The grand adventure
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact

Day 1

11/2/2020

8 Comments

 
The car ride is long and boring. We find a few things to entertain ourselves, but  for the last few hours, we're just plain bored. we brought a bobble head moose. it took us 6 hours to name him. we decided to name him spurwinkle. We thought it would be fun if we brought him along with us to our adventures! -Finn

DAY 2

Welcome to Niagra! We finally made it!  We got to go UNDER THE FALLS! We brought spurwinkle with us. We found his head was highly flexible. The boat ride, Maid Of The Mist, was amazing. Here are some facts we learned on our journey; 1. I don't know if this is a fact, it's more of an opinion but who cares, the falls were EXTREMELY MISTY. 2. Niagra Falls is the oldest state park. 3.Niagra Falls was designed by the same person who designed Central Park, and that man is Fredrick Law Olmsted.4.the falls' vertical height is over 176 feet in some sections. 
Picture
Picture
Picture

DAY 3

We made it to Cleveland!! we didn't stay long, although we had a great time there!!! I had a nice pierogi dinner while watching the election. The election lasted about 2,000 years and is still currently on. My brother and my mom went to a market and I don't know the details but I'm just happy I got the treats. Well ill tell you about it Finn, when we walked inside, it was so much bigger then I thought, and there was so many sweets and meats, cheeses, etc. The building was over 108 years old!-Seamus

Chicago 1,000 mile milestone!!!

Picture
Picture
Picture
Chicago was very interesting. From deep dish pizza to seeing a giant silver lima bean, this was pretty fun. My family (except me) put their feet in lake Michigan. They said it was awfully cold. But I can't say what it felt like :(. We also did the river walk which was in the hart of the city. it was about 3,000 degrees Celsius (70 Fahrenheit). 
By the way, the car ride to Chicago was a lot easier.  We played games like the alphabet game(won cookies), categories, road bingo(thanks Mcbees!)and told dark jokes-
1. The Sears tower in Chicago is the second tallest tower in the U.S.
2. The name Chicago comes from the French interpretation of the Native American word, Striped Skunk.
3. The world's first elevated railway, The L, was made in Chicago  in 1892. 
​dark joke: 
WHAT IS RED AND BAD FOR YOUR TEETH?

A BRICK!
Picture

Day 4

Driving, driving, driving. Boring driving. Really, it's about 75 percent of our trip. It's not all bad though. It's a hybrid of sleep, doing nothing, family games, podcasts, and sometimes screen time. Honestly though, out of all that, I like the food. Sure there's been decent fast food restaurants, but have you ever had a steak and cheese sandwich that had lettuce, tomatoes, mayo, pickles, and was one of the greatest steak and cheese sandwich EVER?  Here's seamus with the states we've been through and facts about Iowa. The sates we traveled through are Maine, New Hampshire, Mass, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, and New York.
Some facts about Iowa are,
1. Hall of famer Kurt Warner was born in Iowa.
2. The worlds largest truck stop is in Iowa
3. Iowa is the U.S.'s leading pork and corn producer.

Day 5


Congrats to us for ten states milestone! That's really all that happened on this day. Here is seamus with the states and capitols.
1.Maine -Augusta
2. New Hampshire-Concord
3. Mass- Boston
4. New York-Albany
5. Pennsylvania(Fly Eagles Fly-Mom)-Harrisburg
6. Ohio-Columbus
7. Indiana-Indianapolis
8.Illinois-Springfield
9.Iowa-Des Moines
10. Nebraska-Lincoln

      Day 6
Front town/Rolling into Denver
​

Picture
Picture
We stopped on the way to an interesting and strange little town.  It had a sort of wild west/cowbiy-type theme.  It was called Front town.  We went to a museum with artifacts from the 19oo's- bullets, guns, and a whole section about a great train robery!  We took lots of fun pictures.



​

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture






Days 8, 9, 10

 Sorry, its been a few days- Nebraska did not have much going on, except for some delicious steaks!

