Blended Not Stirred: The Great Western Family Adventure!!

4000 miles, 9 states, 3 weeks, 2 teen age girls and a nine year old boy on steriods to banish a raging case of poison sumac....

First stop was Mitchell , South Dakota at the Corn Palace...(a "must skip")...but we had to stop EAR!

Meet our travel gnome: Sidney Perry Greenswag. He thought the palace was quite corny.

Second stop was the 1880s Town. We did not schedule for this stop but we are glad we took the time to explore...

After buying Max a bunch of stupid plastic toys in the gift shop, we were off to the Badlands.

It felt as hot as it looked...

Max and Frank did not obey this sign...

After the Badlands we spent some time at Wall Drug (no pictures) and then went to Mt. Rushmore. We were stunned to see that Sid was a past president, but not surprised.

The next day we drove to Devil's Tower in Wyoming. Loved reading all of the legends about the way it was formed...was disappointed we did not see any UFO's....but we were pretty sure our waitress was not from this planet..

I love Cowboy General Stores.

I love Cowboy Cafes.

A number of stops were made after Devil's Tower. A bunch of one horse towns in the middle of the desert...until we got to the Grand Tetons....

Amazing...

Frank and I agree...of all of the places we have traveled, the spot that we took this picture (below) is the most beautiful place we have ever seen!

We stayed in Jackson Hole, Wyoming for a few nights which is a fabulous little town nestled in the Grand Tetons....LOVED the vibe here...

I love Cowboy Bars.

We spent a day in Yellowstone Park. A favorite part of the trip for all of us. For some reason these pictures from Yellowstone were posted backwards....

This picture below is my favorite picture of the trip. I love the lighting, the mist and the lone pine tree...

Max cared about "Old Faithful" for about 1 minute...he kept himself busy making miniture Indian reservations?

A really cool day! We saw tons of buffalo, elk, moose! No bears, maybe wolves?... but lots of buffalo poop which we can now identify.

After our Wyoming adventure we headed to Oregon to meet my parents and brother. A week of walking on the beach, roasting marshmallows, watching movies, trying new things, bonding over sunsets and exploring new territory!

Clamming with Uncle Dave. We found tons more than last year for our Surf N Turf dinner...

We went 4-wheeling on the Oregon Dunes WHICH ARE HUGE! Max kicked all of our asses...loved it!

We found the perfect spot for our beach campfires and did not want anyone to take it for the week we were here so we drew faces on rocks and hid them around our "campsite" to scare people away. We never had a problem getting our secret campsite in the evenings...