Today we got the best news for our trip.  Sumner will be ok at the higher elevations (altitudes).  He had to take a special test last week and we got the results today.  Thank you Lord for watching over him.

Read over the old blogs last night and already we have made some adjustments to our schedule.  The kids love Adventures in Odyssey (a radio program for kids) and the headquarters for the show is in Colorado Springs, CO.  So the kids want to go there instead of TX.

THEN I was reading an article in Birder's World about John Thompson and his 1830 trip west from Independence, MO to the Columbia river in Washington.  For much of the way it parallels the Lewis & Clark trip.  ANYWAY, as I read about his route I knew that we had to add 3 of his areas to our trip.  The first stop we'll add is Craters of the Moon National Monument & Reserve in Idaho.  That will be on our way out of Yellowstone towards Salt Lake City, UT.  We'll hike & camp there & hopefully explore some lava tunnels/caves.  The second stop we'll make is the Pawnee National Grasslands in northeast Colorado.  Finally we'll stop at the Crescent Lake NAtional Wildlife Refuge in Nebraska on the way home.

What's another 6-8 hours of driving when you can stop and see some of the greatest birding, environments, and nature preserves in our country?!?!

So tomorrow I look forward to some hard cleaning- fast & furious.  PACKING the van.  YEAH!!! A Chiropractor's adjustment and massage to get tuned up for the trip & a final buying trip to get the last of the gear.  I hope to survive the preparation.

Well the past week has been a flurry of house cleaning & shopping.  

House cleaning because while we are on vacation a friend & her 2 boys will be house sitting.  Taking care of the pets- 3 cats & 1 red-eyed tree frog- and the house in general.  She's thinking it'll be a vacation for her as well.  BUT I refuse to let the house be messy before we go.  So we are cleaning; imagine the old fashioned spring cleaning your grandma probably did.  I defy anyone, including my mother, to find so much as a dust bunny in the rooms that we finished! 

Shopping to get the needed items to make this vacation happen.  Bear pepper spray (stay tuned for a blog about this topic), bathing suits, hiking stuff, SD cards for cameras, and general stuff.

So we've been very busy.  In fact, I've been wondering who had the more difficult preparation: Lewis & Clark with their Corps of Discovery or our family.  As a homeschooling family we decided to study Lewis & Clark in preparation for our trip west.  It is one unit of history & a lot of geography!  Yes L & C had to stock up on trinkets to trade with Indians (Native Americans) and yes they had no stores to visit for resupplying.  Sure they had to hunt for their food, camp without warm sleeping bags or even tents.  Yes they had to go where no White man had gone before- or at least mapped (I'll ignore the temptation to say something about men & maps).  BUT did they have adolescents to keep happy for 10 hours a day in the car?  Did they have to worry about where to charge appliances?  Did they have to consider how to get home schooling done while on the road?

NO they didn't.

So I'm off to clean a bathroom and make a information sheet for the house sitter, consider what more we need to buy, and read another section of Easy Day Hikes in Yellowstone.

So what have we done to get ready for this trip?  Other than buying backpacks and new tents & hiking boots?  I have READ!  The internet is great for finding things but I'm old school and still prefer the printed page to websites.  So I've ordered books from amazon and frequented the local library and made a few trips to the used book store 2o miles from here.  Of course I've read the travel guides and have gleaned some good ideas from them.  BUT the best planning books for me are the nature related ones.

The Visitor's Guide to the Birds of the _______ National Parks.  Is a great series!  I put the blank in the title because the books are available for the national parks from the east coast to west.  I have all of them except the Pacific Coast.  The author describes his own travels and birding in the national parks.  He, Ronald H. Wauer, gives great descriptions and wonderful info about what types of birds you can see, where they are most likely to be and where they live.  Although the books focus on the birds you learn a lot about the trees, vegetation and surroundings of the national parks.  The one thing lacking in these books are color photos;  so  I read them with bird and tree identification books close by for easy reference.  

Speaking of identification books- I tend to study them.  I find it easier to identify birds when I know what I'm looking for and where they are.  Sounds, songs, calls are NOT my strong point so I concentrate on the shapes, sizes and colorings.  I also find that I prefer to take a picture of a bird and then enlarge it to identify more difficult birds.  I have rather good success with this method.

I also enjoy reading the books- Best Easy Day Hikes in _______.  Again fill in the blanks with almost any area you could walk in and there are a surprising number of places I didn't think had good walking places.  For example, San Diego.  I thought cities didn't have hiking trails.  But if there are trails anywhere then these books can find them.  I have the books for Yellowstone, Santa Fe and the Grand Canyon.  These are the places we will be most looking for good hikes.  I am still looking for one for South Dakota- badlands.  We've chosen a few hikes from each of the books for our itinerary.  In Yellowstone we chose to backpack because of a trail that 1. crosses the continental divide and 2. has a very nice backcountry camping area.  In the Santa Fe area we will be walking through some canyon lands and Bandelier National Park (or is it monument?).  And at the Grand Canyon we have 3-4 hikes planned that include both above and below the rim at both the north and south rims.

