Arches

Growing up in the Midwest whenever someone mentioned arches, I always thought they were referring to the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.  I have driven by it numerous times but I've been to the top only once.  It's not that exciting to go to the top so we just stopped for a quick photo.

Now when people I know talk about the arches, they are referring to the Arches National Park just north of Moab Utah. During our three hour visit, we walked out to the Windows, the Double arches and the balanced rock.   The formations were amazing! 

Corvettes in Kentucky

Did you know that Corvettes are assembled at a plant in Bowling Green Kentucky? If not you probably didn't know that the Corvette museum is across the street from the assembly plant.

As Bowling Green was on our way back east we did a quick pit stop to visit the museum. We have been to lots of car museums such as the Mercedes Benz and Porsche museums in Stuttgart and earlier on this trip the Henry Ford museum. Well I hate to say it but the Corvette museum was not very good. It did have nice cars on display but it didn't feel like I was getting a history lesson of the car when walking through. It felt more like a commercial that we walked through.

The best part of the museum was the area dedicated to the incident from a few years ago when a section of museum floor collapsed into a unknown cave and took many priceless Corvettes with it.  The display had lots of geological area history (Kentucky  has lots of caves). And the cars too damaged to restore were on display.

Go West, young man! (and visit the caves)

It was finally time to start out journey back to the other side of the country. Our original plan was to go south to Monticello and see Thomas Jeffersons place and down to Memphis to visit Graceland. Unfortunately we spent too much time going East so we needed to shorten our itinerary on the way back.

Our first stop was at the Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky.  Mammoth Caves is the largest cave system in the world. To see the cave you have to make reservations for one of the many tours provided by the park service. The short and less strenuous tours were already booked by the time we were looking at the different tours. We ended up on the  Drips and Domes tour which was a 2 hour tour with lots of climbing and wedging through tight spaces. It was a great experience, a nice contrast to all the museums from the days before.

Last day in DC

It was getting harder to go out and explore the city by our last day due to the 95+ temperatures. To properly see everything in DC,  I recommend a minimum of 5 days, and hopefully when it's not so hot!

For our last day we went to the Museum of American history. Lots of cool items on display including the original flag that flew over Fort McHenry during the war of 1812 and was the inspiration for our national anthem. My favorite was the display of Julia Childs original kitchen.

There were lots of other interesting exhibits as we were there almost the entire day. We only left as we realized that the Hope diamond wasn't at this museum but at the museum of Natural history.  Fortunately that museum was next door so we rushed over before it closed.

Its hot in DC!

We started our morning with plans to visit the Smithsonian's Museum of American Art, the Portrait Gallery (which are combined into the same building) and then the National Archives.  We parked over by the Museum only to find out it wasn't open for a few more hours.  So we walked a few blocks down to the National Archives which normally would not be a big deal, except that it was already 90 degrees in the morning so it was a hot walk.

The main attraction in the National Archives are the original Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  They were on display together in a very dark room, controlled by lots of guards.  They tried to keep the people visiting this very large dark room in smallish groups so that we could view the documents without too much crowding.  It was amazing to see the original paperwork, though the Declaration was hard to read as the ink had seriously faded.  Definitely no picture taking allowed, and no touching of the glass as well!

The American Art museum had lots of photographs, art and portraits.  I think the presidential portraits section was closed.  I don't think the boys were that impressed especially since they have experience with the Louve.

Despite the super hot weather, we went to Arlington National Cemetery. We were probably thinking it would be shaded... Nope. It was a long hot walk to the tomb of the unknown soldier. We watched the changing of the guard, and we're in awe of the guards and their discipline in the full 98 degree heat.

Spaceships and Planes!

The Air and Space Museum is the favorite of the Smithsonian museums. It seems that any flying item of significance is on display. Spirit of St Louis, Chuck Yeager’s X1, John Glenn’s Friendship 7 and the Wright Brothers original Flyer. The Apollo 11 command module is normally on display but not during our visit. We spent over half of our day admiring all the displays before driving out to the Udvar-Hazy annex by Dulles Airport. The annex has even more flying machines like the space shuttle Discovery, the Enola Gay,and the Dash-80. We stayed till they booted us out at 5:30.

