Cheyenne, Wyoming State Capitol

I have this goal (or on my bucket list) to visiting all the state capitols in the United States and take a picture with their capitol buildings.  As we were coming home from South Dakota, we discovered that Cheyenne happened to be close enough for us to change our route a little bit to pay a visit.  The kids also wanted to see a BIG city after so many days in the nature.

So here, we, Californians from Bay Area with a total populations of 8.7 millions, were visiting the least populated state in the US with 580,000 people in the whole state.  THE WHOLE STATE!  I was afraid that it would be a let down but it had to be a big city.  After all, it is the capitol of Wyoming.  Right?  So we made our effort to drive them, through a thunder storm, hoping it wouldn’t turn into a tornado.

Well, Cheyenne turned out to be a disappointment.  Its capitol building was under construction so we couldn’t even see it in its complete glory.   It was 4 o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon and there were hardly anyone near the captiol.  It was definitely a small town.  Well, what can one expect?  It was a small town with a population of 64,000.  It would rank as number 141 in California City population.  No wonder many people from Midwest get overwhelmed when visiting California.  It would be like us visiting Tokyo (or actually Las Vegas later on the trip), feeling no space to breathe.

There probably were some charms to this town but it failed in its first impression.  We took our picture with the state capitol and left the town.  There were some interesting boots statues we found on the way out of the capitol but that was too late.  We were on our way to Denver, hoping for a greener pasture there.

Last Day

Today is the last day of our trip.  Even thought we spent almost the whole day driving it was still enjoyable.  when we woke up at our hotel in Vegas, I started to think about home.  I thought about how would the 8 hour ride would be like to get home and what I would do when we got home.  We had to wake up earlier I thought it would be hard, but we were lucky, because we just got to Nevada and it is in a different time zone as Utah, so then I got up at 7:30, but to me it is already 8:30.

At the start of the ride it was pretty boring and uncomfortable because I was not use to the car, and because I was not looking forward to the ride.  But after some time we all found something to do.  One thing I do not like is being in the car for a long time.  So even though I could play video games, read and talk to my siblings, after 2 hours into the ride I start complaining.  Lucky we get to take breaks pretty often.

We went to 2 gas stations along the way.  The first one seemed sketchy so I did not go our, but the second I was out to use the restroom, after the restroom I was being me again spending more money on sweets.  My dad started yelling at me because I ate candy day before.  We got in the car, then I realized we are at the halfway point, I was happy because I wanted to get out of this car, but at the same time sad because our road trip was coming to an end.

When we were about 2 hours from home we started watching movies, we first watched Moana then the hobbit.  When we were 10 minutes away from home and my brother turned off the I pad when we were in the middle of guardian of the galaxies I needed to take a dump.  We took and exit and arrived at Mod Pizza, I want in and there was no restroom.  I ran around and got to a noodle restaurant to use the restroom.  My dad felt bad for them because I came running in so he bought noddles for dinner.

We finally got home as we dashed into our house in joy.  We did cleaning for the rest of the day until dinner.  We had a few packaged at the door.  I got and new backpack and sleeping pad for camping.  We also got a new 4k Amazon TV.  After my shower we spent a long time playing with it.  At the end we watched a movie before I went to bed.  And that was the last day of my trip.

Experiences with Mountain Goats

I crossed over a lot of snow, when I saw the steep fall but with thick snow at the bottom.  I though if I fell of the edge because the snow was wet I could survive.  But I did not like the feeling of maybe dying so I told myself “shut up, it will not happen, just focus on the trail.  So I just kept on going without thinking of the hill I was on.  As I was catching up to my sister and little brother on a trail in Logan Pass I saw a mountain goat.  I knew not to approach it, but I think I alarmed him.  He swiped his hooves on the ground and bent his head down.  I did not know what to do so I began to run.  Another family came, then the goat ran away, I thought what was that all about.  Later I saw the goat again running in circles.  My mind went blank, I decided to forget it.  Bur every once in a while I jut think about that goat, I am sometime worried for it, I was worried if it was hurt or has issues.

 

My thoughts of my trip

This summer we ended with this great road trip.  Even though our vacation are getting shorter every year it is still very fun.  From learning the history of Indian tribes to just identify plants, I learned a lot this trip.  I think my favorite places were Glacier National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, and Crater Lake National Park.  I also likes Denver and Spokane because they Are big cities with a lot of things to do in them.

The car rides were boring except I was able to play games on my iPad and be mean to Tia.  I also liked watching Logan go crazy whenever let it go played.  At other times I just read on my kindle.  I did not sleep on the rides when I should have so I would not annoy everyone else on the car.

I think the views on this trip were great.  Hayline peak was great because we could see the city, mountains and a lot more.  I really liked crater lake at different angles and I also liked the views at glacier.  At Bryce there were not much because we were either in a canyon or ground level, so we could only see hoodoos.

Over all I liked the trip even though as I grow up they get less and less interesting.  I wish in the future I can change and love them as I used to.  But I still liked this one.