BUT then we went to Denver, CO(the capital by the way).  
Denver was where our first major snow happened on our trip.  It was cold but it was very fun.  We stayed at a house with friends and met a new friend, Audra.  We played basketball, video games, and alot more.  Seamus has some facts about Denver:

Denver is 5,278 feet above sea level(mile high city)
Denver brews the most beer in the nation
The world's entire supply of Colorado rose onyx was used to build the capitol building(which we saw).

One night we had a huge nerf war. We each got a nerf gun and a fanny pack of bullets and began the battle.  Ofcourse, I was the one with the worst base room(the kitchen with the adults in the way).
  "Start!" I heard Seamus yell, and we were off.  I stayed at my base, hardly ever made a move, with only one alliance.  Seamus swapped base rooms unpeacefully with Audra.  She had the living room and Seamus got upstairs.  After   Seamus got the high ground he did not set foot off of it.  After a little while,  the nerf war stopped as quickly as it started.  We played another game the next day. This time I learned from my mistakes and I chose the upstairs- we were banned from the kitchen by parents!  Bullets were everywhere.

Seamus: 
Today we went with Audra to the Denver Central Market.  There was a lot of food to choose from, but Finn and I were excited about a meatball sub from the butcher shop.  Sadly it was SUPER TINY.  But Audra had a bought a HUGE piece of chocolate cake that she shared with us.  We ate outside in the snow! After that we went to see the graffiti art from the Denver Crush festival-which is all about graffiti art.  We saw so much cool art on the buildings(also in the snow).

Day 11
​Glenwood springs-hot springs

  when we pulled up to the natural hot springs spot- apparently the parents' thought it was too warm to go into the hot springs immediately bc they made  us go on a hike first.  A natural hot spring is a pool in the middle of no where (not man made) and the pool of water is heated by the heat from the core of the earth(geo thermal energy).  So we slowly got in, and swam around to find the warmer spots.  Seamus found a really hot spot first and then mom stole it.  We all got comfy in our spots- I did not want too warm of a spot.   We hung out for a while and i gave people mud "masks" bc the minerals are supposed to be good for skin.  We did not want to get out because the weather outside was freezing.  It was  a struggle to finally get out and the temperature had dropped.  we got dressed as quickly as we could, but we were SO COLD.  We hurried back to the car and I slipped in the mud.  We got really muddy.  Thankfully we got back to our camper and warmed up.   I thought it was not fun getting out, but overall an enjoyable experience!
Picture

day 12-13

Day 12 was a small but fun day. We had just arrived at Moab, Utah. We went hiking on a big trail that took us about 1 hour an a half to complete with cold water, big climbs, tall cliffs, and a lot more. Day 13 was very fun. We went UTVing on some crazy trails! UTVing is getting a UTV and driving it off-road. Several times we almost toppled over or nose dived! Also we found cool dino tracks! -Finn
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture

Day 14
Dinasaurs and stuff

When we were UTV-ing, we stopped to see some dinosaur footprints.  A few were there-which was amazing.  It was an area that used to be a wet delta and now is dry but the limestone preserved the footprints.  There was an alligator arm fossil that was over 4 feet long.  They were from millions of years ago.  We could tell the size, how they walked, etc. from the foot prints.  They found this site only 10 years ago!

Unfortunately some people stole and lost some of these footprints.  
After this we had dinner in Moab at a brewery.  It was a burger the size of an elephant-then we went to bed.  

The next day an active one.  First we went mountain biking-Moab is a famous mountain biking place.  Then I got pushed into a bush of pain(by guess who.)-they have these prickly bushes all over the place.  It still hurts.  I was in a lot of pain and had to pick all the prickly bits out of my fingers, so when everyone else stopped to see the Fremont Indian petroglyphs(native American cave scratchings and drawings) I did not get out of the car.  They were probably pretty cool.

Mom and dad made us do a research project on all the things we saw in Moab.  We had to present it to them in the camper.  

Canyons:  How they are formed: BY all of these things:  rivers, weather, ersosion, and tectonic plates

cave drawings:
there are 2 types: pictographs, which are drawings or paintings and petroglyphs which are carved pictures.
found mostly in the western US.  Utah has over 1000.  
Also found in new Mexico and Texas.  Fremont  Indians did a lot.  They show hunting, fighting, or religious themes.  the one we say was of a big bear, which is supposed to be an important animal to that native American tribe.

