August 2013 – Page 2 – Crawford Family Sabbatical

August 5, 2013

Check out the travel map

Hey guys, I just wanted to make sure you were aware there are some “sticky” links at the top of the blog. “Home” takes you to the regular list of posts in reverse chronological order. “Our Home” is a page about our RV. “RV Living” is a link to posts about RV lifestyle. “Our Journey” is a map widget that shows where we’ve been and a view into the future. You can get to related blog posts by clicking on a push-pin on the map or by clicking the name of the location in the list below. I hope you enjoy it. I was fearful that nobody would find it and it was a bit of work to get setup so… Leave a reply and let me know if it works for you and if you like it. It’s a nice way to browse the blog posts by geography and timeline.

August 5, 2013

Teton National Park

Our second national park stop, was Grand Teton in Wyoming. What an amazing place! We stayed at the Coulter Bay campground, which was just across the road from a beach on Jackson lake. Within 5 minutes of parking, we were at the beach exploring, skipping rocks, and scouting swimming potential. There was a storm rolling in, and it looked supernatural across the lake.

We wish we would have had a bit more time there, but some highlights included:

1) hike around Jenny Lake.. though the kids convinced us to take the boat back
2) lunch at the Jackson lake lodge… if you are not campers you should check out this lodge… amazing
3) hanging out at Lake Jackson, skipping rocks and trying to knock rocks off a larger one

We also went to Jackson Hole for an evening had had amazing pizza at Caldera’s pizza.

Beach across the road from our campsite. This was right after we arrived at the end of the day.

Scale model of area, showing Jenny Lake where we hiked.

Dad got in trouble for this one. It’s hard to tell, but Kane climbed out onto a fairly narrow outcropping here.

The destination of the Jenny lake hike… hidden falls

Coming back from a detour to photograph the river.

Kids chipped in to pay for the boat ride back. We really needed to get back to camp to start dinner!

Kat setting up a round of “knock your rocks off”. Kind of started as an accuracy contest for throwing rocks, and as they got bigger, turned into rock bowling.

This little guy was curious what we were doing on the trail… or hoping for a zagnut

Nice sunset coming back from Jackson Hole.

I hope you appreciate this one… I got swarmed by mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds to get it.

August 5, 2013

Black Hills of South Dakota

We came to the Black Hills of South Dakota with one thing in mind… Mount Rushmore. Borglums masterpiece did not disappoint, however, it was not the hero of the stay. The real hero of the Black Hills is… the Black Hills. Specifically Custer State Park.

What a beauty the park is. My Aunt and Uncle had told me the week before we left that Custer State Park was nice. I have to admit even still, Kim and I hesitated at the gate to pay the entrance fee (I think it was $15). Boy that was laughable in hindsight. The park is filled with beautiful lakes, the most amazing Ponderosa pine forests, and wildlife galore. We all fell in love with this place. If you think of Babler when you think of state parks, forget everything you thought you knew about state parks! (no offense to Babler fans, it’s nice too) 🙂

This is one place that will be tugging at my heart for years to come. I hope we get to go back someday.

Our first hike in the Black Hills. We were supposed to go 5 minutes up the hill and back, but we ended up hikeing the whole loop. (maybe 2 miles)

A rare view through the trees at the top of the hill. These ponderosas are so gorgeous.

These kids love to fish. Kane would fish every day if he could.

We took the (very) windy scenic route up to Mt. Rushmore. There are several tunnels carved out along the way whereby you can see the mountain framed up in the tunnel. (and the trees have been trimmed too).

Incredible to catch your first glimpse of these bad boys.

Cool with the storm rolling in. They don’t mind.

You can pick your first President, and you can pick your nose, and you CAN…

The deer come out in droves in early evening.

Our first “top-down” drive… the Wildlife Loop in the park.

Begging Burrows. Evidently when the Burrows rides were shut down, the owner turned them loose in the park. Theire lineage is still there.

We hoped and hoped and waited to see Bison, then over the last hill…

We had to weave between these guys to get past

August 5, 2013

Badlands

We had a great time in the Badlands. First of all, it was our first National Park of the trip, so it will always have that! Second, it’s one of the only parks that literally allows you to go anywhere. Hiking and climbing is encouraged, and not just on the trail. Our two monkeys took full advantage!

There is something spectacular about driving over the plains of mid South Dakota, and coming upon this desolate place… As our cousin Vincent said “it’s like the surface of the moon”. Weather was beautiful, park rangers were friendly, and scenery incredible.

Sun setting on our first day. This was a quick hike in the area just north of our campground, just killing time waiting for our ranger program to start (Black-footed ferrets)

Kat working on the junior ranger program book.

Kane working hard on his Junior Ranger program. The kids really love getting their badges or patches.

“Who Pooped” Ranger program… with real samples (in ziplocks)

A little “high desert” vegetation managed to grow here. Some really pretty little flowers here and there.

Requisite “sign” pic… we’re trying to get most of these that we can. Really nice visitor center, and fun junior ranger program.

Ladder required during the notch trail climb. Kat did great. Kane found another way down.

These kids are SOOO happy when we are outside exploring.

This sign was top of mind for Kat the rest of the hike… it really left an impression on her.

Kane wanted to pull over the jeep to take a pick of this valley. We ended up climbing up on a pretty steep hill to get this shot.

Mountain goats hanging out across a small canyon from southern lookout.

Kids taking photos and videos of prairie dog… unbelievably close. (see Kane’s video in another post)

August 1, 2013

Last day in Jasper NP

We checked out the free GPS unit to look for the cache in our campground. We tried to find 2 of them and only found one(Scott is good at this, kids and I did one by ourselves and just could not locate the cache-it was somewhere in the middle of a wood pile). After lunch we headed to Maligne Canyon(really it is a gorge). It was so calming and peaceful with the sound of the water rushing through the canyon.