06.20.07
Go west, young man
Since my father can’t resist a road trip, we’ve turned this trip to Ft. Laramie into an opportunity to see Devils’ Tower, Mt. Rushmore, the Badlands, some caves, and many other sites. We’re also visiting my great-aunt Sis and my Grandpa H. At the moment, the ‘plan’ looks like this:
We leave our house at oh-dark-thirty on Thursday and meet up with Dad and Virginia in KC. (They’ll fly in to KC on Wednesday evening.) We will go from there to Omaha to see Aunt Sis. I haven’t seen her in decades, and the kids and E have never met her. We hope to take a couple hours out of her Thursday afternoon to catch up, reminisce, and ask some questions about the family tree, hoping she can get us past a little bump we’ve hit. Shortly before we’ve worn out our welcome there, we will head West to approximately Kearney and stay for the night. 
We landed on Kearney by just saying “let’s look for hotels on this particular stretch of highway” and Kearney seemed to be the only live spot in sight! This may change once we do a little more hotel research.
We will head to Scottsbluff on Friday, possibly meet up with other family, and see what sites we have time for in the afternoon. There may or may not be events related to the Naming on Friday evening, so we’ll really play Friday, Saturday, and Sunday by ear.
Sunday after all Naming-related events are over, we will head northward to Devil’s Tower and explore that area.
Depending on the timing, we will probably find a hotel somewhere between there and Mt. Rushmore, and head to Mt. Rushmore on Monday. I seem to remember having to be dragged away from Mt. Rushmore, so we’ve put in a nice big cushion of time for that area. (This cushion also helps to deal with the uncertainty of Sunday morning.)
After Mt. Rushmore, we’ll likely head toward the Badlands. Around this time, E will have to split to head home. He wants to be ready to get back to work on Wednesday, so will probably split his drive home over Monday evening and Tuesday all day. Until we’ve pored over the map a little more, we don’t know if he’ll accompany us to the Badlands or not. (probably not?)
Once we hit Iowa, we’ll probably visit the site of the last of the James Gang’s train robberies. You know how we love our infamous people! The real reason for visiting Iowa would be to celebrate Grandpa H’s 90th birthday on July 23. We’ll actually celebrate on Sunday July 22. This is a great excuse to catch up with that branch of the family, which I’ve neglected quite soundly for a decade. Bad, bad me. Fortunately, we do have a large book detailing that branch through the 1980′s, so the only tree research we’ll feel compelled to do there would be for “color.” All the little stories and reminiscences that make a family tree alive and interesting.
There are several days between E going his own way and us needing to be in Iowa. I know these will be filled with fun and interesting activities, but none of them have made it into the ‘plan.’