Driving through western Colorado was very scenic! We drove through Glenwood Canyon on I-70 which was one of the most difficult sections of highway in the country to build. The canyon walls were nearly vertical, and the highway was built on these nearly vertical walls. Most of it was elevated, and there were several big tunnels also. It was really amazing! After that canyon, we went through another canyon that I don't know the name of before we got to the Utah border. We stopped at a gas station, and asked what the best route to Moab was, and it turned out that there was a much more scenic route than what the GPS was telling us. So we took that route, and it was... amazing? There's no word to describe it! It took us back to the Colorado River, and into another canyon. This one was the reddest can of all, and by far the best! When we saw our first butte (we're still not sure what defines a butte, so it may have been something else) I was ecstatic! I don't know how many people know what I mean, but there's a certain butte that you always see pictures of, and we saw it in that Canyon! I was positive that certain one when we saw it on the side of one of those Cruise America RVs (you see them everywhere out here) and on the cover  of Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire. When we got to the park entrance, a sign said that the campground was full. We didn't expect lots of tourists initially, but ever since we'd seen all the RVs and stuff on the road near the park, we couldn't be too surprised. My dad had me go online and look up BLM campsites in the area. We saw some back in the canyon by the river, but they were all full. I found some on the other side of Moab, and so we went to them. Luckily there were a couple empty, and so we stayed there for the night. In the morning, my dad got up and went to the park to try and get one of the 9 campsites that were opening up that morning. Luckily, he made it there in time and got a site, so we packed up and got ready to move. Arches National Park is a big park, and the campground was on the other side of the park, 20 miles from the entrance, so it took us some time to get there. It was good though, 'cause we kind of got a sneak preview of what we'd hike around and see the next day. All throughout the park are tall sandstone towers, and sandstone fins. They're called fins because that's exactly what they look like. They're red sandstone rock in the shape of fins just sticking right out of the ground! We got to the campsite, and began one of the hikes close by. We saw Tunnel Arch, Pine Tree Arch, Landscape Arch, Dark Arch, and Double O Arch. They're all part of these fins. There're several layers to the fins. At the bottom, there's a whitish layer called Navajo, on top of that is a blobish looking layer called Dewy Bridge, on top of that is Slickrick, and the top layer that's not always present, is Moab. They're all layers of sandstone. The middle layers are softer than the top, and they erode away faster than the others, and when they're gone what's left is an arch! There's a whole geology to the fins, but it would take forever to explain. The next day, we went to the visitor center to get the packets to become Junior Park Rangers like we did at the Sand Dunes. We watched a movie about the park and the geology, and then we went out and explored the rest of the park. We saw Balanced Rock, Windows, and a few other arches. In the Cove of Caves, there was a private school from Canada filming a concert in one of the caves! After we saw that, we went to see Delicate Arch (the unofficial symbol of Utah and the most photographed arch). We didn't have enough time to hike all the way to it, so we hiked to the viewpoint. Then we went to Sand Dune Arch. For most of us, this was our favorite arch! It was in between two HUGE sandstone fins, probably 100 ft. tall. There was red/orange sand all around it, the softest sand you could ever imagine! It was so fun to run around there and climb some of the rocks in between the massive fins. When we got back to the campsite, we were lucky that we'd opened the windows, 'cause all the wind that day had been strong enough to destroy the camper. The only downside, was that there was a thin layer of sand all throughout the inside. We decided that the next day we'd get up really early (like 5:00) so that we'd get to Zion National Park in time to get a campsite. On the way to Zion, we could see views of other canyons. I swear, Eastern Utah is pretty much one huge canyon! They're EVERYWHERE! So we're on our way to Zion now, and we'll be there for one night at least, before we see the Grand Canyon!!!

We did go to Leadville later that day. Since HMI hadn't called us back yet, we decided to visit the National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum, which was also in Leadville. When we got to the museum, the lady at the door told us they had just closed. She asked us where we were from, and we told her Maine, and that we we're only around on that day. She went back inside for a minute or two, and when she came back, she let us in. It wasn't like we were begging to get in, she was just being nice to us. In the museum there was lots of stuff about mining to learn about. Mostly we learned about coal. How it is mined, and how it is used for energy. There were several somewhat virtual mining displays. They also had large crystal samples of all sorts of types not just from Colorado, but from all over the world! After we had finished inside the mining museum, HMI still hadn't called back, so we asked the lady who let us in how to get there. When we got there, the place was empty. That's why they hadn't called us back, because nobody was there. We figured they were on one of their expeditions. We walked around the place until we'd had enough, and then we headed back to the condo in Silverthorne. The next day we skied at Arapahoe Basin. It was a mostly clear blue day, with wonderful skiing! My sister Ella had some altitude sickness early on and I got a bloody nose, so that became a bit of a problem. Other than that it was amazing! The views were spectacular and we had a fun tailgate party at the edge of the slope for lunch. Later that day, we drove to Boulder to stay with on of my dad's friends. My dad lived in Boulder just after he had gotten out of college, so he wanted to visit some of his friends there and show us the city. The next day, we did schoolwork in the morning, and then we went to Boulder. The first thing we did, was go to the car dealer where we had brought the van the night before. We were having some trouble with it earlier, and they think they fixed the problem. We toured around Boulder for the rest of the day. We went down Pearl St., up into the foothills where the overlooked the city, we walked around the University of Colorado campus, and we drove up Boulder Canyon a ways. Boulder was a beautiful city with lots of pluses to it. I'd love to live there! The only problem is, there's no water. All they have is reservoirs and rivers. The following day we headed back towards Silverthorne for one more night at the condo. On our way, we stopped at Idaho Springs to go to a famous pizza place where my dad used to go when he lived in Boulder. It was called Beaujo's, and their pizza was AMAZING! We didn't order it, but they have a 14lb challenge pizza. The challenge is that if two people can eat the pizza in one sitting lasting an hour, crust and all, they get the pizza for free (it costs $75!!!). Also, they get $100 and two Beajo's T-shirts. The pizza takes 1 1/2 hrs. to make! Today we packed up our stuff at the condo, and now we're headed to Moab Utah. We thought we'd stop at the hot springs in Glenwood Springs, but they were too commercialized, and they weren't very natural at all. We decided that it'd be better if we just kept going in order to make it on time for a good campsite. 

chips blown up from the altitude

We had a little change of plans... we decided that since we were so late getting to Oklahoma, that we might as well drive all night, and get to the sand dunes in the morning, so that we'd have a better chance at a good campsite. That was both a good idea, and a really bad idea. Only because it made us really tired and cranky. It was dark as we drove through Oklahoma, so we didn't really see anything. All we did see, was Oklahoma City, and a couple of oil rigs, since they were both lit up. It took us FOREVER to get to Oklahoma City, and even longer to get to Amarillo! Something like 190 miles from the OK/AR state line to Oklahoma City, and 200 miles from Oklahoma City to Amarillo! Talk about a LOT of driving!!! Once we were past Amarillo, TX, the sun started coming up. Texas was very flat, and there were cows all along the road. There was hardly any vegetation, so we all wondered what the heck they were eating! Once we reached New Mexico, we could finally get a glimpse of the Rockies! It was a while longer before we reached the sand dunes, but once we did, they were AMAZING! There's a big valley, called the San Luiz Valley, and there are mountain ranges on each side of it. They valley is very wide, and as flat as can be. Nestled up to the Sangre de Cristo mountains on the east of the valley, are these 750 ft. high sand dunes! Millions of years ago, sand was eroded from the San Juan mountains to the west, and the wind swept it to the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. It was too heavy to be carried over the mountains, so it settled at the foot of them. It's a pretty spectacular site to see! We played around in the dunes for the rest of the day. The next day, we went to the visitor center to learn about the dunes, and went on one of the nature trails they have. My parents decided that we should become junior park rangers, so we did. We had to learn the plants, the history, and the environment of the sand dunes. We all felt special now that we had badges, even though they meant practically nothing. Then we left after another nature hike. My parents were worried about our van, because it had been acting strangely, and we were about to go over a couple mountain passes. It did fine, luckily. Now we're in Silverthorne, at a condo that my mom's co-worker's parents let us borrow... FOR FREE!!! I have no idea what we'd have done without this condo! Once my dad gets over his altitude sickness (I already had mine at the sand dunes), we'll make a trip to Leadville to visit HMI where I'll go next spring!

