Day 10

So we all know Brayden has some issues when it comes to following through with responsibility. I'm hoping that's a tween boy thing and not a Brayden thing, but only time will tell I suppose. Apparently he did a terrible job cleaning up the dropped snacks as our site was visited by a little bit of wildlife in the night. I was woken up at 2am with long animal sniffs searching for food very close to my head. I laid there as still as possible listening to the direction it/they/the herd were moving with no clue what it was. My heart was pounding in my throat and my hand was on my pepper spray I've been carrying for 5 years I thought I wouldn't need (thanks Ashley!).

Once it sounded like the noise was at least as far as the picnic table from our tent, I ninja sat up and peeked out of the window to see just what it was. I silently gasped and had a half moment of melting when I saw a little teenage bear eating dropped apple sticks and grapes from the ground. I wanted to go hug on him and bring him home but thought a little wiser option would be to make noise. I rustled the tent and slid the window zipper loudly and he was gone. I'd wished I'd brought my laptop in the tent with me that night as I don't think I slept again until 4am, listening to every teeny, tiny noise. There was no way I was getting out of the tent to go get it!

After a quick shower in the morning, I started packing up with my early bird girl. She literally jumped on the opportunity to wake up her brother and sister. They were not as thrilled, but everyone helped out a little bit and we were out of the campground in 30 minutes. A new record? I can't remember what our last one was, but I'll take it.

We had a 2 1/2 hour drive to the science museum so the kids enjoyed watching A Series of Unfortunate Events while I listened to music on the winding backroads. And we made it to Pennsylvania!

We hadn't seen a town bigger than a handful of buildings in days so once we made it to State College it was a little strange and overwhelming for everyone. Right across from the parking area we found a little library!  We had some issues with ours before we left so it's not quite up yet so the kids were excited to see this one.

Then we put our Mess Hall membership to work and entered the science museum. The exhibits were all jammed together in a small room but there were tons of them. Unfortunately, there was also a ton of kids with a day camp arriving just before us. We are absolutely spoiled usually getting to do these things when other kids are in school!  The kids managed though and I witnessed several acts of consideration and kindness offered by my kids as the others pushed and took over activities. If only they could act that way with their sibilings!!

We stuck it out until they left and all breathed a little relief when we had space to really explore and tinker. The kids even managed to make a few friends to play with which helped with me not being stretched three different directions.

Once everyone was ready to go, we walked around the city a little bit checking out the stores and restaurants. We usually try to eat a local places and ended up settling on a restaurant called The Corner. We made a point to call Dave as it was the first time in days I'd had cell service. As the phone made it around the table, we got our food and by the time I'd finished talking to him we had a table full of empty plates! The food was delicious!

On the way back to the car we stopped in a toy store to let the kids dream and look around. So if I don't become a park ranger when I grow up I think I'll open a book/game store. There are so many fun games out! And our poor game cabinet at home is crammed full with games we all love and can't give up!  Just like the rise in kids books it seems like there are so many more fun games being created and we want them all!

We took a few minutes to drive around the college buildings then headed out of town to our campground. We were headed to the World's End which sounds a little foreboding, but we went anyway. By the time we made it the park office was closed so we set up and decided to hang out at the campsite for the rest of the evening. The kids worked on their travel journals and we played checkers until the sky started to darken. Brayden has been loving one of the books I got him from Aunt Kelly drawing different buildings and houses. He's probably our least confident kid when it comes to drawing, but his ideas and drawings in this book are wonderful!

We settled into the tent early again this night as the kids wanted to get on the road early again in the morning. Their excitement to see Grammie increases exponentially each day and getting closer to Massachusetts isn't helping!

Day 44

I remember just talking about how well I was sleeping in the tent just a few days ago. I don't know if it's being in a bed for 6 days or our new sleeping partner, but I was up for most of the night.  I will say it was neat to watch all the stars out the windows of the tent. We were far enough away from any city here that the sky was pitch black with what look like thousands of pin holes of stars.

