Down on the Farm

***pics coming soon***

Pat has a work buddy, Michael, who lived in Kansas.  When we started planning this trip, he said that we should stop by for a visit on our way out or back.  His kids are about the same ages as ours (his son is exactly the same age as Sarah, and his 2 girls are one year older and one year younger than Zach).  Most of the year, his family lived in Witchita, but 8-10 day of the year the whole family packs up and moves up to Ada, Kansas to work the harvest on his wife's family's farm.  We were hoping that we would be there for harvest, but they typically don't know the dates until a few days before, so we planned our dates and crossed our fingers.  A few days before, Michael texted Pat that they would be right in the middle of harvest when we got there

The farm is a wheat farm, and it is an all hands on deck family affair during harvest.  We jumped in wherever we could help.  Zach and Sarah both rode in the combine and kept the driver company on the long drives.  Zach also got out and walked in front of the combine and pulled out any rye that was growing in the wheat fields.  Pat stuck mostly with Michael and they drove the wheat trucks to and from the grain silos.  The truck would get weighed, then they would dump the wheat and get weighed again.  The wheat then goes into the storage silos and will stay there until the farmer needs money or the market price is good and they want to sell.  My job was mostly hanging with Rosie, the farm matriarch.  We made the meals for everyone working and delivered them whatever part of the fields they were working in at that time.  Every day they have a large, hot lunch at around 1pm.  Then the stop for "supper" at around 6:30pm, which is something lighter- sandwiches and wraps.  They then head back into the fields and work until the light runs out.  

Supper on the farm

Farm kids play in the wheat bins!

On Thursday morning, Michael took us and a few of the other kids (lots of cousins and farm hands kids around at harvest time) over to his cousin's farm to help feed the baby cows.  They were so cute sucking from the bottles.  We also got to go in to play with the baby goats and the puppies that are training to shepherd them.    

We left on Thursday night after supper-  we were having lots of fun and learning alot, but the farm was hot and we didn't have power to the RV, so sleeping was almost impossible.  We also wanted to get to Indy by the weekend, so we did a 4 hour evening drive to Kansas City, so we could drive on Friday to St. Louis before continuing on to Indy on Saturday.  It's much faster than we normally move, but if we don't hit Indy by the weekend, we won't get to visit with family, so on we go!  

Rocky Mountain National Park

***pics coming soon***

We saw a mooooooooose!

But I digress.... lets start from the beginning :-) 

We left Fort Collins on Sunday morning and headed to Rocky Mountain National Park to meet up with the McCanns.  It was actually a bit of a logistical nightmare.   Rocky Mountain is one of only a few national parks (and the only one we went to) that is doing a park reservation system this summer to cut down on crowds.  Connie was able to get 11am entrance times for both Sunday and Monday, but since we couldn't get a campsite in Estes Park for Saturday night, we wouldn't be able to ditch the RV at our campground until 2pm.  We also had 8 people to get in to the park with the one entrance pass.   We decided to meet at Estes Park visitors center and drop all the cars, and pile everyone into the RV to enter the park.  Every National Park is different in terms of parking, but we haven't been to one yet where we didn't see RVs driving around.  So we loaded up and headed to the wild basin park entrance near the hike we wanted to do.  When we got there, the gate attendant basically laughed at us.  No way we were getting the RV down the road to the trail, and the closest parking lot was completely full.  So we turned around and Pat and Jim dropped Connie, the kids and I at a lake for lunch and they drove back into town to trade in the RV for the McCann's explorer.  Operation Clown Car was on!  We loaded back into the explorer and headed to the trail.   Everyone had seat belts..... Sarah and I just had to share one, lol.

Jim had chosen for us to hike the Ouzou Falls Trail.  Between the elevation and the grade change of the trail, this was one of the toughest hikes we've done on this trip.  Sarah, Reagan, Connie and I only made it as far as Calypso Cascades, but the 4 boys made it all the way to the falls... 2.7 miles one way.  I couldn't believe Zach made it all the way-  that's definitely the longest he's hiked.  He's always way more capable when he's trying to impress Braden ;-)  

We were all pretty spent from the hike, so we headed to the campground to get registered and set up.  We cleaned ourselves up a bit and then drove into Estes Park for dinner.  It was Reagan's 18th Birthday, so after dinner we hit a big candy store and she bought lots of goodies.  Jim and Reagan headed home after that, because they had to work the next day, but Braden and Connie were staying at the campground in a cabin.

We had a campfire that night, and the kids did our official end of the school year tradition-  the burning of the math books!   The tradition started last year when we were so relieved to finish up covid quarantine school that we burned Zach's math workbook.  Sarah was excited to have 2 math workbooks this year to throw into the fire.  

Monday, we went into the park again, but we stayed mostly in the car to see as much of the park as we could.  We drove Trail Ridge Road from the park entrance all the way to the Continental Divide.  We gained about 3000ft in elevation, with the highest point of the road over 12,000ft.  Sarah had jokingly said at the beginning of the ride that she wanted to touch the snow at the top of the mountain.... and we did!  

