Summer Odyssey 2012 - On The Road

After much effort - packing and cleaning and tying up loose ends - we hit the road and headed West on our annual summer road trip.  The kids are great travelers and get more self-contained every year.  Rob had a few books on tape to listen to, and I had a huge stack of magazines to catch up on.  After the past few busy weeks it was nice to just relax in the car for a while!  

 Haley and Jake were settled in the back with i-pads, i-pods, books and DVDs.

 Alex did pretty well too, watching Thomas the Train movies to his heart's content.  He also took a nice loooong nap every day....

 ...which kept us ALL happy.  

 We try to stop for breaks and let the kids run around every few hours.  We stopped at the scenic lookout at Teddy Roosevelt State Park in Western North Dakota, which overlooks the Badlands. 

 They thought "Badlands" was a great name...here they are discussing why it might be called that. 

 Somehow Haley got it in her head that she wanted to see a snake.  So Dad took them on a Snake Hunt; they didn't spy any snakes, but did see a snake hole and path in the grass.

Haley likes to stop and read all the signs.  ALL of them.  

 We watched several groups leave down the trails and we made plans to come back and explore this area sometime.  It is simply beautiful. 

The first night out we found ourselves in Eastern Montana, where due to the oil boom hotel rooms are super pricey and hard to come by.  We chose to camp instead at an RV park and were pleasantly surprised - the kids especially enjoyed the playground and pool after all day in the car.

 We spent the last night on the road in a hotel and enjoyed some shopping the next day.

 We let the kids pick out a small reward for being such good travelers for 4 days - that is a long time to be in the car!  Jake found a Lego Hero Factory guy, and Haley picked out some American Girl mystery books.

 

 TRAINS!!!!!!!

 We had to literally DRAG her out of the bookstore, with an armful of new books she bought.

Look at us all shoppin' and stuff.  At home we don't really get too dressed up to go to Target or our tiny mall....it was fun to be in an urban area.  We had a great time, but couldn't wait to see family and get some GRANDMA hugs!