Out West 2014: Through Wyoming to Yellowstone

Long drive. Loooooooooooong drive. Longdrivelongdrivelongdrivelongdrivelongdrive!

Short drive?

NO! LONG DRIVE!

Actually, the kids handled the drive really well. Will has a Nook, and we brought the ipadalong as Syd's e-reader, no playing apps allowed (or they'd fight over it and she'd never get to use it as an e-reader). Our public library is a member of a digital library that includes all the ebooks and audiobooks that you'd ever want, and all you need is wi-fi to return them and check out new ones.

I've also got a Nook, but for most of this drive I was engrossed in Robert Galbraith's The Silkworm. I love myself a good, hard-boiled detective novel, and when I read Galbraith, there's the extra fun of anticipating that maybe, just maybe at some point in the book a certain bushy-haired chick, or black-haired dude with a lightening bolt-shaped scar, might pass Cormoran on the street. It hasn't happened yet, but don't you think that it should?

The drive also included some lovely places to stop and stretch our legs a bit, such as one dirt road that we found that led to the most beautiful pasture, and the coldest mountain stream we've ever dipped our toes into--

Check out these freakin' wildflowers!!! Holy hell, Wyoming!!! Indiana wildflowers are like... black-eyed-Susan. Daylily. Wyoming wildflowers are like those bouquets that we buy in grocery stores in Indiana to give people on their birthdays.

 --and this pull-out at the summit of a mountain, where we watched the storm rolling in that later, desperately in search of another pull-out on our way down the mountain, since the brakes were acting a little loose and also we could smell them, I was pretty sure that we'd also die in:

Yellowstone was a blessing to attain, finally. We saw the bison that the kids had been DYING to see--

We saw lots of bison in Yellowstone, but only the solitary dudes, never the herds of females.

 --and hiked around one of the larger geothermal areas that I'd been looking forward the most to seeing:

The highlight, however, was something that I had told the kids over and over not to anticipate, because we more than likely wouldn't see it.

But see it we did, and our first day out, too!

Yep, we saw a bear. My Yellowstone rule is that when you see cars pulled over looking at something, you, too, must pull over and see what it is they're looking at. This rule gradually relaxes the longer that you stay in the park--if you've seen a couple of bison up close, you no longer pull over when you see more bison, and the same with elk, and mule deer, etc. But if you can't tell right away what people are pulled over to look at, you always pull over, too, and check it out, and that's how we ended up at this totally chaotic pull-out, in the pouring rain, with dozens of other tourists and one harassed ranger trying to keep them from actively becoming bear bait, watching this bear eat on a moose carcass, get a drink from the stream, walk around a bit, and then slowly amble away.

We never actually saw any wolves, although we did see wolf-spotters with their high-powered scopes hanging out at a couple of pull-outs, so I'm sure they were around. Tangentially, one of Will's favorite computer games is Wolf Quest, which takes place in Yellowstone.

We could only stay in the park for a few hours that afternoon before we had to head out for the night and drive into Montana to our hotel reservation, but even leaving the park at sunset, just on the backside of that big rainstorm, turned out to be a stunning event:

All that, and we still had three more days to enjoy Yellowstone!

Out West 2014: Devils Tower

Matt and I have been to Devils Tower before, over a decade ago on a summer road trip after we were married but before we had kids (on that trip, actually, we stopped to visit a friend from college who'd just had a baby. They lived on a lavender farm in Washington, and their little farm baby was soooo cute, and, um... two months later I got pregnant with Will). We only saw the tower from a distance, though, because by that point in our trip we were so broke that we were sleeping in the car and didn't want to pay the entrance fee.

So I was STOKED to go back to Devils Tower and actually go in this time!

We saw our best prairie dog town here at Devils Tower:

I caught this prairie dog in the act of sounding an alarm call!

Honestly, we probably would have made the detour just for that prairie dog town, but Devils Tower called to us--

--and although we didn't sketch it or make mashed potato sculptures of it, heed that call we did:

We hiked completely around the base of the tower--I hadn't expected the hike to take that long, as it's only a couple of miles, but I also hadn't banked on the base of the tower being almost completely surrounded by a glorious boulder field, suitable for climbing and hiding and jumping and sliding and exploring:

The kids had an absolutely glorious time, especially Syd, and managed to make our two-mile hike last approximately five hours.

Check out the Native American prayer flags:

On the far side of the tower, we also managed to spot some rock climbers, and hung out to watch them summit:

Can you see him on the right? That's the maximum reach of my telephoto lens. He's almost at the top of Devils Tower!

 And, of course, the kids spent plenty of time working on their Junior Ranger badges:

Other hikers kept giving us the side-eye, taking our kids out to the beautiful wilderness and then making them work on workbooks like that--shame on us! But I can't imagine what you would have to go through if you tried to tear these books away from these kids, and they learned a ton about geology and history and Native American culture earning this badge. Side note: check out the curriculum resources for Devils Tower. I haven't looked through them myself, yet, but I will be revisiting Devils Tower in our geography study this fall, so I'll take a look prior to that.

The wow factor of Yellowstone geysers aside, Devils Tower is probably the kids' favorite national park/memorial/monument. Jumping about on those boulders, they were happy as clams, absolutely in the flow of their activity, enjoying their bodies and exercising their imaginations. If we lived near here, I'd take them every single day.

But our reality is the opposite: we actually had a looooooooong drive ahead of us, over the mountains of the moon and across Wyoming and into Montana. Thank goodness we had happily exhausted kiddos in the back of the van!

Out West 2014: Mount Rushmore

Mount Rushmore is not my favorite national park/monument/memorial/whatever. I'm pretty dubious, frankly, about the idea of messing up a perfectly good mountain by putting a sculpture on it, especially considering that the historical Lakota, from whom the Black Hills were stolen, would SO not have been okay with having one of their special mountains messed up with sculptures.

I also think that it's pretty low that the NPS does not charge admission to Mount Rushmore, but instead charges an $11 parking fee. Parking fees, of course, are not covered by the yearly national park pass the way that admissions are--way to get money even from passholders, y'all! You think I can't figure that one out?

However, if you're in the area, Mount Rushmore remains something that you've got to do, even just once:

And I admit that there's more to do there than I remembered from my childhood visit (childhood memory: we drove there, we looked at it, it was hot, we drove away). I should have brought everyone along earlier, so that we could have hiked, but nevertheless, yes, we looked at it--

--but the kids also, of course, worked on their Junior Ranger badges--

--and we saw rocky mountain goats!

Awww, look at her sweet, mountain goat-loving face!

 There's a giant amphitheater facing the sculpture, and that's where we hung out with a billion+ other people come sunset, because we all wanted to see the sculpture lit up at night. And oh, my lord, Syd was sooooo badly behaved here! She wasn't as badly behaved as the two children behind us, mind you, who were a misery to just have to listen to ("I'm bored!" "When can we go?" "Can I have ice cream?" "How much longer?" etc. etc. ETC!!!), nor was she wearing a complete Day-glo yellow short set with matching sweatshirt like the two children in front of us, but nevertheless, she wanted to go back to the museum and finish her Junior Ranger badge, but when I took her back to the museum she did not want to actually complete any of the activities for the badge, but instead just look at them and feign stupidity and confusion and cry about them (she was tired), so I took her back to sit in the amphitheater, but she did not want to sit in the amphitheater. She wanted to work on her badge! And so on.

Fortunately, once Matt and I had bravely tuned out her low-voiced kvetching, we had a nerdgasm's worth of nerdy evening entertainment. First, a park ranger came out and told jokes and riddles about the presidents, and THEN he gave a giant lecture about Constitutionality and the Founding Fathers' view of the Constitution--fascinating! And THEN there was a really long documentary that gave a biography of each of the sculpted presidents in turn, and then a history of the creation of the sculpture!

Syd was beside herself. I had a fabulous time.

Finally, we all got to stand and sing the national anthem (Have I shared with you before the Fact about Me that I LOVE singing the national anthem? I always sing when it's played, even if nobody else does), and they lit up Mount Rushmore for our wonder and edification:

We stayed afterwards to clap when the ranger called up all the current and former members of the Armed Forces to the stage, but sneaked out when it became clear that this was going to lead to the very drawn-out tradition of every single person on stage getting to introduce themselves and tell their service history (dood, there was a lot of military there!). I was very anxious about taking the kids over to the ranger to turn in their Junior Ranger books, because although Will had finished her Junior Ranger activities and was simply bursting to tell the ranger all about them (Will told her all about the sculptor's vision of light and shadow as dynamic forces, and the ranger had a big ole' conversation with her about that), Syd had not finished, and was looking very baleful, indeed. I told the ranger that she had tried her best, though (even though she hadn't, ahem), and Syd was able to tell her some things that's she'd learned, so badges were duly handed out and oaths duly administered.

I probably shouldn't have kept Syd up that late, honestly, just because I wanted to see Mount Rushmore at night, but we had a bit of a drive on the next day for her to keep resting during, and then we were at Devil's tower, and oh, my goodness.

Syd LOVED Devil's Tower.

Work Plans for the Week of August 11, 2014

MONDAY: The kids both have some hands-on review before their upcoming math week--Will will be working multi-digit multiplication problems, so I've got her playing this Arithmetiles game that requires all four operations; Syd will be subtracting in columns, so she and I are going to draw a 100-square hopscotch grid down our giant driveway, then play with it and a 20-sided die (mental note: figure out how to DIY a GIANT 20-sided die!).

I did assign Will's book to her for her reading this week; there's tons of historical fiction for kids related to our pioneers unit study, and Will rarely protests a reading assignment. Dog Diaries was a HUGE success for Syd last week--I had to encourage her to finish it over the weekend, but hours after she'd finished she came up to me and announced, "I can't stop thinking about Ginger!" She's got another Dog Diaries this week, and then we might do Horse Diaries for the next couple of weeks, or I might try one of those historical fictions that seems suited to her interest and reading level.

Will has an experiment that she's eager to complete to finish up her Animal Habitats badge; Syd has only my extra assigned activities to complete to finish her Bugs badge. And then I have to figure out where I packed the patches so I can sew them on!

This week's horse breed is the Norwegian fjord. Thanks, Tina, for linking your horse geography worksheets for me--we're absolutely using those now! This will be our first week doing so, so I think I'll have the kids trade off researching the horse with researching the country each week.

TUESDAY: For spelling, I'll give each of the kids an oral test of last week's words, delete the words that they've spelled correctly, add some new words, and then set them loose on Spelling City. Spelling City is more fun than productive for them, but it gives them exposure to their words, at least, which is often all that they need to correctly spell them. Still, though, I doubt that I'll renew our subscription when it expires in the next month or two.

The cursive spot-testing went well last week, if only in that it taught me that the kids are NOT remembering their letters well! Spot-testing and frequent reinforcement will solve that, hopefully.

It's been rainy since Friday, so if it's dry tomorrow the ground should be perfectly suited to discovering animal tracks in the woods and fields behind our house. I plan to teach the kids how to field-cast tracks, then we can study them and use them to make predictions about the animals that they came from, just as paleontologists do.

Syd liked her Draw Write Now assignment last week, but Will put zero effort into it, so we'll move into Waldorf-style form drawing this week, after all. It's guided, so it will require Will's attention, it's simple, so she should feel successful at it, and I think it will be great for her fine motor skills and will improve her drawing abilities.

WEDNESDAY: Horseback riding lessons!

THURSDAY: Syd wanted to throw a party, so in the past couple of weeks she's written out an elaborate invitation to a couple of friends and mailed it, nagged me until I messaged her friends' mother to schedule a date and time, planned the menu, shopped for the supplies (with her father, so they're a LOT junkier than I would have allowed, but oh, well...), discussed with me every single piece of her two tea sets and how each should be used for the party, made alternate seating arrangements in case it rains, decided on frosting colors (why we need frosting for a cupcake mix that looks so sickly sweet already, I don't know), and has planned when she'll need to prepare all the food.

I've mostly just gotten out of her way.

With a hot chocolate party and our homeschool group's Park Day both on Thursday, I chose the quickest and most efficient school works for that day--math, grammar, and postcard writing.

FRIDAY: Some family is coming into town for the weekend and arriving on this afternoon, so I've possibly got our school day too full here, but I've planned for the coming Monday to be a vacation/catch-up day.

The kids did NOT like last week's fun geography game--in fact, they both pitched a fit and lost their hour's after-school screen time that is only earned by completing all schoolwork with a good attitude--so I decided to screw trying to make memorizing the states and capitals fun for them. They can trace and label maps for a while, the rascals, and then we'll see if playing a geography game sounds fun! The DO love How the States Got Their Shapes, however. Love. It.

They also didn't love making the lapbook for By the Shores of Silver Lake, and since the lapbook was really more about reading comprehension than the pioneer history that I wanted to teach, anyway, I'm going to drop it. Instead, we've got a chapter from A History of Us, and instead of studying the Ingalls' emigration to Dakota Territory, specifically, I think we'll cover the Oregon Trail--very applicable to the Ingalls, and there's loads of information for teaching it to these ages.

SATURDAY/SUNDAY/MONDAY: Family will be in town, so there will likely be some sight-seeing, some house-admiring, some how-do-we-fit-all-these-people-around-our-tiny-tabling, some drive-in movie-watching, etc.

P.S. I found this photo of Spots as a kitten back in 2010:

On Friday night, some college-aged women called Matt and told him that they'd found a cat that looked like Spots, so they'd captured her for him. Matt pulled on some clothes and drove over there, only to find that the cat that they'd kindly captured and put in a cage (gerbil cage?) in their kitchen wasn't Spots--more of a ginger tabby, really. He thanked them profusely and left as one said to the others, "So, did we just steal someone's cat?"

Probably, but thanks for your help!

