Sadly, the adventure is officially over. We made a big push home from the Badlands with 13.5 hrs. of driving the first day and a quick 4 hrs. to Mason on Wednesday. Then a ton of work emptying the vehicles, cleaning them, and returning them. Tomorrow (oops, today), we leave for our annual week at the Northern Pines camp in Wisconsin. We're all really looking forward to it but a bit behind in packing. Looking forward to great times with family and friends and lots of excellent teaching. Had high hopes of downloading Bill's favorite pics but as its late I'm not sure how many I'll get done. Hard to pick from the 2000 photos we took. I will hit our final stats however....

Total Days: 53
Total Miles Driven: 9750
Total Drive Time: 225 Hours
Total Drive Time under Tension with Parents Disciplining Children: About 5...Not Bad! Kids were GREAT!
Days of Rain: Never rained out. Maybe a half dozen days with showers or mist - very blessed!
Drive Time with Rain: Maybe 5 hours, again, quite a blessing.
Hottest Day: Badlands at 105
Coldest Nights: Yellowstone in the high 40's or low 50's - thankful for a furnace!
Items lost: Dad's watch (was worn out anyway), Nathan's hiking pole (somewhere under the snow in Glacier), Garrett's teeth (2 molars), Nathan's tooth.
Items found: Nice SOG pocketknife by Alise (Garrett is WAY jealous), $103 by Dad
Injuries: One slight ankle sprain (Judith) and too many scratches to count (mostly the boys)
Favorite Parks: Glacier, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Bryce, or in the words of Nathan, 'All of them'.
Failed Equipment: Both Dad and Garrett's soles peeled off of our boots and a plug for Gorilla Super Glue Gel - viola, back on the trail.
Nice to have: Water filter pump....we ran out of water on several hikes and were able to replenish the Camelbacks.
Animals seen: A few dozen. All key ones of our list were hit (Bears, Elk, Moose, Eagle, Snakes, etc.) and we added some new ones we didn't know about (Banana slugs, Marmots, Pikas, etc.)
Total Miles Hiked: 210 miles!!! Started off with 3 to 5 mile days and were hitting 10 to 13 mile days towards the end of the trip. The kids never wavered - they were great hikers!
Total Vertical Miles climbed: Over 4 miles.
Total Miles Biked: 115 miles
Memories: Countless. The trip was all we hoped for and more. All in all, it went very smoothly and we have enough memories and stories to last a few decades. God seemed to smile on us at every turn with great weather, great views, animal sightings, etc. Wow.

OK, out of steam. Will have to post pictures at a later time. Maybe tomorrow night. Thanks for following us all summer. Hope it brought you some joy watching and learning about our Excellent Summer Adventure.

Bill

Last Post

So yesterday we drove 13 hours to get home and today we are driving again to reach our home in Ohio. ONLY ONE MORE HOUR!!!!! All of us can not wait to go home. Thank you for following us on our trip this summer and reading our stories, and praying for us, a lot has happened and we all really enjoyed seeing Gods creation and how different our country is. I hope you enjoy the rest of your summer and year.
Bye!
Bill, Judith, Alise, Garrett, and Nathan Cheeseman

P.S. I will post more pictures of the last few days later they are not down loaded yet, and Dad will update the stats.

Custer State Park and Badlands

The last day of Custer, was Sunday so we attended a church service in the park done by A Christian Ministry in National Parks, it was a lovely service. After we drove through the needles and in some places we barely fit through the tunnels but we made it. We stopped once to let them (Dad, Garrett, and Nathan) climb on some rocks after awhile we thought they had all died, they were gone so long. Then we drove to Sylvan Lake and hiked 3.5 miles up to Harney Peak which is the tallest point east of the Rocky Mountains. When we made it up the view was amazing and wonderful, but we were all very hot, sweaty, and ready for some lake water. So we fast hiked it down and relaxed in the lake before leaving for the campsite.

The next morning we packed up and drove,  to Badlands national Park when we arrives there it was 102 degrees, by the time we set up camp and drove back to the park it was 106 degrees outside, we were hot, but we still wanted to hike. So we just did a 1/4 mile hike up on side of a badland formation then hiked down the same side. we were very hot but had a lot of fun. After that hike we were done and headed back to our camp ground to swim and eat a yummy dinner.

I will post pictures later.