The Fremont tribe lived in Utah, Idaho, Colorado, and Nevada.  They lived from 700 to 1300 AD
They were named after the Fremont  river

Sandstone vs Limestone:
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock consisting of sand or quartz grains.
sandstone is usually red, yellow or brown in color.
Limestone is a sedimentary rock made of skeletal fragments and marine organisms and calcite and dragomite.

Dinasaur tracks and fossils:
Found on every continent in the world.
Mostly in the westeren US, Argentina and China
The most common dinasaur fossil is a tricertop. T-rex is next.  Most dinasaurs have been found to have very small brains.  They are actually found to be furry or hairy or have feathers, not liek we thought-scaly.  The word diansaur means terrible lizard in Greek!
​- Mom
Picture
Picture
Picture
                                                                          Day 15-Zion National Park
We camped right at the opening of the state park.  We got in late because we did not fit through a tunnel and had to go all the way around.  Dad was not happy.  So we did not see the campsite in the dark, but in the morning we saw we were right under the mountains.
 The first day we hiked to the Emerald Pools.  It was not too difficult but it was steep.  I used my new compass.  
The next day we hiked he Narrows.  The Narrows were intense. It is a hike through the canyon that keeps getting narrower and narrower until you can touch both sides, and you are mostly in the water. Cold and unprepared we were not ready according to the parents.  Apparently there had been some dangerous bacteria in the river and if you digested it, you could die.  And the water was  so COLD!  between 30-40 degrees.  Going in shorts may not have been the greatest idea.  Other people had rented special clothes and shoes to do it.  We did not get very far, but we did do it for a little while. People called us "brave".
We met some friends at the RV park from Maryland doing the same thing as us.
After our hike we went and had pizza and picked out some fudge at a candy store.  The next day we were headed to Death Valley.
​​- Mom
​

Day 16-Death Valley, Ca
​2500 miles, all the way across the country.

 Today we had a great day!  We started with a trip to the Mesquite Sand Dunes in DeathValley.  We played king of the hill together and we rolled down the dunes and raced. (this was one of the funnest things of the whole trip) Sand dunes are formed when a strong wind moves sand to place that is low and then it gets stuck there and piles up.  After that we went to Mosaic Canyon.  This is a slot canyon- a narrow hike - but this one was different because it was formed by strong water that when it evaporates , it leaves many different rocks that  crush together and solidify which makes it look like a mosaic.  Also it creates marble-(noon day dolimite) we slid on the smooth marble slides.  
After that we went to a tiny town called Stovepipe to get gas-The price was a whopping 3.51 per gallon! Finn and I got some really cool t-shirts(Death valley is the hottest place on earth).Then we went to the Borax mines.  It became so windy it could knock you backwards.  We still are not sure what Borax is used for...
To top off an amazing day, we went to the lowest point in North America-Badwater Basin-280 feet bellow sea level.  IT was a salt flat.  We took off our shoes and walked around in it, it felt so weird. I am not crying in the picture on the right. I am closing my eyes because of the sun (Finn).

​​- Mom
Picture
Picture
Picture

Day 17-Hoover Dam

 On our way to Lake Mead we stopped at the Hoover Dam.  WOW. That was cool.  The Hoover Dam was built in 1936.  It created Lake Mead(named for the Engineer).  It  gave water to the Central Valley, Ca, which produces over 80% of our fruits and veggies.  We had to go through a security check to see the Hoover Dam.  We touched the toes of the Eagle statue for luck(but don't worry mom made us use lots of  sanitizer after).  There was 96 reported deaths from accidents when they built the dam and we saw a monument to them(many of them were Native Americans). The dam creates enough electricity for 400,000 homes each year.  It is not Government funded now, it makes its own money with electricity supply. It is one of the 8 engineering wonders of the world.  We brought Spurwinkle to check it out.  It is split between 2 time zones- we could keep jumping back and forth an hour!  Seamus-It made me queasy looking down from the top into the water.  Back to Finn- There was a Pat Tilman brigdge memorial which was really cool because he was a football player for the AZ Cardinals that gave everything up to enlist into the army and then died in combat.  -mom

