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cadMOM and I just returned from what I felt was the trip of a lifetime (she may have different ideas). cadKID#2, a rising JR at Annapolis now "qualifies" to have a car on campus, so we decided to drive him one from Stockton, CA to the East Coast.
Picture National Lampoon Family Vacation...
Grand Teton / Jackson Hole was the first stop (not much across NEV/UT, then Yellowstone (we saw elk, moose, buffalo, griz, sheep, goat, fox, antelope, marmot, prarie dog, and rattle snake), got snowed on, then Cody and the Buffalo Bill Museum.
Got snowed on again in the Big Horns, then on to the Black Hills (missed the turn off for Devil's Tower) and Mt Rushmore. WALL Drug, then the Badlands and the Corn Palace in Mitchell (for years cadMOM thought I was just kidding), then the World's Largest Tin Foil Ball, a tornado (very close) in Tomah, Wisc. Too late one night for Juanita The Bearded Snake Lady, but next was the Muskie Capital of the World in Eagle River and off through the UP of Michigan. The Straits of Mackinaw were all fogged in but Harbor Springs was lovely.
We caught up with ofcrKID#1 and the Lakewood Blueclaws in Hagerstown, MD and toured Antietam Battlefield. A week of watching college wood bat in the Cal Ripken League (the Siver Springs Thunderbolts of all things!) and then 10 days of watching the BC's on the Jersey Shore.
5500 miles all together. Never spent over $100 on a hotel room. Best meal on the trip was papusas at a Salvadoran restaurant in Bowie, MD. cadMom promised to help with the driving... one morning she pulled the car around from the back of the hotel... we are the best friends in the world!
Wonderful to see our boys, and wonderful to enjoy this unbelievable country of ours...
Now I sleep...
cadDAD
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