Day 5: Cody, Wyoming

Our next officially planned stop was at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, in Cody, Wyoming.

The Center is actual five museums in one: 
--The Buffalo Bill Museum
This museum focused on the fascinating life of this man and his famous Wild West shows. This museum included silent b & w film footage of the show!!!  Esp. awesome because we read together as a family a riveting biography of Buffalo Bill and all the fascinating U.S. history wrapped up in his own. The book is The Boy Who Became Buffalo Bill: Growing Up Bill Cody in Bleeding Kansas. I highly recommend, esp. for a family read-aloud!

--The Draper Natural History Museum
Focused on the Yellowstone park area, this was well done--the museum broken up into different levels representing different ecosystems. 

--The Whitney Western Art Museum
There was a special exhibit we really enjoyed on the works of Albert Bierstadt, and lots of paintings by famous painters: 

--The Plains Indian Museum
All the museums were very well done, but this one had a very particular mood to it--solemn and almost haunted. My photos don't capture the mood at all, which was probably best conveyed through the large displays, reconstructed buildings, lighting and sound effects/music. 

The handcrafts astound me.

--The Cody Firearms Museum
There was a special exhibit on firearms on loan from the Smithsonian. I never got to even go into this museum, although two of my kids opted for this one over the Whitney. There was just too much to see, we let everyone break up and choose what interested them the most.

Originally we had planned to spend the morning at the Buffalo Bill Center--but it was so awesome we closed it down, and ending up staying a second night in Cody.  Honestly, we could have spent two full days there--there was that much to see and take in.  I highly recommend this museum!

That night we splurged on dinner in a restaurant in Cody (where we will forever remember the huge and perfectly cooked baked potatoes) and then headed to the local rodeo. 

This too, was all the more perfect because of the book series we are currently reading as a family: the "Little Britches" books, by Ralph Moody. The rodeo figures prominently in young Ralph's life, and so it was great to give the kids a taste of it.

The funniest part of the rodeo--when they invited all the kids in the stands down into the arena for a contest of their own. There were two calves set loose in the arena, each with a prize tied to its tail. At the starter pistol they let loose all the kids to see who could run down a calf and win the prize. 

I was laughing so hard--even while worrying for the safety of those calves, watching the frenzied mob bearing down on them!  But all ended well, and while Happy and Smiley (our two who at the time were still 12 or under and so could participate) didn't win a prize, they sure made a memory!

On the Road--The first few days

We had allotted about 10-12 days for the first leg of the trip, from California to Alabama; pretty fast pace, but still allowing us time to visit the places we thought most worthwhile. Pulling our lodging along with us allowed us to drive late into the night if we wanted/needed to--and we saved time and money by staying in friendly parking lots whenever possible. 

The first few days were mostly just hard push to get somewhere new--we didn't have the urge to sight-see in the states neighboring California, which in theory we could go visit anytime. So the first night we stayed in a casino lot in Sparks, NV and the second in a Walmart in Utah. The only bit of intentional roadside fun was stopping to stretch our legs at the Bonneville salt flats. 

Day 3 we officially camped at Henry Lake State Park in Idaho, right outside the West entrance of Yellowstone:  

Day 4 we got up bright and early to make it into Yellowstone and to Old Faithful before it was too crowded for a good view. We had front row seats!  

We spent the day exploring what we could, visiting as many "must-see" spots as possible. 

Exploring the historical buildings was as much fun as all the geologic wonders:

I love the architecture of the lodge!

Those of you familiar with Yellowstone know it is so big you spend a lot of time driving, parking, then walking. Parking with a trailer in a crowded park can be a challenge. Documented above--the miracle of there being empty space in front of our car so we could pull out after one such stop! 

We saw several bears as we drove around, including this mama and baby right next to the road!  If you double-click to embiggen the photo, you can see the mama as that black lump. Her cub was right next to her, rolling and reaching for low branches on that tree, falling over, and generally being amazingly adorable. I am sure the kids got much better photos on their cameras--they were all standing in the car with their upper bodies outside the sun roof as we went by, for the best view. : )

Lots of bison--so many that we decided to skip the drive we had planned through Custer State Park. The kids and I had been through Yellowstone once before, when the kids were all really little, but that time we only saw a few animals, and then from a distance. Except for the herds of elk, which seemed to always be in the road. This time we saw all kinds of animals besides the bears, but not a single elk.  

Pulling over to fill water bottles from icy mountain spring water. Delicious!

I can't believe we packed all that into one day!

But then we had a harrowing drive out of the park at night. Winding, steep, sharp curves with drop-offs on either side. Deer in the road. Black cattle in the road. And the one time we pulled over so teen girls could try to capture the gorgeous purple sky and full moon we were attacked by mosquitoes so badly it was like something out of a horror movie. The blood-thirsty hoard was literally banging against the car windows trying to get in. (shudder) But God was merciful and we made it safely to a Walmart in Cody, Wyoming late that night, weary from a long day, but happy with our first real road trip adventure. 