​day 18-Boulder city, lake mead

We had an amazing campsite at Lake Mead.  We had a site overlooking the lake! Lake Mead is the largest man-made lake in US.  We decided to stay an extra day because it was so beautiful.  It was sunny and 70 degrees and we were right on the water.  We saw Roadrunner birds and jack rabbits-no scorpions yet...The first night we had grilled tuna tacos for dinner.  It was one of the highlights of  the trip-they were sooo good.
The second day we took a long bike ride and we stopped by an old deserted resort that used to be famous but now no one is there and it is boarded up.  Seamus got a flat tire, which took forever to fix.  We biked into the night.  
On our final day, leaving Boulder City to Vegas we did a lot of things.  We went fishing with the locals.  We did not catch anything, but other  people were catching striped bass.  We also stopped by a huge marina.  We walked along the docks-looked at boats, but the really cool thing was how many fish we saw-from HUGE orange catfish to tons of  dark stripers, fish were EVERYWHERE.  The catfish were like 100 pounds and you could touch them.  After that we left for Vegas.

​-Mom

Picture

​Las Vegas

The moment we got to the hotel-it was so big we could not find a front door that did not lead into the casino! We had to walk through the casino to get to the elevators.  We had our eyes glued to our bags because I don't think we were supposed to be in there! 
We stayed at the Paris hotel.  It was supposed to look like Paris! It had a giant eiffel tower.  It had a chapel and a pool.  It felt like we were in Paris, it had french restaurants and a real French vibe.  
We went across the street to see the Bellagio Hotel water show.  It is a huge fountain that like dances to music.  It is a tower of sprinklers that shoot water so high. It was really cool.

​The next day was really fun. We decided to go to New York hotel. We went to the Hershey's' store, the arcade (which we got 226 tickets), which was really fun. We got sushi because sushi is supirior to all foods, and the day ended.
​- Mom
Picture
Picture

Day 21?  Sedona, AZ

Picture
 I'm kinda loosing track of the days here, slowly going insane for all these days I wake up early. I think it's the 23? Sedona, Arizona.  Anyway,  we got settled in our camper, and we go fishing in a creek behind the campground.  We bring a lure box, my fishing pole,  the net, and my dads' pole.  I don't catch a fish, but AHHH!  A scorpian- nope, it was later revealed to be a crawfish.  According to our research crawfish are not native to Arizona.  They were brought in accidentally or on purpose to cause mayhem.  There are now so many of them and you are encouraged to catch them.  I could not catch any, they were too fast.  We went to lunch where we were supposed to see wild boars, it was good, but no boars.  Then we went to a cool park where we road mountain park trails and played a competitive family game of tackle football.  Seamus- Mountain biking was really hard, and I fell on a cactus I had prickles all over my body and it hurt.  Finally we finished the day stopping by a Native American craft collective.  We ate dognuts and then took pizza home.

​oops we missed a day...

Picture
right before Sedona we stopped on the famous route 66 to do a tour of a Grand Canyon cavern.  It was really cool.  It used to be under water millions of years ago, but now there is zero water.  It is a huge underground cavern.  While there we learned about minerals, and then learned about a GIANT SLOTH.  as big as a dinosaur.  it apparently fell through a hole into the cavern and got trapped there.  We saw claw marks where it tried to escape.  They found claws and bones inside the cavern-It never escaped.  We saw lots of fake gold and diamonds and silver.  We saw a petrified mountain lion and bat, that also got stuck down there.  No living life down there now because there is no water.  You can sleep down there in the total darkness and there is enough goverment food and 2000 people for 2 weeks.  There was a stage down there too.Also there were rumors of paranormal activity down there.
​                            After that we drove a little and stayed at this place called Mike's rt 66 saloon.  We went and had a soda and the owner had us on a scavenger hunt because the place had so much stuff from the past.  She also let us write our name on a dollar bill and staple it to the ceiling so it is there forever!