Pictuers

                                               Bears at Slough creek

                                                   Old Faithful

                                                         Spring

                                                                Grand Geyser

                                              Osprey

                                                  Bison on Bridge

                                              Bison rolling in dirt

                                                  Pika

                                                   I really wanted to swim here

                                                           Entertainment at lunch

                                                     Fairy Falls

                                                    Prismatic Spring

                                                      Bison Jam

                                            Lower Falls

                                            Entertainment in the car with dads camera

                                             Pronghorn

                                                   :(

                                               Big Horn Sheep

                                               bison swimming in the water

                                               Mud Pot

                                            Fighting the Mosquitos

                                              Osprey nest

                                                        Moose

 Dad trying to prove he was manliest by putting his feet in a snow spring stream. He almost fell over in the water because his feet wouldn't move. Garrett won.

                                                   Finding Pikas

Custer State Park

I am so sorry we were so behind but now we are back on track... almost. I will start with the day after the chuck wagon dinner.

We headed out early in the morning expecting like a 8 hour drive to Custer State Park, well our calculations were a little off. It took us about 12 hours to reach the park, and we arrived at the campground around 9:30 when we realized that someone was in our spot. The nicest camp host ever helped us out, finally we realized that the driving that day was planed to take 2 days instead of one and we had arrived a day early. They had no campgrounds left, but they took pity on us and put us in a volunteer spot for the night. For that we are forever grateful because we were all at our ends and still hadn't eaten yet.

The next morning as soon as we saw the people leave in our spot we skedaddled over there and set up. For our fist thing in the park we drove around the wildlife loop and ended up in a buffalo jam. We did a u turn the dropped by the visitor center, after learning about the park we drove out to see Mount Rushmore. Which was very interesting to look at, we did the junior ranger which took forever then went home to enjoy a delicious dinner.

Yesterday we went to Wind Cave National Park  and took a tour of the cave and learned about it's history. The cave was amazing even though we only saw about 1% of the known cave. There were many amazing formations. It showed how God's glory is all over the earth and we are still exploring it today and learning more. After lunch that day we ran in to another bison jam this time we were at the front and got to see all the bison. Some people were real jerks and were driving after the bison crossing the road causing them to run and freak out. We also broke 200 miles to day after we hiked along the            trail. That night we went star gazing in the middle of a field, we saw over 3 meteors and the milky way.

Today I have no idea what we are doing but I will try to update as soon as possible.

Yellowstone and Glacier

Well, we’ve been rightfully accused of a ‘posting foul’ for falling off track in our postings. Unfortunately, we’ve not had internet access for 8 days now. We get a few sparse minutes of phone signal occasionally as we drive the parks but no hope of a good hotspot for the internet. We’ll do our best to catch up tomorrow when we are back on the road to Custer State Park in South Dakota.

So, no pictures today but a brief recap of our activities in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.

The End of our Drive to Yellowstone: We entered the park in the twilight hours and were treated to sights of Bison, a Black Bear, a Moose (head from a far distance), and Elk. Not bad for our first 30 miles in the park.

Yellowstone Day 1: After a long day in the car the previous day we’re ready to MOVE! We drove to the Old Faithful Geyser Basin, on the way there we saw our first bison of the day. He was leading a long line of cars over the bridge and right next to our car. It was a very interesting experience. At old Faithful we witnessed the geyser (right on time….of course) along with a thousand other people. After so many peaceful hikes with relatively few people this was a bit crowded for us. We then hiked the geyser basin a bit seeing beautiful hot springs and geysers. Then we unhitched the bikes and went on a trail to see other geothermal features. We happened upon a geyser called the Grand Geyser which isn’t nearly as predictable as Old Faithful. We sat behind a few people who are part of the ‘Geyser Gazer’ group. These people literally wait on geysers all over the park and give the Park service reports with radios.  We arrived right on time to see the grand geyser erupt, which was just absolutely spectacular. It spouted for over 9 minutes, after seeing the geyser erupt we biked back to our car, packed up and left.

Yellowstone Day 2:  We were ready to do some hiking when we woke up so we headed out to hike to Shoshone Lake along DeLacey creek. We walked through a lovely meadow with lots of flowers and some forest. The whole time we were battling the horrible beast of the Mosquito, our ally was Mosquito repellent. The Lake was the biggest back country Lake in the park, it was beautiful and amazing to look at. We also spotted an Osprey flying around, after resting for a while we headed back. After eating lunch we went on another hike to Fairy falls, which was a very uninteresting hike. It had its own perks like seeing a new forest growing up after the old one burnt down. The falls were slowly flowing and… there was one more perk, well actually 2 perks. One was that I found a pocket knife at the falls, I had been looking at one in Walmart but every store across the country was out. I was rewarded for my patience with an absolutely free knife. The second perk was that on the way back we climbed up a hill that over looked Prismatic Spring. That view was absolutely AMAZING, it was all different colors and shades of yellows, blues, greens, oranges and reds. We also saw mud pots that day which is amazing to watch, on one of them it said, “Caution: Flying hot mud”.

