We left our place at Mt Rushmore in the wee hours of the morning which enabled to catch this great sunrise.  We were on our way south.  Texas or Bust!  Both Greg and I have family in Texas so we were excited to get there.

This is proof I drove the bus!  Driving through the Midwest wasn’t bad.  Straight and flat…forever.  Major bug issues though.  🙂

One of the greatest benefits to RVing…ability to crash anywhere.  We made it to Texas without any particular issues.  We were greeted to temperatures just below 110 degrees!  Yes, I was sufficiently thawed out.  After looking back at pictures we realized we hadn’t taken any at my sister’s house and very few of Greg’s family!  We were too busy yacking and catching up.

One thing we did while in the area was the Fort Worth Stockyards.

I want one of these benches!  Oliver’s face just cracks me up.

I loved this line of glasses.  If only I could find one that will fit in a cup holder…

The kids loved these swamp fans.  A great way to beat the heat.

We did visit the cowboy hall of fame.  Nothing too write home about but we did see all the different types of old wagons and what they were used for.  So a little history.

One of the things we really wanted to see at the Stockyards was they Longhorn Drive.  We made it there just in time.  Once Oliver saw these guys turn the corner he was not too sure about it.  They are big!  But he quickly found his way back to the edge of the sidewalk.

Visiting Mt Rushmore was our fist “official” home school stop.

I was so bummed its out of focus but she is still so cute!

Many, many…many stairs

We took a lot of pictures of the “faces.”  And just when we would decide they really hadn’t changed and none of them blinked…

We took one more just to be sure.

Greg and Zoe reviewed history facts at each stop.  Greg loves history and I loved watching these interactions.

Each of the kids completed their workbooks to earn their Junior Ranger badges.  There was talk of the trees smelling like something mom would have in the spice rack.  It was suggested we give one a smell to identify it.

Like any good home school dad, Greg was the first to test it out.

Unfortunately, we were not able to detect a spice smell.

We left Mt Rushmore and drove through the Black Hills.

There were many tunnels like this.  Inside, the chisel marks are still clearly visible.

At the end of the day we asked ourselves “What did we learn?”

Zoe:  I learn about the presidents, the presidents were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. And my favorite thing you learned was how the sculptures used a crane house to get up and down to the faces.

Ezekiel:  I got a ranger badge from that man.

Oliver:  I learned nothing, but I got tired on all the stairs. And we looked at a lot of rocks.

Abigail: I gave a park ranger a high five!

Mom: I like seeing the pictures of them working on the Mountain. And the fact that they had to use sealant to keep the faces together.

Dad: That Mount Rushmore was supposed to be a lot more finished.

It was a great day at school.

As many of you know our trip this year did not end well.  But before everything crashed and burned (or just burned) there were some happy times and good memories made.  So, lets start there.

We left for our trip in the wee hours of the morning.  Wanting to take advantage of less traffic and sleeping kids.  We actually slept in the bus the night before so we wouldn’t have to move kids.  This worked great!  I think Zoe woke when the bus started but did fall back asleep once we got on the road.  Our first destination was Western Idaho to visit my brother and his family.  We had a wonderful visit and were able to see their new house and get a tour of the area. We even headed to a museum for some history!  This is a home school trip after all.

The boys working on their lake and bridges

Zoe and her cousin Rose reconnecting

Next on our list was Mt Rushmore.  So, we headed east.  Our first mechanical adventure happened in Billings, MT.  It turns out the bus did NOT appreciate the extreme heat we encountered so, we spent a day at a shop in Billings while they worked it out.  We took over their waiting room (thankful for the air-conditioning) and even did a bit of our school work.  Thankfully, we were back on the road by that evening ever eager to get to South Dakota.

Here are a few photos of our drive there.

Because we’re all a little crazy

Lots of cows and “mountains”

One of the best views we found!

So great we had to stop to take a family picture

Beautiful sunsets

Goodbye Montana!

Greg drove through the night and by sunrise we were driving through the last stretch of woods.

Cabin in the woods anyone?

Our campsite at Mt Rushmore was awesome.  Probably one of the best we have stayed it.  It was a KOA and they had so many things for the kids to do.  The kids and I were able to head outside to explore while Greg took a well deserved nap.  He was, after all, the one doing all the driving at this point.  We decided just to hang out at camp this first day and hit the ‘faces’ when we were all refreshed.

Here are the kids playing around after a long drive:

These jump pillows are one of the best things around! Absolutely loved it.