DAY 24, I THINK

 THANKSGIVING!- we landed in Mount Picacho near Tucson Arizona.  We met a friend called "o" whose mom owned the campground.  We played basketball and swam on Thanksgiving!! There were a lot of cactuses there.  We had trout for Thanksgiving.  I missed turkey, but it was cool.  We made it fun.  After Thanksgiving we went to this weird Ostrich farm.  We fed all sorts of animals starting with donkeys.  There were goats, and parakeets that went wild eating off of our seed sticks. The ostriches were aggressive and scary.   Ostriches are prehistoric- they are the only animal that are two-toed and they are reptilian.  We then fed the lorikeets-those are crazy birds.  We had food in a container and they popped of the lid by themselves.  They landed all over you if you offered food. It was kind of chaotic.  At the end we could feed sting rays.  They had no stingers(so I guess you could call them just rays-ha ha!).  It freaked me out because they sucked on to you and kind of licked you.  It made me feel weird.   

After we went to Yuma, we stopped at an old prison on the Colorado river.  The prison was nick-named the "Hellhole" because of its heat and terrible conditions.  We saw lots of bats in the dark room-which was their solitary confinement-basically a cave built in the rock.  In the museum they talked about the inmates some were even woman.  some did murder and some just had more than one wives.
Picture










​day 26ish

We are now headed to San Diego.  We went to Boulder City-Desert tower look out.  The tower was closed but we could climb the big boulders.  We climbed around several carvings and paintings of Native Americans and animals, went in caves, saw a lizard and cacti.  and we had a picnic lunch.

​On to San Diego.

today's date is Nov 30th.

Picture
Picture

​

Day IDK

All I gotta say is IDK. Anyway, we went to Joshua Tree state park, which was fun. We went bouldering, which was acrophobia 85% of the time. We originally got confused but eventually we got it. Apparently, the entrance was blown open. We saw no snakes, scorpions, tarantellas, but a black bird that was calling it's mating call strangely quietly. The park was named after the trees. Joshua trees were spiky but not cactus spiky. There was like pineapple tops on them. That's really all that happened today.
Picture
Picture

NEXT...Palm Springs/Joshua Tree, CA

Today was fun.  We went to Palm Springs and looked at a few stores.  Seamus and I bought a cookies and cream shake with our own money.  Then we went to a really nice Mexican Restaurant.  I got a nice octopus platter and it was very good!  On our way home we stopped at a date farm.  They grew oranges, limes, lemons, grapefruits, dates, and pommegranites there.  We bought some tasty dates without hesitation. I loved them. Back at the campsite we went swimming in a 90 degree pool with mom. It was boiling warm. Getting out was troubling because it was starting to get really cold.
Picture

Somewhere in California, sometime in December

We left the warm-pooled campsite.  On our way to our next stop we stopped at a huge cactus farm.  We looked at serveral cacti and finally decided on one called the "devil's tongue" because it all agree on it(rare) and it had flowers.  We hope we can keep it alive until home.  At our new campsite is on the Colorado river.  We look right across at Arizona.  The first day I had to go to school and do a lot of catch up homework(sad face).  I did go on our paddle board with my mom.  We paddled all the way from California to Arizona and back again!  ( it was just across the river)  It was really fun, we checked out a remote beach and the huge cliffs going right into the water.  Then we played soccer and we lost the ball on a roof.  we had to find a ladder and we sent Seamus up on the roof.  Not sure we were allowed to be there.  When we got home we crafted some mighty fine gingerbread men with icing and jelly beans and candies.  A good day all-in -all(besides school).

Facts about the Colorado river--
it is 1450 miles long.
it starts in Colorado and ends in Mexico
it goes through7 US states and 2 Mexican states(including the Grand Canyon)
it supplies water to 25 million people
there are 11 US national parks along the river.

Near lake Havasu

Picture
This day was full of fun. The first part was not fun. just school. But when I was done, I went paddle boarding with my mom from California to Arizona. I did some fishing with my dad, but caught nothing. I played soccer with my dad and Seamus until I got drilled in the stomach by a ball. After, we came back to the RV to get dinner. We ate dinner and went to bed.