Yellowstone Day 3: Today we went to see Upper and Lower Yellowstone falls, we all agreed that we enjoyed the lower falls the best. It was huge and striking shades of color in the canyon along it. We hiked over to the Upper falls and went down to the bottom of it. The hike up was 328 stairs, Garrett and I sprinted up it in 3mins and 33 seconds, we dogged people all the way up. Instead of going back up the way we came through all the people we made a loop to see clear lake and Lilly Lake. I will tell you one thing they smell a lot, wherever there is anything coming out of the ground it stinks like really rotten eggs that have been sitting for years. Some smell worse than others the clear lake was one of them. We made it back to where we started and were way ready for lunch it was 2! I will saw this tough on the way back the canyon was…unbelievable there was no doubt that God had made it. There were unreal shades of yellow, red, and orange. We ate a famished lunch then went out again to hike Slough creek trial, we were all tired and ready to go home plus the Mosquitos were bad again, but we are all glad to do the hike at the end. We turned around at the meadow and on the way back dad spotted 2 things moving in the tree line…2 black bears (they were somewhat young).We watched them climbing till they went so far we couldn’t see them. We also saw a herd of prong horns on the way back. It was well worth a day of hiking.

Yellowstone Day 4: Our last day we hiked to the top of Mount. Washburn, 3.3 miles up, we didn’t stop once the whole way up, there was snow along the way that we played with. At the top I spotted a herd of Big horn sheep, all mama’s and babies. They were so cute to watch run around and eat. After eating lunch we turned around and headed back to our truck. The rest of the day we went to see the mud volcano, which used to shoot mud way in the air till its cone fell over, now it looks like a mud pot. After looking at all the stinky smelly interesting things there we drove back home; but stopped halfway to see sulfur caldron which had a pH of 1.

Yellowstone/Grand Tetons Day 5: We left Yellowstone today it was a sad day especially for me because I really liked the Bison, watching them cross the road and roll in dirt. Luckily the ride to Tetons was really short and quick. We arrived, set up, ate and left to hike. We hiked around Swan Lake and Heron pond, the scenery was also amazing. At Heron Pond we saw an immature bald eagle with some geese, and later on we saw a toad which Garrett caught. We packed dinner so we ate near a river then hiked a long Flagg Canyon, which we all agreed was really bad. We were right smack between the highway and a canyon with Mosquitos attacking us everywhere.

Grand Tetons Day 6: We woke up early and hiked along Jenny Lake to Hidden falls which is a big tourist place. (Why we went earlier.) Along the way I spotted a Osprey’s nest with one in it, we thought that was pretty cool but then we looked over and saw a Bird sweep down and take out another smaller bird. But we couldn’t tell what they were because of the sun; we assume that it was a Bald Eagle. The falls were amazing and we went to inspiration point then hiked down Cascade Canyon to Cascade Canyon Junction. It was a very long hike we didn’t have lunch till around 2-3:00. After relaxing for a while we headed back. A little bummed that we didn’t see a moose, when we ran in to a couple that said that there was a moose up the trail. We arrived just in time to see the moose before some people scared it away because they were to close. Then God blessed us again on the way back we saw Pika, which are little animals related to rabbits, but look like hamsters, a little one kept popping out and looking at us then darting away. As we were going down inspiration point a storm we steadily approaching so we picked up our pace and high jacked it out of there. Once we reached the bottom though it started raining, Garrett, Nathan, and I put on new rain ponchos that were bright yellow (our rain coats we had learned earlier were only wind coats.), we looked like little ducklings leading our parents. Once we got away from the boat dock and all the people it stopped raining and we walked to the truck in peace. Before we left though we soaked our feet in the cold mountain water river which felt absolutely amazing.

