Thursday, August 12, 2010

To Missouri and Back

We went out to Missouri to visit my family for a couple weeks. We had a great time, such a great time that we forgot to take any pictures until our way back. Some of our adventures in Missouri included a canoe trip, a Silver Dollar City trip (an amusement park in Branson set in the 1800s), shooting skeet, lots of swimming, and making lots of blackberry jam. We went up to St. Louis one day with my sister Jessee and her husband Andrew. While there we went to a Cardinals game. The stadium was gigantic and it had a great view of the Arch.

Jessee and Andrew

Albert Pujols up to bat, he was the only player I had really heard of. He did hit a home run.


Eventually we had to head home, it came way too soon. I was so sad to not get to play with Weston and Rhett (my nephews) all day.
We made a stop at Winter Quarters, and got to take a tour and walk around the cemetery and temple. It was neat to be there because Sterling and I are reading a book about my pioneer ancestors right now and they went through Winter Quarters on their way to Salt Lake City.


Our next stop was Badlands National Park. It was pretty neat to see. There was a motorcycle rally around the area (Sturgis and Rapid City) at the time, so there were tons of bikers at all the National Parks and on the highways.



Next was Mount Rushmore. Sterling had never seen it before and was a little disappointed by its size, thinking it was a lot larger.


Lastly we went to Devil's Tower, where we camped for the night. We had fun walking around it and reading the Indian Legend of how it was created by a girl who turned into a giant bear. Apparently this girl or bear, started killing everybody so they ran to a rock which grew and the bear clawed at it making the columns.

This was the view from our campsite, pretty good. It was a lot of fun and it looked amazing when we woke up in the morning. The only sad part was it was so hot and dry that we weren't allowed to have a campfire.

All in all a good trip back, especially because Sterling drove the entire way, what a great husband! I'm just training him to be like my dad, who drives all day while my mom keeps him awake with her snoring.