...

Today was mostly made of driving.  However, we did go to a museum off the road.  It was called "The THING?"  This weird museum talked about how they believe that aliens came to earth and tried to control the diansours, failed, then killed the dinasours with a meteor and then had a civil war with eachother.  They still live among us, secretly, and the evil aliens control the bad things that happen in the world while the other side tries to protect us.  I thought the museum was definately a little weird, but interesting anyway.  After that we stopped at a school store with all Arizona stuff and went christmas shopping. we all got things for eachother.
Picture

Sledding on sand?!

Who needs snow to sled, we went sledding on sand.  We are in New Mexico at White Sands National Park.  The white sand dunes were very cold even though it was not snow, but it did not melt and was not wet.  The sand stays cold because it traps and keeps water underneath it all the time  and in the night the desert gets very cold.  We rented sleds and waxed them up as we drove through the park.  We only picked the finest, steepest, and tallest sand dunes to sled.  My mom agreed to go first-she was very excited.  She went down and flew all the way to mars, it seemed.  At the bottom of the hill, she suddenly flipped over, off the sled and hit the ground hard.  We laughed and laughed and laughed, and yes she was ok!  We have it on video.  We sledded, surfed, and messed around in the sand for a while.  We started getting cold so we headed back.  It was really cool, because there was only white sand dunes in sight for miles.  I navigated us back to the camper(it was easy to get lost)  and we headed back on the road.  

Before we stopped for the night we went to Pistachio Land.  It was a farm that grew pistachios and grapes for wine.  It had the World's biggest Pistachio in front of it.  We checked outa few things in the store-there were no tours because of COVID. We had amazing pistachio ice cream that Seamus and I LOVED VERY MUCH.

Pistachios are a desert plant.  It flowers in the summer and then once the flowers go the nuts come out. Pistachio shells are not really green and some companies dye them green to sell better.  

I was wondering why the ice cream was so green and this is what I found out: 
Chlorophyll in the pistachio nuts. Although green food coloring IS added to many commercial brands of pistachio ice cream to help produce the bright green color, this is not always the case. In fact, using good quality raw pistachios with their natural green coloring does impart that color often.

​

ON OUR WAY HOME

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
We got back to Denver! we are getting close to home! Back at Denver, it was mostly unloading the camper and playing video games with our friend Audra.  It was great to see Audra again.  My parents were happy to see their friends too.  Marina got us these kits to make gingerbread houses- it was fun but kind of a disaster. The unloading was long and not very much fun at all.  we played some soccer outside too.  After 2 days in Denver it was time to return the RV.  I was rather disappointed to return the RV- It will be missed because we had such a great time together as a family.  But it also means we are headed home, and I am excited to go home too.

After we left Denver we are now traveling in our small SUV all together.  YIKES.  We got to Kansas the first night.  We got a little lost on our way to our Airbnb.  we stayed in this really cool/crazy place with colorful. painted walls, a sauna, and the bathroom had no doors!!  Also it was my first time sleeping in a water bed!!!  It is now really cold again, with losts of snow.  Next stop was a hotel in Topeka, Kansas, which is the captital.  Not much happened, but there was a pool so we could swim and mom and dad got us sushi to eat in the room and we watched  the movie "scrooged" which was a good christmas movie.



Picture

St louis

We are in St Louis. The arch is pretty cool. We shared our opinion on how tall we thought it was. Anyway, we  went to a zoo with some things out of order, but still was fun. My dad wants me to choose an animal to research. I think I will choose hippo or elephant. After that, we went to the arch. It was very stable and was very tall. Did you know you can go up the arch? Anyway, this was super fun and interesting. We also had some nice ice cream treats.
Picture
Picture

Goodbye, trip.

On this trip, we had crazy adventures, big surprises, and great fun. MY favorite part was the grand canyon caverns. the gemstones and rocks and geodes fascinated me. I loved this trip and I want to go on a trip like this again. On this trip, I learned that home is not just a house, it's part of the family. I have learned to love my family more and adjust to them.
8 Comments
    Picture

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact