Going West-with a teen, pre-teens, and a budget

In 2004, Greg and I decided we wanted to take our family on a vacation out west.  Greg’s brother, Mark, lives in Missoula, Montana, so we planned to add a visit with his family to our itinerary.  We didn’t have a lot of money in our travel budget-well, let’s be honest, we didn’t have much money in any area of our budget. I actually had a lot of fun planning this trip.  It was a challenge figuring out how we could do the things we wanted to do with the money we had, and I enjoyed the challenge. Places on our agenda included Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Mount Rushmore National Park, and Glacier National Park.  Looking back, that sounds like a rigorous schedule with three kids.  Ally was a teenager (14 years old, and very good at it),

Sarah was 12 years old and Ryan was 10 years old.

We opted to drive.  We had a lot of places we wanted to go, so driving our own van would be much less expensive than flying out there and renting a car.  We thought it would be very educational for the kids to drive across the country and see all the sights.  Greg planned the route.  Which was a good thing.  I can get lost in my own house.

I booked rooms in lower cost hotels.  I wanted clean, but low cost. I also had to make sure the hotels had rollaway beds available, because after spending all day in a minivan together, we wanted to make sure we continued the close, family togetherness by stuffing all five of us in a single room with two double beds, one rollaway, and one bathroom.

I started my research on entry fees into the parks and any other costs that might come up.  We talked to Mark and scheduled our visit with him and his family.  We booked a rafting trip in Glacier National Park. 

I started collecting things for the kids to do on the trip.  I started buying new books to read, movies to watch, crossword puzzles and word searches.  We had a DVD player in the van.  The kids took turns picking the movie to watch.  Ryan almost always picked the Bigfoot documentary. Although he really liked Bigfoot (he still does), I think he repeatedly chose that movie mostly to aggravate the girls.

One of the biggest expenses on a family trip is food.  To cut the cost of food, we brought along a cooler packed with our own food rather than eating at restaurants for every meal. I packed juice, milk, muffins, poptarts and cereal for breakfast when breakfast was not provided at the motel.  I packed bread, peanut butter & jelly, lunch meat, cheese, chips and fruit for lunches.  We ate a lot of lunches at rest stops, so the kids could get out and run around a little.  About a week before we left for the trip, I cooked taco meat, fried chicken and Italian beef and froze them in containers.  I took the crock pot and all of the condiments and sides.  We ate the chicken one night on the road.  One morning, I put the taco meat in the crockpot at the hotel, and when we got back in the evening, we had tacos for dinner.  We did the same thing with the Italian beef.  I thought this was a great idea, and it mostly was, except the night of the Italian beef. The entire hallway smelled like Italian beef when we arrived back at our hotel.  We had leftovers on a couple of nights, and the rest of the time, we ate out for dinner. 

We packed a lot into our days.  Our first stops were in South Dakota.  We went to Wall Drugs.  Wall Drugs is known for 5 cent coffee and free ice water.  It has restaurants that are known for hot beef sandwiches with mashed potatoes and homemade gravy and for homemade doughnuts, rolls, and pies. It has several gift shops. It has an area called “The Big Backyard,” where kids can play, with a splash pad, and a place to pan for gold and dig for treasure. Wall Drugs is a very popular spot to stop in South Dakota.  We happened to be at Wall Drug during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.  There were motorcycles everywhere-on the road and at Wall Drugs.  It was fun, but it was very crowded. Sarah really got into the spirit of things.

The kids all bought a cowboy hat so they could feel like true Westerners. 

We stopped in the Badlands National Park.  The Badlands were beautiful.  The Badlands landscape includes buttes, canyons, pinnacles and spires.  There are fossils of several species. Wildlife includes antelope, bighorn sheep and deer.  The winters in the Badlands are cold and windy, and the summers are hot and dry.  The landscape often looks striped.  This is due to fossilized soil layers called paleosols.  The paleosols are red due to the high iron content. 

Ally actually smiled for this picture! 

We visited Mount Rushmore National Park. The faces of four presidents, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt, are carved into the mountain.  Each face is approximately 60 feet tall. The construction began in 1927 and was completed in 1941. Over 400 workers were involved and cost $989,922.32. Gutzon Borglum designed the carving and oversaw the project, and his son, Lincoln Borglum, assisted. The park was named after Charles E. Rushmore a New York lawyer, in 1885. The park includes a half-mile walking trail, a museum, a gift shop, and a dining room. The park is open year round. 

The kids were all thrilled to be at Mount Rushmore. 

Ryan is risking his life by touching Ally with his foot.  He was willing to take the risk to get the reaction. 

We continued on to the Teton National Park.  The Teton range is the youngest mountain range in the Rockies. The range was named by French-Canadian trappers. As they approached the range from the west, they saw three towering mountains and named them “Trois Tetons” which means “Three Breasts.” The Tetons have over 200 miles of hiking trails, several bodies of water for fishing, and backcountry camping areas. The Snake River is good for white water rafting, and the scenery is beautiful. Wildlife includes grizzly bears, black bears, bison, moose, elk, and pronghorn.