Shortcut via Canada

After Dearborn, we decided to stop at the Niagara Falls for the night.  We crossed into Canada from Detroit which was pretty quick compared to our normal crossings in Washington state.  Driving though Ontario was uneventful but with lots of traffic heading our direction.  We arrived after 10p and we found out that the Falls would be lit until midnight.  We walked down to the Falls in the rain took a few photos (which didn't come out as it was dark and raining) and walked back.

The next morning we went back down to the Falls after breakfast.  It was already crowded.  We admired the scenery, took our obligatory photos and left for Washington DC.  We crossed back to the USA via the bridge just downstream of the Falls which had a nice view (and no line at the border crossing).

the Henry Ford?

We stopped in Ann Arbor to visit some friends and used the opportunity to go the museum in nearby Dearborn which i thought was called "The Henry Ford Museum".  But when approaching the area the signs called it Henry Ford, or if a definite article was used it was lower case so that it was "the Henry Ford", and "museum" was not included in the title.  I should have asked a museum staffer about the naming/branding.

Unlike the Mercedes Benz museum, this is museum is more than cars.  There was a lot of American history on display with sections on manufacturing, vintage furniture including the chair Lincoln was sitting in when he was shot, racial history with the restored bus ridden by Rosa Parks on display, aviation, and of course cars.  If we were there midweek or Saturday we could have paid extra and had a Ford factory tour as well.  Its not a cheap museum at $21/each and another $27 if you want to visit Greenfield village (a made up town next to the museum with historical buildings), but it was worth the stop.

The best Science museum

The Museum of Science and Industry on the South side of Chicago is one of the best museums ever.   This was our only stop during our quick visit into Chicago.  It's been 9 years since our last visit so the boys appreciated the exhibits more. The U boat and the chicks were still favorites. They still have some of the cross sectioned body parts in the display and the Apollo 8 command module and we also stopped at the automation display and watched the assembly line build gyroscope tops toys, this time each of the boys got their own personalized souvenir.

On the way back we stopped to get some Chicago beef and loaded hot dogs. We were so excited for the food that I missed the photo op!

John Deere green

As part of our unplanned detour through Iowa, we accidentally found the John Deere tractor and engine museum in Waterloo Iowa.  We saw the museum as we went by on the highway so we backtracked a little so that we could visit the museum.

The newish museum describes the company's beginnings as a maker of plows (that are pulled behind horses) to moving into tractors after purchasing a local Waterloo company in the early 1900s. Lots of nicely restored tractors in their shiny green finish on display.  

The corn state

I decided to make a detour off our trip so that the boys could add another state they have visited. Our drive was on country two lane roads and we went by miles and miles of corn fields.  Corn is obviously big business in Iowa, even the gas stations are involved as they offer different percentages of corn based fuel at the pumps. The stations advertise 87 octane unleaded as premium but when it's the only gasoline offered at the pump I guess it would be premium.

Spam

We had to stop at the Spam museum in Austin, MN.  I don't eat much of it anymore but I like Spam. The boys learned to cook using Spam so I knew the visit would be interesting.

While the focus is on Spam, it is basically a Hormel corporate museum with history of the family and how the company started making Spam and their community service activities.  The displays were informative and fun and occasionally so one would walk by with a different flavored Spam hors d'oeuvres.

Whats a Corn Palace?

Its a building that decorated on the outside walls with dried corn on the cob.  Inside it a large auditorium for small shows, basketball games and vendor areas for selling corn based souvenirs.  It was originally developed in the 1920s so that travelers would stop by the town.  I guess it still works almost 100 years later as it was the only reason we stopped in Mitchell, SD.  Maybe it would have been more exciting if we were there during the corn festival which is later in the summer during harvest.

