This is going to be a really great post, because I have so many kitten pictures: De Smet wasn’t really on the way from Sioux Falls to the Badlands, but it wasn’t that far out of the way, so when I learned awhile back that they have RV sites right there at the Ingalls Homestead, I […]
An Evening in Sioux Falls and Sioux Falls KOA Campground Review (Plus a little Sioux City)
Travel dates: June 3-4, 2017 It was dinnertime in Sioux Falls, SD, and we were running into an unexpected problem: none of the restaurants we could find seemed to want us there. I looked up a few different places online and noted that they had “no one under 21 allowed” policies for no discernible reason. […]
Haworth Park in Bellevue, NE (near Omaha): Campground Review
Travel dates: June 1-2, 2017 We weren’t supposed to be in Haworth Park, and, in fact, we weren’t supposed to be camping in Nebraska at all. We had big plans to hit Topeka next after we left St. Louis…but then our AC’s condensation started leaking into the front wall of the trailer, and that’s not […]
2017 Eclipse! Also some Waterfalls and a Return to Vogel State Park
Travel dates: August 20-21, 2017 For the past few days, I’ve been trying to put my finger on what, exactly, makes a total solar eclipse SO incredible. If you didn’t see the eclipse yourself, you’ve no doubt observed that those who did seem to have been universally awed and overwhelmed by it. Probably people who […]
Casino Queen RV Park in St. Louis: Campground Review
Travel dates: May 29-June 1, 2017 Read more about our stay in St. Louis here Let’s just get this out of the way right up front. Here’s the best thing about staying at Casino Queen RV Park in St. Louis: This was the view from right outside our trailer. Last time we were in […]
Our Cross-country Family Road Trip: What Worked and What Didn’t for our Two Month RV Trip
My first summing everything up kind of post about our cross country trip was all philosophical and meta and whatnot. This one, on the other hand, makes no pretense of grand observations about the meaning of life…it’s about the mundane, practical details involved in spending two months seeing the country in a travel trailer. We’re […]
Two Days in St. Louis with Kids and Bikes: Four Free Things to Do
Our family’s relationship with St. Louis goes all the way back to spring of 2015, when we went there and to Mammoth Cave for spring break. And we had a fabulous time (and didn’t get to see nearly everything), so we decided on St. Louis for our first multi-day stop of our summer trip. We […]
Seven Points Campground near Nashville, TN: Campground Review
Travel dates: Sunday, May 28-Monday, May 29, 2017 One thing we’ve noted about lodging prices in Nashville is that they’re completely nuts. I remember this from our weekend trip there in fall of 2015, and we found it again when we started looking for a place to stay this summer. I’ve heard good things about […]
Holiday Travel Park in Chattanooga, TN: Campground Review
Travel dates: May 27-28, 2017 Chattanooga is only a couple of hours from our house, and there’s tons and tons to do there, so we go pretty frequently. Holiday Travel Park is, in fact, the third Chattanooga RV park we’ve stayed at (you can read my review of Raccoon Mountain here and my post about […]
Summation: Thoughts on Sixty Days on the Road
One of my professors in grad school liked to tell an anecdote about the tedium of reading college admission essays. A huge percentage of the essays, he said, were about a life changing trip the kid had taken at some point during high school. And the grand revelation all of these kids came to on […]