Oregon Caves

We finished packing up at our campsite and left. We were driving to Oregon Caves National Monument. I was really exited  because I felt like I was going to the first cave in my life. When we got to the visiter center we got a spot for a tour, me my little sister and brother got a junior ranger booklet. we worked on the first page before the tour, we had to bring our books in our car so we went all the way back to the car.we went over the rools and history and about the rocks in Oregon Caves, then we set off. We were in the cave for about 30 minutes then we came out.

Delicate Arch

Hiking at Arches National Park, Delicate Arch was really painful. We hiked in one hundred some, I was all so really tired because it was mostly up hills. My mom and sister struggled a bit, but they still made it to the end. Me my older sister and brother got there first to pose for my dad when he was at an other arch. when we were waiting we header someone screened that appeared to be our little sister. So  we looked over and saw a bright pink thing roll down the cliff, a few seconds later me and my brother were like, wait that is our little sisters water bottle. A nice man went down the cliff to get our water bottle and his. He went behind the arch to come back, it took him so long that we thought he fell, but he was taking pictures. We thanked him and ate lunch then left, when we got to the car it was 106 degrees, we cooled down and left the park.

Snoopy Adventures (by Tia)

this is snoopy sitting in a bathroom

this is snoopy taking the nail (stake) out of the ground [to take the tent down]

this is snoopy sleeping on a rock after taking the nail (stake) out because it tired him out

this is snoopy going in a tunnel at the playground

this is snoopy sleeping in a hammock with me (with pouch, sharky, ladybug, swoops)

this is snoopy going back down [the escalator] to go shopping

this is snoopy doing his junior ranger book

this is snoopy on a hike

go to sleeeep go to sleeeeeep go to sLEEEEEPPppp snnooooopyyyyy go to sleeEp go to sleEEEP go to SLEEEEEP SNOOPPPPPYYYYYYYYYYYY

GO TO SLEEP SNOOPY

it was dad’s birthday

tia went swimming

bryden bully me

tia having fun

tia saw my brother got a big horn sheep I named it joey

I am

Logan Pass (Hidden Lake Trail)

At Logan pass Hidden Lake trail we were hiking then their was a patce of snow that went up hills. Me and my brother went up the hill and slid down, but we were pretendinhg to ski we did it so many times, so we needed to run back up and catch up with our familly.  Then me my litle sister and my brother raced up an other hill no snow and there was wood on were you walk. Then a large peice of land with snow, when we finished the first half of the trail, we saw a slide of snow as we slid down I really hated it because I was on my feet. So I climbed up and ran up the mountain to catch up with my dad and sister, that is were the Approaching Goat starts.

Cow Family

As we zoom past the plains of grass we come along cows, lots of cows. every time we come across cows I feel a conection Between us. So then I started to open the window every time we run into more cows, I will say HI BROTHERS AND SISTERS AND MOM AND DAD AND COUSINS. But I love saying one thing, when I die I will turn into one of you. Then we go across more cows, but they have shelters, then we think about it, wait isint that a slaughterhouse. So I thought if I turn into a cow I might get killed at at a slaughterhouse and get eaten. So I fell like it is not a good idea to become a cow.

Nebraska, a tornado scare

After the Badlands National Park, we started heading home.  Kadia wanted to cut through the corner of the Nebraska so we can claim another state on our trip and go to more big cities, so we adjusted our route to also go through Cheyenne and Denver and a few Utah national parks.  As we drove on a lonely unpaved road, I started to wonder what happened if our car broke down and got stranded because google map said it was the fastest route.  It was definitely shortest at least on the map but not sure it was the fastest as we couldn’t drive fast on the bumpy road.  I wonder if there is a setting to exclude unpaved road from routing.

As we pulled into the town Chadron, we stopped by an Arby’s to eat and planned where to stay for the night.  We have the option of camping or staying at a motel.  As we pondered our options such as should we go further to Crawford, we overheard some other customers talking about flooding and bad weather.  As we drove up, we did noticed the sky looked omnieous.  So we decided to look at the weather.com to see what was going on.  Oh, boy, I was glad that we did.  There was a servere storm and flash flood warning for the Dawne County which when I looked up on the map, it was where we were.  Also, there was tornado warning as well, not sure exactly where it was though given we didn’t know the area.  This reminded me of the tornado scare we had at Wisconsin one year.  Then I looked at the radar map, it showed why Chadron seemed to be clam, it was basically at an eye of a storm and soon to be swallowed.

With that, we quickly found a motel to stay and was glad that we checked the weather.  Luckily the storm turned and headed southeast thus missed us almost completely.  One thing I didn’t check was that “did the motel have a basement for us to bunker down if the tornado did hit?”  For us wimpy Californians, we never had to check for weather in the summer, it would always be good.  But here at a Tornado Alley state, there will always be a chance that a storm/tornado popping up out of nowhere so vigilence is needed.  It reminded me a friend told me not just go camping anywhere in Malaysis because of pythons or Africa because of lions so I will add an item, in Midwest because of tornados.