Missiles among us

Did you know that most of the intercontinental ballistic missiles and their silos were in South Dakota?  Just across the highway from the east entrance to the Badlands was the Museum for the Minuteman Missiles.  The small museum has a quick historical overview of the cold war and the nuclear missile buildup between the USA and the USSR.

You could also visit an actual missile silo and tour a decommissioned control center which are located a few miles away.  Unfortunately, the control center tours are limited to 6 people at a time and require reservations which fill up the day they can be made 90 days in advance.  We still were able to visit a missile silo and a listen to a park ranger explain the different parts of the silo and how the missiles were loaded and launched.  We could see a decommissioned missile still in the silo and he had a sample of the blast shielded wire which was used to connect the missile systems to the control centers.

Where the heck is Wall Drug?

I have seen these signs on the highway and bumper stickers since I was a kid.  This was the first time we actually stopped in Wall, SD to visit Wall Drug.

Wall would normally be a sleepy town at the entrance of the Badlands, but because of Wall Drugs, its actually a destination.  They are the master of marketing, with goofy slogans and signs placed hundreds of miles away along the highways. They also give out those bumper stickers for free.

Wall Drug was started as a regular drug store. To draw travelers to their store, they offered free ice water. Now they offer coffee for five cents, goofy statues to take photos with, western themed gifts, and cafeteria style food and I'm sure much more that we missed.

Its hot in the Badlands

The Badlands was a short drive from Rushmore.  Its amazing how quickly the terrain changes from the rolling grassy hills to the exposed/eroded hills of the Badlands.  While driving the 40 mile loop through the park, the views changed at every turn and we seemed to stop at every viewpoint. 

The temps outside soon reached 100 degrees and our stops became less frequent as it was hard to leave the air conditioned vehicle.  Photos were also difficult with the intense sun overhead. It would be best to visit this park in the morning to avoid the heat!

Rushmore

We spent the day driving from the Tetons to the Black Hills area of South Dakota and stayed in a hotel near Mt Rushmore. There are two small towns near Rushmore, Hill City and Keystone.  I selected Hill City even though it was 13 miles from Mt Rushmore but I was concerned that we might arrive late and I didn't want to drive on 11 miles of twisty roads to get to Keystone which was just past Mt Rushmore.

Our goal was to get to Rushmore in the early morning before the crowds and the heat...We pulled up to the entrance and there was already a long line. From the approach from Hill City we were able to turn left into the driveway and into the payment lane and wait about 6 cars to pay our entrance fees.  I could not see the approach from Keystone but I could see a line of cars waiting on the highway waiting to turn into the driveway so by staying in Hill City our wait was reduced when entering the parking lot!

We arrived just in time to take a ranger guided tour which took us to the path to the base of the statues.  The monument is impressive even when you first walk in, but is even better when you get closer at the base.  After the tour we continued down the circular path which took us down many flights of stairs and different perspectives of the monument and to the sculptors studio and back up to the visitors center where we started.

On our way out we drove towards Keystone and saw that the line to enter Mt Rushmore was about a half mile long while there was still no line from the approach from Hill City.  I'm glad we stayed in Hill City.

Tetons

After going on a boat tour on Yellowstone lake, we drove down to the Grand Teton National Park. When we arrived at the exit/entrance we could not find our ticket/pass that we had purchased the day before as we had packed our National Park Pass in one of our many bags.  We had to partially unload the back and roof box to dig through our bags till we found the card.  Its like leaving Costco and misplacing your receipt so you can't leave.

We spent the afternoon exploring the area, stopping at Jenny Lake and going to the top of Signal Mountain where the views of the valley and the Tetons were amazing.   We were not sure when Signal Mountain got its name, but we were surprised when we arrived at the very top was a cellular tower.  We would have stayed longer at the top of the mountain but the mosquitoes were fierce!

We stayed the evening at the Signal Mountain Lodge.  Our unit was right on the shore of Jackson Lake so we had a great view!