Road Trippin' Summer 2018

Day 1 - Thursday, July 26th, we left our home a little after 5:00 p.m. and drove to Rawlins, Wyoming.  We arrived in Rawlins at about 9:15.  I had made hotel reservations before we had left.  The kids were able to get a little swim in before bed.

Day 2 - Friday, July 27th, we were on a schedule this day so we had to be up and on the road by 7:30 a.m.  We stayed at Hampton Inn's most of the road trip, which helped because they had free breakfast right in the lobby.  We arrived in the Jewel Cave National Monument Area around 1 p.m.  We saw these big horn sheep close to the monument.  Pretty cool!

We ate lunch right outside the Jewel Cave visitors center.  I had tickets for a 2:00 cave tour, which I am so glad I pre purchased because the tours were all sold out.

The Jewel Cave is the 3rd largest.  It was really cool.  The tour was a little over an hour and half, which was a little long but still really interesting.

After the Cave tour we drove through Custer State Park and saw these bison.

At the end of the cool drive it started to dump. Luckily it let up so we could walk around Mt. Rushmore.  Which was SUPER COOL!

After Mt. Rushmore we drove to the town of Keystone, SD to eat dinner.  After dinner, we drove about 30 minutes to Rapid City, SD, where we had a hotel reservation.  The kids got a quick swim in before bed.

Day 3 - Saturday July 28th, 2018 - We drove about 45 minutes outside Rapid City and HAD to stop at WALL DRUG.  A total tourist trap, but we had fun.  Then we decided to drive the loop through the Badlands National Area.  That made our day a bit longer in the car, but totally worth it.

Donuts!!

Pretty amazing landforms

We stopped for dinner in this cool trendy area of Mankato, MN.  We were about an hour outside of Minneapolis, but we were ready for a stop.  Stayed the night right downtown Minneapolis.  The original plan was to get to Minneapolis to walk around the city and maybe go to Mall of America.  But we ended up pulling into our hotel at 9:00 p.m.  Cruz and Shawn walked around downtown for a bit while I got the girls down.  They were able to walk past the HDR office, which was kinda cool.

Day 4- Sunday July 29th, 2019 - DRIVING.  We had about 5 hours from Minneapolis to Nesbit Lake.  This was a really pretty drive. We drove through farms in Wisconsin and beautiful and super small funny towns in the UP.  We passed a small diner named "Upchuck".  Super funny!

Arrived at Camp at about 2:00 p.m. Leigh, G and G Frye, and the boys had arrived before us.

We spend day 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 at Camp- Sunday through Thursday morning.  We helped with the kids activities, meals, cleaning, etc.

Meal Hall

Canoeing

The gong

The water slid Mark stores and brings up each year

Grandpa and Alegra canoeing.

Shawn waterskiing behind a 1958 boat, the same boat he waterskied behind as a kid.

So fun catching frogs and toads

Leigh and Shawn - fun that Leigh and the boys were able to come.  The kids loved being together at camp.  They left Wednesday afternoon.

Reading with Grandpa and Grandma Frye

All the Waldoch Relatives that were at camp.  Kathy's parents were part of the original group that started coming up to this camp.

The shooting range was one of our favorites.  Toni, a fellow camper took our little crew to the range just by ourselves. It was super fun.  Alegra was an amazingly good shot.

Cruz and Maria

Day 8 - Thursday, August 2nd- We left Nesbit lake and drove to Duluth, MN, on Lake Superior.  Grandpa and Grandma Frye came with us to this point to hang out and have lunch.  We ate lunch at the is super cool old restaurant that overlooked Lake Superior.  It was a little chilly this day.

Yummy ice cream desserts we could walk to after lunch.  From Duluth we drove another 4-5 hours to Fargo, ND.

We stayed at a Hampton Inn in Fargo and had some yummy Mediterranean food and swam in the pool.  Fargo was a much bigger town than I expected.

Day 9 - Friday, August 3rd, 2018 - We drove from Fargo to Red Lodge, MT.  Pretty long day of driving, about 9 hours.  We did stop in this cool town of Medora, ND.  We happen to stop there because we were hungry and Shawn had read (and almost signed up) for a bike race that was taking place near this area.  So glad we stopped.  It was this cool cowboy town. We had pizza and walked around the little town.  It was a nice stop.

Made it to Red Lodge, MT that night.

Ate dinner at this yummy taco stop in Red Lodge, MT.

Day 10- Saturday, August 4th, 2018 - We drove from Red Lodge, MT through the Bear Tooth pass, which was over 10, 000 ft., It was amazing!!!!

Snow!! From Bear Tooth we entered Yellowstone National Park at the Northeast Entrance.

Walked around Mammoth Hot Springs!

Then to made our way down to Old Faithful

Cruz recreating a picture from when he was last at Yellowstone.

Pretty Amazing!

Drove out of Yellowstone at the west entrance and past Island Park through Ashton, ID to Swan Valley.

Day 11 - Sunday, August 5th.  Drove from Swan Valley home.  Such a wonderful trip with so many wonderful memories. Loved that we created lots of memories of just our little family.  But everyone was excited to see home!!!