On Vacation!!!

So... I still have some uploading of photos to do. I hope to make that happen tomorrow. I'm also going through and separating the 22oo photos that are uploaded into smaller albums so that they are easier to access.. and putting the link with each day's post with the photos from that day. I finished the first 4 days today and I will complete the rest as I have time. I hope you enjoy the blog as much as we enjoyed our trip. It was truly amazing. Everyone asks us what our favorite part of the trip was.. or our favorite place.. and for me, its so hard to choose. There are definitely places we explored on this trip that we will someday return to. It was an amazing 4 weeks. I know Dane tells people that his favorite place was Circus, Circus in Las Vegas. He loved all of the games, and I won't forget his surprised 4 letter utterance when we arrived in Vegas at 2 am.. and saw all of the lights in total disbelief and amazement. Prior to arriving in Las Vegas, his favorite stop was...

We spent the day in Houghton visiting with family, checking out the second hand shops, and having dinner with the Ahola side of the family at Quincy's. We picked some strawberries on our way out of town at the Crane's and then off we drove.... making it home just before midnight. I'm working on updating the few missing days and adding a few photos.... our internet was not always adequate to upload... So check back to the older posts that were missing photos or updates! Today's Photos: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=akapl9mx.25c24t51&x=0&y=-ct689r&localeid=en_US

What a day!!! A long trek... starting in the rain. It rained through most of Nebraska and Iowa. We saw clearer skies in Minnesota. Most of our day was driving. We passed the Danish Immigrant Museum, with an old style danish homestead, but opted not to stop due to the rain. We made our major stop of the day in Burnsville, MN at Chuck E Cheese. It was a nice leg stretch, and Dane had a ton of fun playing the games.. before our long drive to Houghton. We had numerous quick breaks, and stopped at McD's in Duluth before arriving in Houghton at 3 am. Today's photos: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=akapl9mx.79bxef0l&x=0&y=992u0p&localeid=en_US

More driving today... We drove through the rest of Colorado and almost made it across Nebraska. We were unable to take photos most of the day as it was raining for atleast 150 miles in Nebraska. There were lots and lots of corn fields... and we saw a TON of rainbows due to the weather. Tonight, we are staying in Lincoln, Nebraska... with a VERY long day planned tomorrow.. hoping to make it to Houghton! Today's photos: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=akapl9mx.9npfnjid&x=0&y=-8hz8u0&localeid=en_US

We slept in this morning and then managed to pack up, meet up with the Laursens for a quick goodbye and then hit the road.. We drove for hours, managing to cross Nevada, Utah, and get to Glenwood Springs, Colorado before calling it a night. Now we know why they find so many dinosaours in Utah.. the rock formations were very interesting! Today's photos: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=akapl9mx.69gsjdhh&x=0&y=-czd9hk&localeid=en_US

We started off our day rather relaxed.... chillin' in our room. Then Dane and I went for a swim at the pool where we met up with Jen, Jay, Logan, and Jonas. Dane had a blast in the pool. He even decided to dunk under a couple of times and to work on learning how to float on his back. It was big fun! This afternoon Dane played the last of his quarters, and turned in his tickets! 2700!!!! He was extremely happy with his loot! He chose a HUGE teddy bear, a motorcycle, a mini speed racer, and a bear pouch. We met back up with the Laursens for dinner at the Buffet.. and then made our way down the strip. We had plans to see the Pirate Show at Treasure Island, but we had quite a wait when we arrived and decided to continue to the Bellagio for the fountain and light show. It was a good thing we did, as we found out later that the 8:30 showing at Treasure Island had been cancelled. The Laursen's had to leave after the fountain show, and we decided to take in the later showing at Treasur...

We met up this morning/afternoon with Jen, Jay, Logan and Jonas just outside our hotel. They were having some lunch and we all decided to play some games. Logan didn't last very long, as the whole experience was rather overwhelming.... They had plans for the evening to meet up with family, and we opted to do our own thing and catch up again later/tomorrow. Carsten met up with us and we went to dinner at the Garden Grill. (After roaming around and trying to make a decision... we went back to the place we had eaten previously..) We were happy to find that our waiter was the same as the day before... and we had great food. We played some more games and then we walked Carsten to his hotel. We weren't certain if we would see him again, so we said see ya laters.... and continued down the strip to see some of the lights and check out some of the shops.

Walking the Vegas strip is definitely overrated! We went to the aquarium at Mandalay Bay today and then decided to walk the entire strip back to our hotel... The sites were okay... it was hot.. and Vegas is a very dirty city.... I'm pretty much not impressed. The aquarium was pretty cool, and they give you a recorded guide as you stroll through the aquarium. It was fun and informative.