Finally, I like the books entitled Off the Beaten Path in _____.  You guessed it. Fill in the blank with a state's name. I found Fort Osage, a replica of a fort made by Lewis and Clark during their exploration with the Corps of Discovery.  Fort Osage is on the south side of the Missouri River just east of Independence, MO.  The people at the fort dress the part and pretend to be soldiers or others from the 1800's.  This stop will be the culmination of our study on Lewis and Clark.  

For those of you that don't know us well, we home school.  And in anticipation of this trip we started studying about Lewis and Clark.  We're almost finished reading Seaman.  Seaman is Lewis'  Newfoundland and he traveled with the Corps the whole way! 

So whether you read books or websites there is a lot of information out there to plan the kind of trip you like.  Maybe birding and other nature loving activities like us.  Historical sites or even gourmet restaurants.  The point is to READ and discover your own perfect trip.

Some of you may think "Journal of a Happy Family"  wow they must be a family that really loves being together.  And that is true.  BUT the title is actually a stretch from a book by my favorite author, June Strong.  She wrote a book Journal of a Happy Woman and I have both consciously and unconsciously patterned much of my life on her advice and thoughts.  (that's why is is critically important to be careful in selecting who and what you listen to, watch & read.

June has been very influential in my life. In fact, I was just rereading Journal of a Happy Woman for about the 20th time and came upon a sentence or two that stuck me as "that's just like me."  Then I thought "well I read that 30+ years ago when I was in my teens maybe I subconsciously adopted her ideas."  

One thing I always wanted to do was hike around Monhegan Island off the coast of Maine, just like June did.  Last September our family went there and was blessed to have a day of hiking the island.

I highly recommend all of June's books as excellent Christian reading.  Other than Journal of a Happy Woman June has written Mindy (a slightly fictionalized biography of her grandmother), Project Sonlight, A Little Journey,  A Warm and Welcome Place, Where are we running?

So while we are a happy family that loves being together my blog title is also a tribute to a wonderful woman that I owe a great deal to and who is in some way responsible for my being me.  Thanks June!

I have dreamed of going west to tour the wonderful sites that God has made.  

5 years ago I went to a pathfinder camporee in Oshkosh, WI.  In 2004 my children were much too young to go (ages 3, 5, 6).  This camporee happens every 5 years and upon returning home I started talking to my husband about the next camporee.  The children would be old enough - now 8,10, & 11.  BUT more importantly since we would already be half way across country why don't we go a little farther?  Maybe MT. Rushmore or Yellwostone.

Well now camporee is approaching and our plans are progressing well for our family plan.  Well one small change, we aren't going to Oshkosh for the pathfinder camporee.  Instead we are dedicating our entire vacation to our family and seeing those marvelous works of GOD!

Our itinerary has evolved over the last month and is in the final stages of planning.  But now we are planning for...

a night in Hutchinson, Minnesota to visit my oldest sister.  Then on to...

South Dakota. The Grasslands for Prairie dogs, the badlands for anything we find interesting, Cave of the Winds, and of course, MT Rushmore.  we will try to find and fit into our schedule the carving of Crazy Horse, also

From SD we head to Guernsey, Wy and Casper, WY to learn more about the Oregon Trail.  Yellowstone for 4-5 days for hiking, backpacking, horse back riding (in near by Harriman state park) and Lewis lake.

Then on to the Grand Canyon. A day hiking the North rim, a day or 2 at the South rim and then to the West rim for driving into the canyon.  Leaving there we head to Hoover Dam and then to the Channel Islands off the coast of CA near Los Angeles.  There are birds- the scrub jay- endemic to Santa Cruz island where we'll be camping.

Then on to Legoland,  a concession to the boys need to build, for a day or 2.  legoland is about 30 miles north of San Diego.  

Then on back east through Phoenix for a day of MT biking in the desert.  Finally we reach Santa Fe, NM for a day of white water rafting and an evening of star gazing.  OK the males will be white water rafting while the females will be white knuckle praying!

In Albuquerque we fly Daddy home to get back to work and I take another week or so to drive back to CT via Amarillo, TX (daughter's other must do is visit TX), Missouri (Monett where my maternal grandmother was from) and to explore the land of Lewis and Clark, and lastly a stop in OH to visit a college roommate.

Of course all plans are subject to change, but this is the plan for now.  We may try to squeeze in a visit to friends in NM or we may become so enraptured with some beautiful place that we forget all about laundry days!

Stay tuned for final preparations and join us as my goal is to post pictures and blogs as we travel across country.