Tetons National Park Day 7: Today was an extremely fun day. We first got our junior ranger badges and then drove to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, along the way we spotted a Trumpeter swan with her babies. We were totally out of food so we had planned on eating out at this restaurant Mom had found, which we didn’t know had been closed earlier that year. So after driving around awhile to find it we ended stopping at Wendy’s. Then we drove again to get to the White water rafting place, we got completely lost and ended up arriving late. We all wore booties (except dad) and mom and Nathan got wet suites because we were rafting in river that had snow melt. At the beginning the first thing we saw was a bald eagle. We all loved the white water rafting, it was so fun and exciting we were going towards 5 foot waves in rapids and hitting them. Nathan was in the front of the boat and was supposed to be the wave spotter, but when we hit the first wave and he got soaked he just stood there for a while completely in shock. During times when we would hit really big waves Nathan would just disappear completely. Also Nathan got to help row for a while and steer the boat. We were all sad at the end of the rafting trip because we wanted to keep going, but we had a dinner to get to. We dressed and looked up the pictures they had taken of us going through the rapids. They were pretty funny. Then headed out to our chuck wagon dinner at Bar J Chuck wagon, if you are ever near this place you should totally go. The food is amazing but the best part is the show, I cannot even explain how good the show was, overall the best part was that they were amazing Christians and not afraid to proclaim their faith. They put on an intriguing show with comedy and singing mixed together. It was one of our most favorite places on the whole trip.

Pictures of Glacier

                                                Bear that scared us

                                            Baby Mountian Goat

                                                  Hiking up the glacier

                                          Just in case we didn't come home alive (before Grizzly trail)

                                               Hiking on Grizzly trail

                                                          Cracker Lake

Glacier

Sorry it has been so long since I have written we have been busy from sun up till sun down for the past few days, a lot has happened. Starting with the day we left the Grimes house, which was July 4^th. Originally Mr. Grimes, Dad, Mom and I planned to go to the YMCA to exercise but we didn’t realize that it was the fourth of July that day, so as we arrived we slowly realized what day it was because everything was closed. As an alternate option we decided to bike around Seattle, it was a nice ride in the beginning (going downhill) but then it changed for like 5 miles we biked straight uphill to their house. After our bike ride we headed out towards Kellogg, Idaho.  It felt like a terribly long drive but we finally arrived and set up camp. The camp site is where there used to be a gold mine but it’s abandoned now, you could pan for gold and finding some is guaranteed (too bad it was only fools gold)! That night we watched the fireworks the town put off. We were in the middle of a parking lot and people were shooting off fireworks all around us the whole time we had a continuous show the whole time.

July 5^th we set off again heading towards Glacier National Park we stopped at the white fish KOA, which was a very nice facility. Our day still wasn’t over yet, next on our schedule was to go hiking, we went to Avalanche Lake (5 ½ miles). The lake was very beautiful we walked around a forth of it enjoying the scenery. We think that we saw a bear up on a cliff but we don’t know it may have been a shadow. (I think that it was a shadow because it wasn’t moving at all) When we got back from the hike the parents made dinner while the boys played with these go carts, that you pedal and steer with your legs on. I read a book.

July 6^th we drove AGAIN! This time to the other side of Glacier on the way we stopped to see Dad’s cousin Jess, who he hasn’t seen on over 15 yrs. She took us on a float trip which was very relaxing and nice. Then we drove to our KOA outside of East Glacier.

July 7^th we woke up and hiked to St. Mary Falls and Virginia Falls, about ½ mile in the hike we saw a bear. Dad was leading us around a corner when he backed up repeating Bear, Bear. The bear looked at us and walked away we didn’t move for a half an hour after. The St. Mary falls were well worth the hike and very wet, which was a nice reprieve from the hot air. Once the hike was done we went to Logan Pass and hiked up a Glacier which was 100% covered in snow, we (the kids) absolutely loved the hike at the top we saw a Mountain Goat with a baby. We were supposed to see hidden lake, which lived up to its name, it was hidden in a layer of ice. On the way back down me and Garrett decided to slide down on of the hill on our bottoms. It was freezing (we were in shorts and t-shirts) and painful because the snow was icy. 

July 8^th we were scared to death because on our hike to Cracker Lake multiple people in front of us warned us that they saw grizzly bears, one group saw two and turned back. All of us were on edge, me especially but we made it to the lake. Which was absolutely breath taking color, it was turquoise blue. We ate lunch on a rock and saw a marmot running around; we got a picture of its bottom. The hike back was also nerve wracking, the whole way back we made a ton of noise by yelling and clapping to warn bears that we were there. Luckily we saw no bears at all. That night we relaxed in the pool and had a yummy dinner of pork tenderloin.

July 9^th I am typing this while we are driving and now I have to go Bye!

Gargantuan Post.....