I'd made a mistake reserving our site at this campground.  In a hasty or tired effort to have a site with power, I'd reserved us a spot surrounded by giant rvs with only 20V power available.  While generators weren't allowed at night, I could still hear all the air conditioner units turn on and off all night long.  The kids usually slept pretty still all night but there was this new guy next to me flipping around too. Time to get used to sleeping in a tent again I guess!

It was chilly when we woke up so I grabbed a jacket and sat down to write. Once Ryan woke up Dave grabbed her to read since she'd missed out the night before.  The other two slept and slept the morning away.

After a delicious southern breakfast of cheese grits and toast, we headed to the visitors center to schedule our cave tour.  Unfortunately we had missed the kid's caving program so we ended up deciding on the Cascades Cave Tour.  I guess we'll be heading back to Mammoth Cave again this next year for the TROG kids experience!














We had about an hour until our tour so we set out to show Dave a natural bridge.  This was actually the longest bridge we had ever experienced around a long corner.  It was quite spectacular!










Laney spotted this intricate spider web as we hiked back to the visitor's center.  I wanted to tell her it looked like a record album but I knew she would just stare at me with a blank look on her face.  We settled on it looking like a cd instead.

We had just enough time to watch some sticks float down the river before our tour started.





















We drove to the cave trail and met our tour guide for the morning.  I will admit I do have a hard time judging age, but this guy looked like he was 16!  I wasn't sure just how much we'd be learning today!
It turns out I was very premature in my judgement as he spouted off facts the entire tour that were fascinating to me.  And he'd only been doing this tour for 3 weeks.  Color me impressed!

 We saw some amazing formations, an underground lake, bats (finally!), beautiful scenery, and a teeny tiny waterfall.  There were many features that were man-made or changed as originally these caves belonged to a couple families.  The hike was easy and it was very fun for the kids to finally experience a cave with Dave.

With my expert planning I had scheduled us to be a this state park during a popular pioneer week with activities scheduled all day.  Actually, we were just really lucky to be there and it was a pure accident.  Finally we weren't missing something by one day!

We took a walk around the pioneer village where people were milling about cooking, sewing, making tools, tending chickens.  The kids really enjoyed touching all the animal hides - a first for all of them today with a buffalo hide!  We stopped by a tree where one of the reenactors was skinning a deer hide.  As he scraped and explained the process to the kids it was all I could do to keep the snack I'd just eaten where it should be.  Deep breaths.  Once he mentioned something about using the brains I was out of there.

Next up was the much anticipated tomahawk throwing activity.  Dave and I sat by with the camera and video camera as the ranger taught the kids the steps to throw the tomahawk.  Not only did they need to worry about aim, but they also needed to think about the rotation and the power behind their throw - very complicated!

All the kids caught on pretty quickly and were hitting the target within a few tries just with the wrong end or side of the tomahawk.  I'll give you one guess who sunk it in the target first!

Yep, it's quite disgusting how easily she can pick up just about anything athletic!  She had the biggest grin for about 15 minutes!  We stopped back by the store one reenactor had set up to buy the coveted rubber band guns two of the kids wanted then headed to car, narrowly avoiding the deer skin guy.

This hike was one I was pretty excited about as it would show us some other beautiful features of the park.  It was only about a mile and although hot, the weather was beautiful.  The feature we first came upon was the wind tunnel.  There was a point I thought perhaps Laney had misread the trail markers as it was a pretty narrow passage.  

This is the kids' favorite kind of hiking!  They love scaling the rocks and squeezing around corners.  If only monkey bars and see saws were natural features, they would never leave!

Next we hit the box canyon with a beautiful wall almost all around us.  There were massive boulders everywhere and you could see the spot up above where they'd snapped off the wall.

We noticed how the canyon walls were painted much like Pictured Rocks in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  I do believe the kids taught some 60ish year old men a little something about why they looked the way they did.  

Once we make it back to the campsite we had a little time to relax.  The kids scootered down to the playground and Dave and I shared a beer.  Fortunately for our location, an rv parked at the spot next to ours today adding quite a bit of shade lowering the temperature to what felt about 85. This heat is taking a bit to get used to!

Once the kids were all back we decided to head to the pool in the park.  It was quite chilly compared to our Florida pools but a welcome chill from the heat!  Our fingers were wrinkly after about 2 hours so we headed back to our site to cook dinner. 

