Blog Swap Time

Hey guys!  Today I am swapping blogs with Cortney.  You can read my post on her page!

Hello Elise's Readers!

I'm Cortney and I blog at Nerd on the Run www.chemrunner.blogspot.com. Elise and I are participating in a blog swap sponsored by the sb20 network of bloggers. We are supposed to share about a memorable childhood vacation and I will tell you about mine.

I grew up having very interesting summer vacations as a child in that I was able to go with my paternal grandparents and spend the summer with them on Lake Muskoka in Gravenhurst, Ont. I loved every minute I got to spend up there and in the water. I got to meet and interact with my Canadian cousins that I haven't seen now for almost 15 years. Those summers were very special to me.

Aside from my usual summer experience, the summer after 4th grade, my parents packed me, my sister and my paternal grandparents into an RV and we did a 2 week vacation road trip around the US. We got into the RV and jet setted to the west. I can tell you that we stopped at pretty much any historical landmark along the way. We took the southern route from Ohio to the SW of the US first. It seemed like we didn't get to anything special until we came up to the Rocky Mountains and Pike's Peak. That was an amazing sight to see, especially for a 10 year old nerd even back then!

The next place I remember getting to was Monument Valley where lots of old western movies were filmed. We got to tour Mesa Verde and visited the Grand Canyon. I was a bit unimpressed my the Grand Canyon because it just seemed like a bit hole in the ground to me. I'm sure if I had gone down into it on a donkey, it would have been more exciting but that didn't happen b/c my sister was too little and my dad was too big. We drove through the evening to Lake Powell and the AC in the RV went out and it was 95 degrees at midnight!! We got to a campground to get some rest but didn't stay long b/c no one could get much sleep in that heat.

From there, we headed north to Yellowstone National Park. I think this was my favorite part of the trip! There were sooo many animals and sights, sounds and SMELLS! I wish there was smell-o-vision that I would watch and remember the smells. I got to see Old Faithful go off and there was a giant herd of buffalo passing through the park when we were there. There were buffalo that were bigger than full sized cars and the car would disappear from view when they walked in front of one! I got to see my first Moose here as well as mountain goats and kept a snowball from the mountains where there was still snow in July! I think my parents found it in the freezer when they moved.

We left Yellowstone and headed east. We saw Mount Rushmore but I liked Devil's Peak better, possibly b/c it's nature and not man made. But MR was cool. I think back then the Crazy Horse was just getting started and I heard it still isn't finished b/c funding got pulled. :( We continued to head east and stopped in the Badlands. I'm not sure about the rest of the trip or all of the things we saw or places we stopped at, but I remember getting lost in Chicago with one of my dad's 'short cuts' which are never shorter in the long run.

I wish that I had some pictures to show of this family vacation but I can honestly say that it was the most memorable exeperience and best family vacation that we took while I was growing up.

Since then, I have driven across the country 4 times while living in WA state for grad school and none of those trips were as fun b/c they were in 3 days. I hope to be able to go back and explore all of those things again and enjoy the US and it's natural beauty!

Have you driven across the US? Where was your favorite place to go?

I haven't been to all 50 states yet, but Hawaii and Alaska are definitely still on my bucket list of places to hit!