Mac's house and Memphis

On Friday we decided it was a good idea to go to Graceland, not that anyone in our family really likes Elvis (except for my grandmother), we just had to do it so we could say we went to Graceland. The first thing we did at Graceland, was the tour of Elvis's mansion. It was pretty nice on the front, but really funky on the inside! Nice, but funky. Behind the house, there was his squash court, that was FULL of his golden records. His old suits from his concerts were showcased, as well as his wife's wedding dress and his tuxedo. We saw his and his family's graves, and got a picture in front of the house (the one above). Then we went to his car museum. He had a lot of cars, and they were all very nice old cars (oh ya, like they wouldn't be nice cars). We toured his private airplane, and it was pretty amazing. Not that it looked all that cool, but the seat buckles were made of solid gold! Every one of them! The whole place was kinda fun to visit, but all in all it was just a big tourist trap. After we finished with Graceland, we went to the famous Beale St. in Memphis, where many of the famous blues musicians learned to play. Beale St. was probably one of the coolest places we've been to so far! There was music in every restaurant, traffic was blocked from entering, and all the signs down the road were cool looking and funkyish. We ate some BBQ at a restaurant out on the street and listened to the band across the street. There was blues and jazz EVERYWHERE along the street!!! One guy walked buy us, and he was really creepy. He was an elvis impersonator and he walked up and down the street past us like 5 times. We also saw the famous Beale St. Flippers doing their flips on the street. They were a couple of black kids trying to earn money. After Beale St., we went back to Mac's house and swam in his pool. His pool was really nice! It was deep enough to dive into, had a water slide, and it had a rock waterfall to filter the water with the air. It was a saltwater pool, which made it much more environmentally friendly, and it didn't taste bad, which was good. The next day, we took pictures with Mac's VW bus. Man, that bus was nice! I think he said it was the best restored VW bus in the world, as well as being the most desirable vintage. He also took us for a ride in it, with the sunroof open and all! Then Mac, my dad, and I went to see Mac's car collection in his hangar at the local airport. He has more than 20 cars in there from WWII, and they all run great! He has all sorts of other WWII artifacts that he picked up in Germany, even has the lab coat of Mengele (Dr. Death), who did all the wild experiments with the Jews in Aschuwitz. After that we went back to Mac's house, ate pizza, and went to bed. We woke up this morning, and packed up so that we could leave Mac's house. Just before we left, we took picture in his Lamborghini, and headed to Little Rock to visit the Clinton Presidential Museum. The Clinton Museum looked like a huge double wide trailor on stilts. Literally! It was inexpensive, and I think we all enjoyed it... I did at least. It was very interactive, with videos everywhere, and guides to help you out if you asked. There was an exact replica of the oval office, and a near exact replica of the cabinet room. There was information there on every aspect of his presidency, and we rented the audio devices, where Bill talked to you about all the exhibits. After the museum we got back on the road and we're on the road now headed to Oklahoma where we'll spend the night somewhere, and then drive the next day to the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado!

Atlanta...for the most part's

(that's Townsend with my brothers Wes and Lucien)

OK now I'm really behind! We stayed with my mom's friend Tina, and well... she didn't really live in Columbia. She was outside of it, and she wasn't really in the city at all. Anyway, her parents were there at her house, and they were VERY nice to us! In the morning, they took us to the Cracker Barrel for breakfast. Apparently my mom did something for them a long time ago, and they really wanted to thank us for it. They not only bought us breakfast, but they also bought us all candy there, cookies, presents, and two $50 gift certificates! Talk about southern hospitality! From the Cracker Barrel my dad, Tina's father and I, went to Best Buy to try and figure out if we could fix our van's DVD player, and we lucked out. We then drove to Atlanta! We arrived at my cousin's Katherine's house and met her two daughters, who we'd only seen pictures of. They were so happy to see us! Townsend is two, and Madeline is three! The van was having troubles the day before, so in the morning, my dad took it to a sprinter dealer and had it fixed while we went downtown. The first thing we did, was to go to the the Fernbank museum. It was all about natural history, and I didn't find it terribly interesting, since I had learned about most of it last year in Mr. Dorner's class. We then ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant. It was a very good lunch, and I left very full. After that, we went to the Martin Luther King Center. We watched a movie on Dr. King there, saw the exhibits, and went to see his grave. We saw the Civil Rights walk of fame, and then drove back to Katherine's house. We ate a dinner of homemade pizza, and then we were off to an Atlanta Braves game! They lost, but we had a lot of fun, and we learned that the Red Sox won their first game. We'd never been to an MLB game, so that made it extra fun. Anyhow... the next day, we said bye to the Adams (our cousins) and began our drive towards Memphis. We were going to stop at the Shiloh battlefield, but we ran out of time. We had to get to Mac Jones's house before too late. When we finally got there, we realized what kind of a place we were staying at! HOLY COW! Mac has tons of old collector cars, like at least 58, and they're all in perfect condition. It's hard to describe how nice these cars are, so I might's well not even bother. One of his newer cars, is a Lamborghini. His house is incredible too. He's loaded of course. Saturday he'll show us around, and hopefully we'll get to ride in his Lamborghini!!!

