Stats

Miles : 8281.1

States: 18 (OH,KY,TN,MS,AR,OK,TX,NM,AZ,UT,ID,WY,MT,SD,IA,IL,ID,PA)

National Parks, Historic Sites, and Monuments: 18

Finishing up

I will post about days 35-38 later (tomorrow?) along with trip statistics, but for now, know that we are back home safe and sound and were greeted by Buster the boxer and Sophie the Puggle with many cries of happiness that their family had returned!

We are home a day early as Abby will be leaving in the morning for a mission trip in western PA for all of this next week.

Day 35

Another travel day as we head to western PA. We wrapped up the Creation Museum and Kings Island a couple days before I (Crystal)  anticipated.  We will probably spend a couple days in western PA before heading home.

Day 34

Today we speak the day at Kings Island. It is part of Cedar Entertainment, so lots of roller coasters.  We spend a lot of time at their water park.  We really enjoy good water parks.

For dinner, we met up with Dave & Sherriann and their sons.  It was wonderful to catch up!

Back to Kings Island for the fireworks, then we slept at a Walmart in Grove City, OHIO

Day 33

Today was Aliza's day - her number one venue to visit is the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter.  It opened at 10a, we arrived at 10:02 and parked in lot 7!  Yes, it is a busy place.  We had gone through most of the museum by around 12:45p and Ken and the boys were in a different room than me and the girls when I heard, "Crystal Brothers, please report to the publications office."  (Ken never heard the page). As it turns out, they said "public safety office", and I begin to think that Ken paged me (no cell signal inside the building) or perhaps one of the boys got lost.  So, we find the public safety office and are told, "Indian Springs campground called and they are going to tow your camper."

I asked Abby to go back and find Ken and the boys in the exbit hall and I find an exit to the outdoors to get signal to call the campground.  Answering machine. Ken comes out and he calls the campground and gets a real person, we all get in the car and head back to the campground.   Ken drops me off at the office while he and the kids start prepping the camper to move.  I ask some questions and tell the owner what the CM staff told me and she explained that they just needed us to move to a different site and they were not going to tow us.  So, we moved and ate our brown bag lunches and went to Ark Encounter (40 minutes south of the Creation Museum, and 52mi south of the campground.)

The problem started because when we called the campground the night before, we only asked for one night, but we left three nights of rent in the envelope as we decided to stay there and there appeared to be several open sites.  However, the camp office is only open from 10-4, so we never actually saw anyone to verify that we could stay in that site multiple nights.  

Anyway, it all worked out in the end, we enjoyed the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter and still have a place to sleep tonight.

In the insect area of the Creation Museum, there is a display of leaf insects.  When Annie saw it, she exclaimed, "Wait!  They exist!?!?!?"  The man next to us burst into laughter and said that she had made his day.  

Tomorrow's agenda: Kings Island amusement park and meetup with Sherriann and her family.  Sherriann was one of my roommates at Grove City College.

Day 32

Today is a travel day.  We started in Galesburg, IL after sleeping at Walmart.  We checked in at Indian River RV Park about eight minutes from the Creation Museum.  We will go to the museum tomorrow and perhaps Tuesday, then up to the northeast side of Cincinnati on Wed/Thursday for Kings Island.  We plan to catch up with one of my college roommates while in the area (Sherriann).

No photos today, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana are mostly cornfields and wind turbines especially along the interstate.

We are trying to readjust to EDT time before we get back home next weekend as we will be off and running on Monday morning when we get home.

Day 31

Today is Annie's 11th birthday!  

We are heading to Des Moines, IA, for a small surprise activity for her for the afternoon.  Meanwhile, we are driving through Iowa on I-80E.  Iowa grows two things: corn and windmill farms!

My sinuses are not real happy with the cornfields, but this is the most green we have seen since Arkansas, sometime in early-mid June!

Annie's birthday fudge sampler from Wall Drug.  Chocolate, Strawberry Shortcake, Peanut butter, and maple.  Ken lit two matches for her to blow out as an 11.

In Des Moines, we enjoyed an hour at Sky Zone trampoline park, then two hours at Clive Aquatic Park.  Both were much enjoyed, especially by the birthday girl.  Then we met a work aquaintance of Ken's and her family at Machine Shed Resteraunt for dinner.  That was very nice as well.  I think Annie had a good birthday -- she had expressed concern that her birthday would not be very good if we were driving all day, so we tried to make it fun for her.  Now she is watching one of her favorite movies (Ramona and Beezus) as we continue to head east.

We are done with National Parks for this trip unless we happen to add one spontaneously, but at this point, we are Cincinnati bound for the Creation Museum and King's Island.