We actuallly arrived in Vegas last night.... approximately 2 am. We thought we would find lodging outside the city and decided to keep on driving. Vegas truly is the city that doesn't sleep. Our hotel/casino is wild.. there are soooooo many people, sounds, restaurants, shops... the circus, magic shows... and carnival areas... not to mention amusement park... Dane has been in heaven... it's like one big HUGE Chuck E Cheese.. with the tickets and everything. We honestly have not made it outside of the hotel!!! Carsten came to visit us this evening and we have plans to meet up with him tomorrow. We brought him to the Midway to play games... And Dane almost has enough tickets for the HUGE Circus, Circus teddy bear he wants! I'm sure he will have them by the time we leave.... Jen, Jay, Logan, and Jonas will also be arriving tomorrow. Dane is excited about playing with Logan! and swimming together of course! Well.. off to get some sleep in the city that never sleeps!

Our final day in Yosemite today... We drove in from Oakhurst and went directly to the Mariposa Grove. Dane had one final activity to complete in order to fullfil his requirements to be a junior ranger... and we opted to attend the audio guided tram tour of the grove in order to finish his book. The grove was amazing... hard to truly put into words. The sequoia trees were huge.. and the tour was super informative. The trees are estimated to be approximately 2000 years old!! And their resistance to decay, pests, and disease is unreal! Some of the trees have huge holes in them, and yet they keep on living and thriving.... and their sheer size, and age... unreal... From the grove we drove through the park to the east entrance. Dane was sworn in as a "Little Cub" on our way out of the park. I think he was a little embarrassed, as she called for everyone's attention in the visitor's center to congratulate him on his accomplishment! We drove out of the park with plans to sto...

We drove in from Mariposa and headed straight to Yosemite Valley. It was a very different experience from any other National Park experience we had. First, we had to park in huge parking lots... which reminded us very much of trying to park at NMU when class is about to start. People were stalking each other for parking spots.. etc... Then from the parking lot, we were bussed to the visitor's center... where we were told that we could catch a bus to all of the major attractions... buses in the National Park???? taking you from site to site... we were very surprised. We spent some time at the visitor's center and Dane started his junior ranger, "little cub" activity book. We explored the native american village and the museum, watching a weaving demonstration... etc. Then we caught the shuttle bus to the lodge for a bite to eat. From the lodge, we went to the lower falls. The waterfall was gorgeous, but again there was a huge walkway leading to it... and people were s...

We drove from Susansville to Reno where we met up with Tammy for lunch. She took an extended lunch break, and we were able to see where she is living, where she used to live.. where the public swimming area is... and do a little bit of shopping. We were concerned with staying too long, as we had a long drive to get to Mariposa for the night.. so we didn't stay too long. We brought her back to work, and continued on. We ran into a lot of haze near Carson City and decided to keep driving. There was a fire near Lake Tahoe, and we were glad to have adjusted our driving route into Nevada rather than in California, as the haze was thick enough where we were. I can't even imagine how it was in California. We drove through Yosemite from the East, finding a number of deer shortly after our entrance. It was slowly getting dark, and we drove through the park without many stops to attempt to find our campsite before dark.... which didn't happen. We were rather confused when we found t...

Crater Lake National Park Uncle Joe told us about this amazing place, and had he not mentioned it, it would not have been on our travel list... However it was well worth the time to visit. We did not allot a vast amount of time to explore, but enough to see the lake... breathtaking.. We will definitely be coming back to explore this place again! We then drove south into California. We had to go through a check point, where they asked about all of our fruits and vegetables. This was the first time we encountered a checkpoint like this, and were rather surprised, but went through without any problems. We drove quite a ways through the mountains and finally found a city, Susansville to spend the night.

Today we left Portland and started our trip south. We decided to drive along the coast for a section of the decent, and it was absolutely breathtaking! A little chilly right on the Pacific... but absolutely gorgeous! We managed to find exoskeletons from some crabs and saw great coastal views.. in addition to a ton of HUGE sand dunes! We also stopped in Newport at the Oregon Coast Aquarium... really cool place!!! We spent a few hours there checking out all of the critters! We started heading East from the coast, as we could drive west no further... and opted to spend the night in Roseburg, OR with plans of heading to Crater Lake tomorrow and moving further south!

We made pancakes for breakfast on a real stove today!!! And then after we were up and moving, made our way to the Portland Zoo..... Which turned out to be nearly a 5 hour experience! The Zoo had a 35 minute train ride, and a dinosaur exhibit. Dane said that the train ride was his favorite. It was a rather large zoo, and super busy!!! After the zoo, we called Howard and Paloma to meet up with us at Chuck E. Cheese. It was their first experience with the restaurant, and some how, I don't believe that it will be their last. We had pizza and played a ton of games. Dane had just as much fun exploring their tunnels on the ceiling as he did playing the actual games. He walked out with over 1000 tickets when all was said and done... and now he has a new Chuck E Cheese playground ball. Again, we talked the night away! Especially Allan and Howard...

