4/01/2016

Spring Break: End of the Road Trip

We made it safely home. The boys are with their mom now. I miss them already--it's a big adjustment after being in close quarters with them for a week.

The drive was uneventful in a good way. There was really light snow off and on at times through South Dakota. It had been almost 70 when we went out--and it's supposed to be in the 70s again this weekend--but most of our time was cold--at least at night. We played a few rounds of finding the alphabet in order on road signs. We ended up with 41 state license plates, 4 provinces, 1 Native American tribe (Cherokee from Oklahoma) and some US Government plates. We thought that all but 9 states was pretty good in a trip just across one state. We even saw at least 4 Alaska plates (but no Hawaii). I had the boys work on their math as we went by figuring out what percentage of the states we had found (ended up with 82% as they can tell you). We also ended up seeing a total of 162 different Wall Drug signs (99 on the way out along Interstate 90 from Worthington, Minnesota, to Wall, South Dakota, and 63 heading back east from Summerset to Wall).

All in all, despite colder weather that only allowed us one night in our tent, we had a great trip. I hope to return to do some more intense hiking some day. The landscape is beautiful, from rugged mountains to forests to grasslands. Saw a lot of wildlife we don't see here (bison, pronghorns, prairie dogs, mule deer, mountain goats, bighorn sheep--we saw all the large mammals except mountain lions and elk). And most importantly we had fun together as a family.

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