For those who know me, you will not be surprised that I still wear this sweatshirt. It is now over 20 years old.  

We rode the cable car to the top of the mountain.

I think we actually wore the kids out that day. 

For those of you of a more sensitive nature, I will apologize for the part of the story that follows. As mentioned in previous stories, we do not consider a trip an official family adventure until somebody throws up. And this trip was no exception.

I believe all moms have their own superpowers. One of my particular superpowers is the ability to immediately wake from a dead sleep to the sound of a child getting ready to puke. I would like to thank my three sensitive stomached children for giving me plenty of opportunities to refine this skill almost to perfection. It even works for the sound of a retching cat. Anyway…One night in the hotel, I suddenly woke up and knew Sarah was getting ready to throw up. I yelled, “Ally! Get out of the bed!” I knew that if anything coming out of Sarah got anywhere near Ally, we would have a real puke fest on our hands. Ally dove off the side of the bed and lay on the floor with her head covered, like a soldier in a foxhole. I leaped off my bed and flew over Ally with the speed and agility of Wonder Woman, grabbed the now puking Sarah, and rushed her to the bathroom, leaving a trail of vomit all the way to the bathroom. We called the front desk and got new bedding, a bucket and some bleach. We spent the next hour or so changing bedding, cleaning up vomit, and bleaching the bathroom. But we have never let a little vomit stop us. If we did, we would never get to do anything. By the next morning, everyone was up and ready to continue with the adventure.

The next day, we went to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Crow Agency, Montana. The monument is located within the Crow reservation and honors the Battle of Little Bighorn, which took place in 1876. The Battle of Little Bighorn is also know as Custer’s Last Stand. Custer’s Last Stand was a decisive Native American victory in the Great Sioux War on June 25-26, 1876. Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong and all of his men were killed by Lakota and Cheyanne warriors.  

For the entire trip, Ryan had been hoping to see a mountain lion or a bear.  He looked for them everywhere-when we were driving, walking trails, visiting monuments.  We saw elk and buffalo, but no bears or mountain lions.  He finally settled for trying to sneak up on a rabbit. 

The rabbit was on to him. 

We visited Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone National Park was the first national park in the U.S. It sits on top of a dormant volcano. It has more geysers and hot springs than any other place on earth. One of the most popular geysers is Old Faithful. It erupts more frequently than any of the other large geysers. It has erupted every 44 minutes to two hours since 2000. It makes a sulfur smell that is unpleasant, but that does not stop millions of people, including us, from visiting it.

Yellowstone National Park is home to America’s largest buffalo herd, grizzly bears, elk, and wolves.

The scenery was beautiful.

We finally made it to Missoula, Montana to visit Greg’s brother, Mark.

We relaxed at the hotel pool, and we had a nice visit with Mark and his family.   

We took a day and drove to Glacier National Park, where we went white water rafting. 

As usual, Ally looks thrilled to be there.

Ryan was excited to be there.  He looks like he is plotting his strategy for aggravating his sisters on the raft.  Give a ten year old boy an oar and put him in some water near his sisters….the opportunities are endless. I don’t remember specifically, but I’m sure there was unwanted splashing, at the very least. 

I managed to get her to smile a little, but it definitely looks forced. Oh well, I’ll take what I can get.

Once we left Montana, we were headed home.  We drove from Missoula, Montana to Lincoln, Nebraska in one day.  That was a LONG trip.  Sarah had the right idea. 

This was probably when Ryan was watching the Bigfoot documentary…again. 

When we arrived at our hotel at about midnight, they did not have our room ready.  I had booked this room prior to leaving on vacation, so it wasn’t as if we had just dropped in to see if they had a room available.  There were several young adults goofing around at the front desk and no one was getting our room ready.  Greg let them know how unacceptable this was, and they ended up getting us a room at another, nicer hotel.  I think they were scared. Greg can be a little intimidating when he is angry, especially late at night when he has been traveling for about 15 hours. We got up the next morning and drove the rest of the way home. It was a long road trip, but we visited a lot of places and were able to spend time with some family. I would call it a successful adventure.

Tips:

1. This road trip was a good way to visit several US national parks. It gave us a good idea of some the places we would like to visit again for a longer period of time.
2. At the time we took this trip, it was easy to enter national parks. You just paid the entrance fee and entered the park. It’s not currently quite as easy. Some parks require a pass or timed entry reservation. It is important to check before you go. You can find this information at recreation.gov.
3. It is possible to travel with a family, even on a small budget. Cutting lodging costs and food costs will give you more money to spend on experiences. It’s very helpful to have a pretty solid plan before you go, but be flexible enough to enjoy spontaneous adventures.
4. We gave each child their own souvenir money at the beginning of the trip. They were able to make their own decisions about what they wanted to buy, but we made it clear that this was a set amount. They did really well with making decisions about what they were going to buy.
5. A ten year old boy never runs out of ways to aggravate his sisters, and he will use most of them on a long road trip.
6. You can get 14 year old girls to smile for pictures. You just have to work at it a little harder.