Morehead City/Atlantic Beach, NC

Wow, I'm behind and there's a lot to write about. So, We arrived at my uncle Woody's house, and got a good night sleep (it's irrelevant, but I have to mention that he has a hook for a right arm). We got up Sunday Morning, and went to the Easter Sunday service at the St. Francis by the Sea Episcopal Church. It was on an island, which was part of the Southern Outer Banks. It was a very nice service, although very short. I think that was because they had to finish in time for the second service at 11:00. After the service, we decided to go to Fort Macon. When we got there, luckily, it was free. It was built in the 1800s, and was used for the Civil War (they call it the War Between the States), the Spanish American War, and WWII. It was a great place, and we all enjoyed it. It had a great setup, which was why we liked it so much. In each bunk room, there was an exhibit where you press a button, and a soldier comes on the speaker and talks to you about the exhibit. This allowed us to get a great idea of what it was like to be a soldier there. We learned a lot from Fort Macon, and I could probably write a ton on it, but I don't really think that's very necessary here. After the fort, we went to the beach (Atlantic Beach). I stuck my feet in the water, just to say I did, and I'll do it again in the Pacific!!! Towards the end of the day, we went to a beachwear shop to pick up a bathing suit. While we were in there, a man ran in saying that there was a car stuck on the beach. We went back on the beach, and sure enough, there it was! Some idiot was riding around on his jet ski, and tried to pull it out with his Hummer. He backed down onto the beach, and got it stuck. A couple different pickup trucks tried to pull him out, and of course, they almost got stuck themselves. It was a tremendous sight to see. We wanted to see the end result, but it got too late, and we had to go back and eat dinner. The next day (today, April, 13th) we went to the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores. It was a small aquarium, but it had the largest aquarium tank in North Carolina. We saw a live dive, and a snake presentation. Now we're driving to Colombia, where we'll stay with a friend of my mom's for the night, and then drive to Atlanta where we'll stay with my cousin Katherine.

Last night we drove through the New Jersey Turnpike, across the Delaware Memorial Bridge, through Baltimore, and though Washington. We knew Wal Mart had a policy that allowed people to camp out in their parking lots, so we pulled into a Wal Mart in Woodbridge, VA, just south of DC. WOW! That was interesting. We pulled in, not knowing how sleeping in a Wal Mart parking lot would be, and the place was still open! It was 12:30 at night! We went in to grab a few things, and it turns out we were at a 24 hr. Wal Mart. So we set up our popup in the parking lot, and all went well. In the morning when we woke up, it was raining. With that in mind, we packed up as fast as we could, and drove to Mt. Vernon. When we got there, it turned out that it was privately owned, and that our National Parks pass wouldn't get us in. Since it was really expensive, and we hadn't really planned on going there, we decided to just get back in the car and start driving towards North Carolina. When we got near Richmond, we decided to take a detour route, and go down I64 towards Norfolk and Virginia Beach. As it turned out, we were driving right past Jamestown! Since my sister was missing her unit on pilgrims, we had to make a stop there, and so we did. Jamestown was very cool! We went to the actual site, and not the replica one. They built a museum right over the remains of the Jamestown statehouse. In the museum, you could look through glass on the floor at the original foundation of the building. They also had many artifacts, and you could walk right through the old fort remains. So after that we kept on driving. We went through a cool bridge-tunnel in Norfolk, and that's about it. We're almost at our uncle's house near the outer banks, and we'll spend a day or two there. 

Yesterday (Thursday April 9th) we started our trip. We left Bridgton around five or so in the afternoon. We crashed in Bristol CT at 11:00, and set up our camper in the parking lot of our cousin Corey's apartment complex. Corey's husband Tom fed us homemade pizza and apple pie. In the morning, we broke down the camper, and ate Tom's waffles with strawberries. We said our goodbyes, and headed towards Hyde Park, NY to visit FDR's house and presidential museum. We got got there at noon, and started a guided tour. First we watched a 10 minute movie on FDR and Elanor Roosevelt, then we went and toured FDR's house. After spending some time there, we stopped at a Super Stop and Shop (grocery store) and got some lunch. Right now we're driving down towards Washington area, staying somewhere for the night, and then driving to North Carolina where we'll stay with our uncle.