Ramping down from a great visit with the Grimes family here in West Seattle and preparing to hit the road once again tomorrow on our way to Glacier National Park. We'll stop East of Spokane for a break midway and enjoy the fireworks. It was great to see Rick, Chris, Ben, and Sam. Two and a half years ago I sat at their kitchen table and told them we'd stop by on our big trip out West and viola....here we are...kinda surreal. The kids played great together and Chris did her best to fatten us up so we had energy stores for the weeks ahead. She deals in 'buffets', not just plain meals. Wow. We took a water taxi over to downtown Seattle and toured Pikes Place market and walked the waterfront today. Then we cooked up a feast of salad, homemade pizza, fresh salmon on the grill, Dungeness Crab, and.....delectable chocolate covered strawberries. A surprise visit from a college friend Bill Grdanski made for great night. Wonderful food, great company, and a fantastic sunset off of their back porch.

For you statisticians....a few stats thus far as we creep around the halfway point of our journey....

• 6000 miles driven.
• 125 hours in the truck together and still getting along.
• 125 miles of hiking. Biggest day was 13 miles.
• Over two miles of vertical climbing conquered. Biggest hike was 2150' of elevation gain.
• 92 miles of biking.
• No major injuries. Many scrapes and bruises. Judith's sprained ankle is progressing well.

We are WAY behind on pictures. Sorry. No good connections to enable uploading. Will try to catch up now....

First off,  a few more Yosemite highlights plus a few remaining Sequoia shots:

 Vernal Falls at Yosemite.

 Even higher on the same trail....Nevada Falls. a tough climb of 2000' to the top.

 Very steep and lots of steps that met Nathan at his thigh. He charged right through.

 Sentinel Dome and Nevada Falls in the background.

 On the road to Tioga Pass in the Sierra Highlands we hiked through beautiful Tuolumne Meadows.

 Then to the top of Lempert Dome for a great view of the Sierras.

 Descending down to Gaylor Lake - we had this trail to ourselves. Wonderful.

 Tioga Pass Road - View of Half Dome at Sunset.

 Tuolumne Meadows. We were watching the squirrels which act like Prairie dogs when one let out a 'cheep' and they all ducked in their holes. Then we saw the Hawk. We watched the standoff for 10 minutes. The hawk went home hungry.

 Grandpa Yellow Bellied Marmot surveying his kingdom.

Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls....snow melt is waning so flow was down.

El Capitan's 3000' foot face - using binoculars we saw climbers as they made the 3-5 day journey up the face. Hard to imagine. 

 Nice view of Half Dome and the valley as we biked along the valley floor.

The kids with Kai at Skye's house.

Mountain Bluebird at Lempert Dome

And the pictures from Redwood National Park....a painful drive up 101 but we finally made it there!

 Hiking the James Irvine Trail to Fern Canyon. Hiking through a creek - good times!

 

And then the going got a little tougher....

 We were rewarded with walls of beautiful ferns in Fern Canyon. Scenes from Jurassic Park were shot in this canyon.

 A half mile of ferns up both canyon walls. Very cool.

Faceoff: Banana Slug and a Snail...the snail retreated quickly...well, at least quickly for a snail.

 Redwoods don't have as much mass as the biggest Sequoias but they do have the height. Note the small speck of Nathan in his red coat in this picture. 

 You feel pretty insignificant among these giants.

We saw lots of Roosevelt Elk right beside our campground. 

Pictures from Olympic National Park....

 Hoh Rain Forest moss and ferns everywhere!

Thankfully, it wasn't raining when we were there!

 Perfect timing for a Rainbow over Sol Duc Falls.

 Brave man on a bridge.

 Exploring Dungeness Spit. Great fun throwing rocks in the surf.

 Look closely - Mount Rainier in the background.

 Cool driftwood everywhere on the Spit.

 Hermit crab from the tide pools at Salt Creek.

 Alise found two starfish!

 Searching the tide pools. Tons of crabs!

 What a treat - Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic highlands was in full bloom with wildflowers. Dozens of different flowers/colors.

 SNOW!!!

 Olympic Marmot.

 Hiking back down to the tree line.

Pike Place Market with the Grimes family.

 Smiles mostly driven by the planned stop at Menchies for frozen yogurt.

 Before the chocolate dipped strawberries were attacked.

Sunset from Rick and Chris' Deck. Nice.

Our longest post to date...now we're all caught up! Hope you have a safe and enjoyable 4th of July. God Bless America!