The first place we stopped on the ride was at Junior Ranger Headquarters. The park rangers gave the kids their badges and booklets, and then asked if we would be staying in the immediate area.  They had tote bags made up with 2 magnifying glasses, a thermometer, binoculars and some laminated identification guides. We stuck around by the stream behind the ranger station and the kids did some observing and came back to the rangers with a full report on what they saw and water and soil temperatures.  Of all the National Parks we've been to, we've never seen anything like the exploring bags, and the rangers said they just came up with the idea this year during covid and something interactive but distanced.  I told them they should definitely keep it around after the pandemic, and to let their ranger friends at other parks know about it!  It was definitely a highlight.

The rest of the ride, we stopped at a few scenic overlooks, but didn't do any other hiking.  The Ibbys were definitely feeling the altitude, and just walking around the outlooks was exhausting.

On our way back, just before leaving the park, I mentioned how disappointed I was in not seeing a moose.... again!  We've been on the hunt in Acadia, Yellowstone and Rocky Mountain.  We were joking that they were mythical creatures.  And then, we came around the corner and there it was, running across an open field.... a big old moose!  It ran over to Sheep Lake and stood there cooling off while everyone pulled over to take pictures.  I didn't have my good camera with me, but the pic came out ok when I took it through Sarah's binoculars, haha.  

So, I can end this trip happily now... I've seen a moose... they do exist! 

Mount Rushmore

We arrived at Mount Rushmore on Wednesday afternoon, with only 2 days left of school (woooooohoooo).  Our campground, the KOA Palmer Gulch, was a massive city of a campground.  It's the second largest KOA in the country, only behind a KOA in southern Florida.  I think I used the term "crawling with kids" to describe an earlier campground, but this place put that place to shame.... kids EVERYWHERE!  There was so much to do-  pool, big waterslide, mini-golf, playground, gaga pit, basketball, volleyball, bike rentals, and a whole calendar of kids activities all day long.    The biggest problem was deciding what to do (and biggest problem for me was constantly losing the kids, haha)

Thursday was the second to last day of school for Zach, and Kindergarten Luau Liftoff (aka- kinder grad) for Sarah.  The Kindergarten celebration was so cute, and I was so thankful to Sarah's teacher for dragging her computer outside so Sarah could participate with her class.  She's officially done with Kindergarten!

Sarah's Teacher holding up Sarah to say goodbye to her friends for the summer 

Unfortunately, the campground wifi was terrible at our campsite, and while we had enough to get by for Sarah's call, Zach was not having as much luck.  He was supposed to be doing a fun end of year activity with his class, but as the campground started waking up, he kept getting disconnected and unable to get back on.  He was getting frustrated, so I made the call and told him he was officially done with 4th grade.  A little anticlimactic, but much less stressful than trying to connect for "just fun" stuff.  

That afternoon, we had thought about going to see one of the national parks nearby, but the kids asked to just have a day hanging at the campground.  We played at the pool and went down the water slide a ton of times (mommy too!) 

That night, we went on a Chuckwagon Dinner ride.  It was so much fun!  There were stables at the front of our campground, and we met there to load up the covered wagons.  The 5 wagons brought us through the back of the campground, down a trail and to a big open meadow.  There were 2 cowboys providing some musical entertainment while our meal was being cooked on a big open fire.  They had big cast irons pots making baked beans and fire roasted potatoes, and a guy cooking South Dakotan steaks on a huge grate over the fire.  After dinner was peach and strawberry cobbler in cast iron.  It was so yummy.  The wagons then took us back to the campground.

The next day (no school since I declared it over, ha) we played in the campground in the morning while daddy did a little work.  After lunch we headed to Mount Rushmore.  We spent about an hour walking around and listened to a ranger presentation on the building of Mount Rushmore.  I never realized that the sculptor had envisioned it to be more (bodies too, not just heads) but the money ran out.  It was also going to be famous western figures, but they changed it to presidents because they thought it would bring in more tourists (ha, I guess that worked).  

That night we went into the town of Custer for pizza and then visited the Crazy Horse Monument.  The monument is still being built, with only the face and the beginnings of an outstretched arm.  There is a Native American Museum located on the grounds, and it was so well done.  We spent probably an hour and a half walking around the museum, and I would have stayed even longer if not for the kids.  There was a great information movie about the monument, the history of the black hills area, and about the man Crazy Horse.  Honestly, between Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse, I liked Crazy Horse so much better.  I wanted to stay for the laser light show, but it wasn't going to start until 10pm and we were just done by 7:30.  No way we would have made it up that late.  

Saturday we left the Black Hills and headed down towards Colorado.  We wanted to get all the way to Estes Park on Saturday but everything was booked up, so we did an overnight in Fort Collins.  On the way, we saw a sign for ruts still visible from the Oregon Trail.  The 80's child in me and Pat immediately turned off the highway in search of the ruts, haha.  Such a random little side stop.

Here are some last day of school pics we took:

All smiles for summer!