My Latest: Furniture Refinishing and Pee Gardening

a round-up of upcycled playing card crafts

a round-up of the most important furniture refinishing skills

yes, another discussion of wastewater gardening

and my new fabric storage bin, made from an antique shipping container

Although it was quite interesting having a real estate empire, on Friday Matt and I closed on our old house. I'm alternately thrilled at having the extra set of hands to move and unpack here, since prior to this most of Matt's attention was spent prepping our old house for the sale, and horrified that with that set of hands comes a mind with its own opinions about where things should go and how they should look--the nerve!!!

At the moment, Matt and I are locked in a battle of wills regarding the dresser that I painted chalkboard grey. It's solid wood and awesome, and I set it at the foot of our bed with our TV on top and our DVDs and my exercise equipment in its drawers. The TV doesn't have a lazy susan, however, and I need to be able to turn it so that I can exercise on the floor opposite while watching it, so Matt found, also on the side of the road, a cheapo, particle board and laminate TV stand that's ugly as hell and that I didn't spend a billion hours painting, BUT that does already have casters on for easy rotation. He wants to put that cheap-ass TV stand there in our bedroom, at the foot of our bed, instead of my gorgeous dresser.

Crazy, right? I know!

Ooh, I know! Matt's at the gym right now--before he gets back, I think I'll go lift the dresser up and set it ON TOP OF the TV stand. He'll just love it, I'm sure.

Out West 2014: Black Hills, South Dakota

Keystone is a tourist hell-hole. It's where intellectually engaged tourists go to die and be reincarnated as Indian taco-eating, chainsaw sculpture-buying, "boardwalk"-walking, hokey tourist trap-visiting tourists.

It also has motel vacancies at reasonable prices during the heavy tourist season, however, and it's conveniently located near all the Black Hills sites that you want to see, so that's where we stayed for two freakin' nights. Blurgh.

I wanted to see Mount Rushmore lit at night, which they do during the summer, so we had the day free here on purpose to visit the paleontology museum of our choice. Our options were the Mammoth Site (mammoth and other remains still preserved in large part in situ), the Museum of Geology at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (huge collection, research-oriented), and the Museum @ Black Hills Institute (run by the guys behind the Sue controversy). Of the three, although the Museum @ Black Hills Institute is the smallest, we'd never seen a paleontology museum that wasn't run by an educational institute, and Matt and I were gossipily interested in seeing the place behind the people behind Sue, so we went there.

In retrospect, the Museum of Geology would have been a better choice, but the Museum @ Black Hills was still really interesting--imagine several lifetimes' worth of major fossil finds and casts, priceless both monetarily and to scholarly interest... set up all pell-mell in an old auditorium.

It was disorienting and overwhelming, with little flow or organization or contextual layout, so your response wants to be like that of a kid in a candy store, a lot of "OOH, look at that!" and then darting over to "Wow! Look over there!" and back over again to "Oh, check THAT out!"

It was interesting to see a collection that, although I'm sure it's carefully curated (I heard that there's an exponential amount of specimens in storage compared to what's on display), doesn't *look* as neatly and professionally curated, and therefore as sanitized, as a museum's collection always is. Many fossils are still partly encased in their field jackets, which, yes, looks really cool, but also cuts way down on the prep hours for each fossil:

It's a great choice, really, because it lets you see the muddle that a fossil often is found in. Check out the disorder in this skull:

It's overwhelming, though. How can you possibly look at all of this? You can't even SEE much of it!

Nevertheless, of course, we managed to spend a very happy time browsing and exclaiming and finding our favorites of all sorts of things:

Swag related to the Sue controversy!

Although I thought that Meteor Crater was too expensive, I do love that everywhere we go, we find fragments of that meteor displayed, and we have the context for them.

Edmontosaurus skeleton! This complete cast was compiled from bones from multiple skeletons.

One aspect of this particular museum that I really liked was that its information, when presented, was not written for the lowest common denominator. Here is information that someone who already has some knowledge of paleontology will still find really interesting!

anatomy of a T. rex skull

dinosaurs local to this area

After the museum, we tooled around the Black Hills for a few hours--Will and I wanted to visit a rock shop, so we did (I bought a big piece of petrified wood that I'm going to figure out how to polish, Will bought a big piece of obsidian, and Syd bought a set of rocks that will spark if you strike them together in a dark place), Matt and I wanted to visit a winery, so we did (this is why I may have drunk half a bottle of wine every night for the next week), and I wanted to check out the progress on the Crazy Horse sculpture, so we did:

We came home to drink wine, let the kids swim in the motel swimming pool, and pack them a dinner to take with us to Mount Rushmore that evening. 

I may have also taken a nap. Yay, wine!