The program tonight was a campfire story session by one of the reenactors.  The fire was nice as it was cooling down pretty quick.  We were mostly surrounded by woods and fireflies as he spun some tales to a captive audience.

We were all pretty tired after the long day so as the kids fell asleep Dave and I planned our route the next morning to make sure we got to our next site with plenty of time to enjoy the area as well as stock up on some much needed supplies and food.

Day 36

Today started quite early at 1:20am.  Not like past trip awakenings from other campers or animals, nope this one was the 80+ degree weather we were trying to sleep in.  Expecting a warm night, Dave and I had taken the rain fly off the tent for more ventilation, but it didn't seem to help as there was zero breeze.  I got up and headed to the bins to find the kids' Frog Togg towels and walked to soak them in the bathroom.  I should have taken a cold shower at this point, but after splashing water on my face and arms, I just went back to the tent.

I slept for maybe another 10 minutes with a towel over me, but gave up once the bugs started biting since they were so attracted to my sweaty self..  I covered the kids and Dave with the damp towels and decided to check my email to see if reading would make sleep come back sooner.

We were supposed to be packing up in the morning to head to our last stop in Florida so I checked the weather to see how hot the next night would be.  Apparently we picked the hottest weekend of the entire year with 100+-degree days and 80+ degree nights.  Now we had braved the 115+ degree days of Utah and 100+ degree days of Texas with no problem, but even there we still had 60s and 70s at night so I could keep my sanity.  Not in Georgia and Florida, so we made the executive decision to pack it up and head home.  At 3:30 in the morning.

Instead of waking the kids though, we decided to let them decide how we spend our last day, so I headed to take my cold shower and start the packing process.  After we had everything possible packed and snacks and breakfast prepared, we woke the kids and told them the news.  We had a couple possibilities and after a little deliberation, they decided to head to a museum in Jacksonville, Garnet and Gold in Tallahassee, then home.

We were on the road at my new record earliest time (not counting a bug out minutes before a Kansas thunderstorm)  of 6:30am.  As we drove toward Jacksonville, my eyes were getting heavy so I was already dreading the day full of driving ahead of us.  After a stop at a rest area, we made it to the museum in one piece and the kids had a blast.  They had been looking for a grocery store in a museum most of the trip.  There was a Winn Dixie set up at a museum in Lousiana a few years ago that had ACTUAL cash register receipt tape they could tear off and hand the customer.  You would have thought they were holding the golden ticket to Willy Wonka.

Unfortunately, this museum did not have receipt tape, but it did have a bunch of great areas for the kids to play in including a bank, post office, theater, tv station, cafe, animal hospital, wheelchair basketball court, tree house, and a bunch more.

Dave even got in on the grocery store action!




We spent a couple hours there then Dave and I started to fade so we knew it was time to go.  We shook our heads as we left both wondering just how long this trip was going to take if we had to stop at every rest area to keep awake!  We fueled up the cars and bought my one soda of the year and plenty of sugar to keep us going for a little while then jumped on the road.

I blasted Brayden's dance music and the kids read and danced along with me down the road.  We only had to stop once on the way to Tallahassee and rolled into the FSU store right before a good time for lunch.  Brayden checked the store out about 4 times around then we grabbed a quick pizza lunch before getting back on the road for the last stretch.

I was most concerned at this point before our final hours of driving with our full bellies and warm sun shining through the windows.  I had a bunch of cold water that helped me make it through though and we only needed one rest stop again. The kids pointed and screamed when they saw the Blue Angel banking at the rest stop in Milton as they knew we were just 20 minutes or so from home.

We rolled into the driveway with plenty of time to unpack the cars and begin laundry before we all collapsed from the long day.  Tonight was a night for a 12-hour sleep.

Thanks so much everyone for riding along with us on our journey through a bunch of states again! The comments, emails, and texts always left us smiling and encouraged to keep going and having fun.  The miles were long but we enjoyed most of them together with each other, family, and friends. Next time you'll have to drive along with us too!

I'll be posting our lessons learned soon after I climb off this pile of laundry and figure out when trash day is again. It's gonna take awhile for us to get back into the swing of things!