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