We spent today mostly in the van... driving to Portland. We started this morning with another visit to Uncle Joe and then we were off to the John Day Fossil beds. It was really cool! They have millions of years of mammal fossils. Dane was in heaven!!!! He became a junior ranger yet again! And is super proud of his badge and certificate. Driving across this part of Oregon was interesting, as there are very small towns and the drastic change between this area and where the interstate is was quite surprising. Finding Howard and Paloma's house was quite easy, and we all went out for some wonderful frozen yogurt shortly after arrival. We stayed up late talking... and then were off to bed. (See more photos through the Kodak site)

Uncle Joe started our morning off with homemade huckleberry pancakes, eggs, and bacon. We spent almost the entire day visiting. We shared lots of our trip photos, and he shared oodles of photos of his adventures and wood working with us. At 11 am, we drove to Prarie City, a near by town to the parade, and enjoyed the cannon starting the parade, and the parasailors in the sky.... After the parade, we drove out to Michael and his family's house.. AMAZING place. Uncle Joe had described it as a castle, and he wasn't kidding... We were given a full tour, and had fun meeting cousins. We visited for quite a few hours, and Dane had so much fun playing with the boys... he didn't want to leave. After visiting, we drove back to John Day and took a quick dip in the pool prior to meeting back up with Uncle Joe for supper. Dane had a ton of fun playing with "Black Jack", Uncle Joe's black lab. We visited until it was time to head out for the fireworks in Prarie...

We took it easy this morning with a wonderful breakfast buffet followed by a swim in the pool prior to hitting the road. Our first stop was in Boise to visit the zoo. We had a little bit of a hard time finding the place, as it was clearly on the map, but the city did not have signs... But after circling the block to find the entrance, we we off and running in the high heat! We made it in time to hear one of the trainers speak about the penguins, and spent a bit of time stretching our legs throughout the zoo. After spending time in Boise, we headed towards John Day! We found our hotel quite easily and caught up with Uncle Joe at his house. Daniel and Chantel stopped in for a quick visit, and then we headed for the hotel with plans to meet up in the morning.

What a day! We started off in Cody this morning. Dane had fun playing at the playground near our cabin, and we managed to be in town during a big rodeo... so we were detoured from downtown because of the parade. We checked it out for a few minutes and then we were off to the park again.... On our way in from the East Entrance, just a few miles in... WE SAW A GRIZZLY BEAR! It was amazing, and the bear was sooooooooooo close to the road. There was a ranger on the scene making sure that people stayed in or near their cars and away from the bear. We saw a ton of buffalo again today, and made our way towards Old Faithful. We stopped at the Continental Divide to take a photo.... although we actually crossed it 3 times today! Old Faithful was really cool and well worth the wait! Absolutely amazing! We then moved from Old Faithful to Madison to catch a ranger program on our way out of the park so that Dane could complete the requirements necessary to become a junior ranger and earn his badge....

Another busy day in Yellowstone National Park Today! We checked out of our cabin and opted to drive the northern loop of the park. We spent some time in Norris, hiked the basin area, and saw the amazing colors the hydrothermal activity causes. We then drove north to Mammoth and saw the hot springs. There were buffalo everywhere... Too many to count... herds and herds in the distance with a few near the road and/or causing a traffic jam! At the Mammoth Visitor's Center, Dane decided to be a buffalo, and Allan a big horn sheep! On our way to Tower from Mammoth, we were fortunate enough to find a yellow-bellied marmot that was ready to pose for our photos! We drove by him 3 times.. and he stayed in the same place! Most of the people missed seeing him as he perched near the road as they went flying by! We can't believe how fast some of the people seem to be going in the park! As we headed back towards our cabin, we saw a lot of buffalo and a number of elk. We drove back into Cody f...

We spent the night in Sheridan, WY. We arrived too late to use the pool, so we opted for a quick swim in the morning before moving westward. We decided to take the route to Yellowstone through Cody, WY... which proved to be quite scenic, and we were lucky enough to see 3 moose on the side of the road!!!! How cool is that! Dane's word of the day is "AMAZING." He thought everything today was amazing!!!! We rolled into Yellowstone during early evening, which was perfect, as the wildlife was just beginning to move around! On our first night in the park.... We saw... Elk, Buffalo, a Black Bear, Ravens, Pelicans, Cut-throat trout, waterfalls, mud volcanoes, fumaroles, and lots of stinky sulfer holes!!! We spent the night in one of the Canyon Lodge Cabins, and found ourselves without any heat for the night! It did get quite cool, but we managed to stay warm with extra covers!