Before We Hit the Road

For those interested in the world of vintage travel trailers:

While the trailer was in Northern CA at the home of my in-laws, my very handy FIL checked out and brought up to good working condition things like the wiring, lights, heater, plumbing, etc. (Thank you!) Mr. Incredible drove up several weekends in a row to work on improvements too, such as tearing out and rebuilding parts of the dinette and bunks, for increased strength.  When we found a place to temporarily store the trailer down near us (shout out to Hayley and Thorin--thank you, we could not have asked for a better set-up!), then we really got to work making the trailer not only functional but also feeling more like home.

The rebuilding of the two top bunks was a high priority, and Mr. I did a beautiful job:

I sourced natural latex foam (we were aiming to make improvements as non-toxic as possible) from a natural mattress company in the San Jose area and hand-made mattresses, using old cotton sheets and vintage wool blankets to protect the foam.

A cozy bed! The mattresses were then covered with a natural mattress protector before the kids made up their beds. I followed the same process for the cushions that make up the dinette seats and convert to the front bed: 

When I took this photo I had only fastened the mattress layers together with large safety pins--in the interest of time--but I have since hand-sewn the layers properly.  Now my mother is using her sewing expertise in making attractive covers that will protect the cushions and zip on and off for easy cleaning.

I painted everything inside, removed, spray-painted and replaced all the hardware, cleaned, and stocked the trailer. All the kids helped as they could, and even a boyfriend came by once to lend a hand. : )

Of course I meant to take awesome "after" photos to record our effort--but of course we were pushing hard to get out on the road on time and working late nights (often early mornings!) and still finishing things the night before launch day, and so I completely forgot.  That's ok!  Because it is still a work in progress, and even now my dad is finishing re-building the bed area over the dinette so there are enough beds for my parents to join us in the trailer for some of our adventures (9-year-old Smiley will take the new upper bunk, I will take a back bunk, and my parents will get the "big" dinette bed. Mr. Incredible is currently back in CA working and will join us again for some of our adventures before we head home). When I get a chance I'll try to remember to take photos of the "finished" interior. 

But the look of it isn't what matters of course. The trailer got us from California to Alabama and we were all completely cozy and sheltered!  

My one "beauty shot" of the finished interior--although the paint job is by no means the beauty of the pic. ; )

Finally, loaded and ready for hitting the road!

Next blog post--the first week on the road. Thanks for joining us on the journey!

And This is How We Roll

We are currently at base camp, at my parents' home in Alabama--the destination of the first leg of our road trip and the launching base for everything to come. While we are still here I'm going to try to get caught up with sharing our adventures and photos--so much fun already!

Some of you might be interested in how we are traveling--by vintage travel trailer, found on Craigslist:

Mr. Incredible and I started by crafting a list of all the things that we wanted in a travel trailer--our preferred price, age, condition, length, number of axles,  seller's location, sleeping arrangements, etc. There were a lot of factors to consider, but after months of searching on various sources online, I found one that seemed like the best we were going to find. It checked of all the boxes on our list, including our ideal bed arrangement (which is extremely hard to find, esp. in the length of trailer we wanted). And it was only an hour and half away from Mr. I's parents in Northern California, which was also amazing--the next best trailer was in Montana, if that tells you anything. His parents very graciously went to check it out for us and ended up buying it and towing it to their place until we could come and retrieve it. Thank you so much, folks!

These are the original photos from the seller, which best show the layout:

Apparently we really are tiny home people. A decent interior update to the 80s vintage of the trailer.  Just needs some fresh paint and a few minor things and this baby is ready for adventure.




Dinette, that comfortably seats our family of six, and which converts into a bed for two adults.











Look! 4 bunks, each with its own window! This is our favorite thing about this particular trailer layout--each kid gets his or her own bed, which is definitely a blessing on a long adventure.











From the tiny bedroom you can see that over the dinette is a fold-down bed!  When we bought the trailer, the wood of the over bunk was water damaged and too fragile for supporting the weight of a child--although it made great hidden storage for the road. We've made improvements to this and other areas of the trailer--photos of that to come, for those interested. 







A full bath with even a shower!  Hard to believe all this utility is packed into only 18 feet of camper. 


All in all, it's a cute piece of junk--let's face it, the 80's was not a decade known for its quality craftsmanship--but which just might be perfect for conveying us around the US for the duration of our adventure!  We are so thankful to have it.

So that's our little home away from home. : )

Photos of week 1 of the road trip coming soon!

Who's up for ADVENTURE?

The Craddock family has taken over The World is Our Classroom blog for the summer!

Yes, we are on our Epic American Homeschool Road Trip, and I will do my best to post every now and then as time and free wi-fi allow, so anyone interested can see what we are up to. 

It's not going to be ideal, as I can't nicely edit photos without my home computer, and I'm trying to re-learn how to blog on a Mac instead of a PC--and my daughter's Mac at that!  So whatever you get will be raw and real, fresh from my phone and without any fancy blogger stuff. I'll be thrilled if I can remember enough HTML to put captions under my photos!

So consider this my hey, everyone, we're still alive and having fun post, and please sign up for email updates if you don't want the hassle of checking back to see whenever I post again. : ). 

I hope all of you are having a great summer, however you are spending it. 

with love,

Blessed