and stay separately to give the children that oh-so-important and treasured one-on-one time with them.
• Wait to buy fruit at the grocery store until you have passed the local farmers market or fruit stands.
• When moods shift, find water.  Any water.  A puddle, a lake, a pool, a hose, just find it and get them drenched.
• Ants, mosquitos, and gnats are extremely determined, I'll give them that.   
• It's ok not to be the helicopter parent in the middle of every argument and struggle.  Let them figure it out and be quiet until they ask for help.
• A glimpse into a grandparent's life so long ago may inspire you to dig deeper and find out where you really come from.
• Sometimes Georgia rain smells like peaches!
• Many of Georgia's roads are not marked well.
• I can learn to tell the difference between peanuts and cotton bushes, pecan and maple trees, and blueberry and blackberry bushes before the first hint of any fruit.
• No matter how many times I sneak a peek at wildlife beside me, I always jump and gasp with excitement.
• Laughter can diffuse even the angriest child.
• I know how to identify and deal with poison ivy.  It's everywhere in Georgia!
• Trust my instincts and listen to them.  Don't worry about appearing silly or possibly offending someone.
• If someone behaves negatively toward me, remember they are a human being just like me.  Take a step back to draw the line between the action and the person.
• If I wait on the world to tell me when to stop, I never will so get out of the race sometimes!
• If I wait for the perfect moment to take a break, I never will so just find a moment!
• If I wait to live my life until after the duties are done, I never will so just settle for good enough right now.

As you can imagine with spending so many hours on the road with 3 semi-occupied kids, there is some time to think.  The past two years I've spent thinking about so many different things I can't even remember them all, but I finished something important to me on this trip.  I finished my rules to live by.  There are only 10 and they are only 2 words each!

1. Be kind.  I was raised this way (thank you, Mom) so this is not an effort for me, but I do have to be careful about being too kind.

2. Be honest.  Enough said.

3. Be helpful.  This rule was brought to my attention just this morning as I was walking home on a bike ride with my kids. The entire shifting mechanism broke so it was unrideable. More than 15 vehicles drove past me, 9 of them trucks and one with an empty trailer.  Not one offered to help at all.   So my somewhat patient kids did loop after loop coming back to see me as I walked the mile home.

4. Be resilient.  At first this rule was "be strong", but I changed it this year.  I do want to be strong, but I also realize it's okay, even necessary to let yourself be weak sometimes then be strong enough to bounce back.

5. Be brave.  I am the biggest chicken sometimes, but I'm learning.  I'm learning to be cautious, but brave.

6. Be forgiving.  I struggle with this especially with those closest to me.  This also includes refraining from doing anything for revenge, no matter how small it seems.  Grudges are hard to drop.

7. Be generous.  I was also raised this way, but I can always do more.

8. Be respectful.  Everyone deserves it.  Especially me.

9. Be present.  If there is one thing these summer trips do the most, it is to remind me to be present. Be present with the earth.  Be present with my family.  The shared experiences with my children when I am fully present are and will be some of the best memories of my life.

10. Be happy.  It's up to me.  I tell the kids all the time that people can't make you feel something.  It's all how you choose to respond to the situation.  I am choosing to be happy.  And if you don't want to hang out with someone who is happy, find someone else to hang out with.  I say that with the utmost respect!

And so another year on the road is closed.  It was not without its' struggles and challenges, but we are home looking back through pictures and journals with wonderful memories and chatter of "Remember when...?" that's just priceless.

See you here next year!

Lessons Learned

Very random, but fun....

Things I learned on our adventure:

• Don't trust the forecast in the summer and always put the rainfly on the tent
• How to take the rainfly off in the morning without waking kids
• Input the full name of the destination when using Google Maps
• Laney loves to ask extremely random questions
• Brayden has definitely inherited Dave's ego
• Ryan's eyebrows raise up and down a few minutes before she wakes up
• I can hide wrinkly blueberries in pancakes and they're still delicious!
• I can be in the same room with a tarantula
• Ryan thought an "abacus" was called an "asparagus"
• Never drive through Kansas again and definitely don't camp there
• If you want to take a hot shower at a state park in Kansas, you have to turn on all the showers in the comfort station
• Do not stay outdoors in Louisiana past 7 in the summer unless you want to be carried off by a giant mosquito
• Texas takes forever to drive across
• Bears know how to open a car door to get in, they just don't know how to open it to get out
• Pine beetles are a big problem for national parks
• The difference between a spruce, fir, and ponderosa pine
• Ponderosa pine sap smells like cookies
• Squirrels are persistent beggars
• There are so many interesting, considerate, friendly travelers in our country
• Monsoon season at the Grand Canyon North Rim is in July
• Snacks boost grumpy moods for me and my children!
• The lyrics to "Goober Peas"
• There is a drought this year in our country
• How special friends and family are to me
• Time zones boundaries are very confusing
• Laney needs to keep her head up if we drive on very curvy roads
• It is so much fun to drive fast on back country dirt roads
• Driving on back country dirt roads makes Laney think my car needs washing
• Living in a tent with three kids and traveling for a month is challenging
• There can't be a better way to get to know your kids more than living in a tent with them and traveling for a month
• Traveling as a single parent on high alert is exhausting as there is no one else with you to ensure the safety of your kids
• Traveling as a single parent also makes you the cook, the unpacker, the packer, the entertainer, the driver, the coordinator, the referee, the planner, etc etc
• I would not have traded this experience for the world and I am absolutely ready to go again tomorrow!