We are in southern Idaho! We arrived yesterday, after traveling through the south west side of Yellowstone, out thru the Grand Teton National Park and then into Idaho on wednesday. We spent that evening on the side of the road just outside the Targhee National Forest, just over into Idaho. When leaving Yellowstone we saw a grizzly bear walking along about 75 yards off the road. He had spent sometime near the road and crossed a very open meadow, but we came along just as he was getting into some thickets, so not a good picture opportunity, but we all where able to see him!
The Tetons are beautiful, as you can imagine, but we were all mountained out, so we did not drive through them, just drove by. We did get some amazing pictures. We had dinner in Jackson, Wyoming. And saw the national elk refuge where approx 5000 elk winter over. None there for us to see right now, though.
We have seen a lot of potato fields, and stockyards full of cattle. Not much wildlife here in southern Idaho, that we have seen. It is prairie land, flat mostly.

Grand Prismatic Spring

Old Faithful

Grand Tetons

Day 2 at Yellowstone!
I commented to Cliff that I keep interchanging Yosemite and Yellowstone the other day, unfortunately now he is too! The kids are trying to keep us straight, "It's Yellowstone!". We also are saying buffalo, and thru the Jr Ranger program they completed, they now know we are wrong about that as well! In USA, we only have bison!!! Don't slip up with Alexa & Gav, they will catch it, every time!
We did see a mama black bear with 2 cubs yesterday! Mostly thru the thicket, but the cubs scampered up a tree once the crowd really started to gather and I got a shot of him disappearing!
We also saw lots of Geysers and hot springs, beautiful vistas, climbed Mount Washburn, then were in a hail/slush storm briefly! Today we will leave via Old Faithful and move on to the Tetons. Unfortunately we are a little burnt out with the up and down of the mountains, so we may just photograph and move on.
The Jr Ranger program is really a terrific experience, it keeps the kids focused on learning about the place! We did have to declare the park an electronics free zone! They have been reading like crazy! At least that is not causing any motion sickness! Even I am able to do more map reading and browsing in the car, but not any true book reading like they are doing!

and here is your baby "bison" Mrs J!

Well, since we checked in last, we have gone to Thermopolis, WY and played in a hot mineral water pool. Alexa & Cliff jumped from the high board into the 11 foot end of the pool and we all enjoyed a large water slide and a much smaller one. It smelt like sulfur (rotten eggs, if you are not familiar ) but it was a nice way to unwind!
We continued down the road to just outside of Meeteetse, WY and stayed on a turn off! That ease of camping is a lovely thing!
Then we continued on this morning into Cody, far too early to enjoy the Irma Hotel, but it was a brief Walmart stop for groceries then on to Yellowstone!
We saw so very many bison, several elk, and mule deer as well.
We also enjoyed the scenery and waterfalls.

We also had a snowball fight in the Big Horn National forest!

We are spending tonight and tomorrow night in West Yellowstone, Montana. This means the kids have now been in more than half of the 50 states!

Wow! We are in Custer, South Dakota. We will rest our weary selves here for a few days. Everyone, and the truck & camper, have traveled incredibly well! But we do not want to push our luck, and really, yeah, we are ready for a rest!
We cruised through the Badlands yesterday! Wow! That is a sight to see! And ... added bonuses: pronghorn (deer?), mountain sheep (we think), and possible coyotes off in the distance! The sheep were right along the side of the road, the pronghorns were in the field, but we were able to stop and use the binoculars and the zoom on our cameras! We did not have a place to pull over to investigate.
The weather here is significantly cooler, 47 this am, felt like 37! And today is overcast, a perfect day to rest!

We have made it into South Dakota! We have pushed the kids a bit today, the adults too!
We have seen Illinois, a tad of Indiana, and a LOT of Iowa!!! And we also just nipped in and out of Nebraska, so we are adding that to the states we have been in list! Really, up rt 77 from just north of Omaha to Sioux City was really beautiful farm country and rolling hills!
We saw a windmill farm in Iowa that was very large and a ton of farm country! We stopped in Altoona for lunch and were directed to an indoor arcade/ go kart/ mini golf/ bumber car place called Incredible Pizza Co, and that was a wonderful place for the kids to burn off some energy and the folks to be upright and work out the kinks before pushing onward! I am including a picture of the kids in a hurricane simulator, that is the wind speed posted behind them!
We hope to be at a campsite in the Badlands of South Dakota tomorrow and stay put through the weekend! we are all looking forward to that!

So, after a long day of traveling, we decided to allow someone else to chauffeur us around and show us the ins and outs of Niagra Falls!
We had a blast!
Then spent the night in their parking lot! RVing is amazing that way!
They were more than happy for us to hang out and then get an easy start this am.
We made it to Lake Michigan, the town of Coloma to be exact. So, today we saw Lake Ontario (quite a bit), just missed Lake Erie, glimpsed lake Huron, and now are on the edge of Michigan!
The kids have been awesome travelers!

The camper is packed! We are going to make up some snacks and get a good night sleep. Then we are headed west at 5:30am!
We will be sad to leave Grandma & Grampa's house, but we are excited to get this adventure started!
I realize that I have sent along many, many invites to this blog, and not everyone knows the whole story!
So, as a family, we have decided to travel for the next year, approximately!
We have left our jobs and locked up the house on Westport Island. We launch from here at Mom & Dad's tomorrow to head toward our first position in McCall, Idaho! Cliff will be working for a travel nursing company called AYA. We will choose our assignments around the country. Each assignment usually  lasts for 13 weeks.
We have filed our intention to homeschool with the state on Maine and are going to be taking each day as it comes!
Please follow our adventure!