Day 5 - Wednesday 7/18

Alex had a work call this morning so we hung out and had a nice breakfast, did some bike riding and swimming. We packed up and took the boys to the Dells Mining Co and let them mine for gems. They all did a good job and walked away with a bag o’ gems. Most of you out there know how cheesy I am, right? So tell me how exactly, I have lived my whole life without having Wisconsin Cheese Curds? Did you know that cheese can actually squeak? We learned, from the cheese guy,of course, that if they are fresh they squeak when you chew them. Who knew??? I guess you can also have them fried but since I am trying to be good I decided to pass. We are on the road from Wisconsin to Jackson, Minnesota. We changed our itinerary slightly. We were going to drive all the way to Sioux Falls, SD today but it would have been too much. We will stop in there tomorrow as we drive through. The back crew are still very busy…..Christopher is sleeping (we are running him ragged), Steven is reading and Andrew is busy playing his Gameboy. I will continue once we are in Minnesota.







As you can see, my children became cheeseheads prior to us leaving Wisconsin....how could we have been there without purchasing one of these??? I have a photo of Andrew wearing it also but he requested that I not post it to the blog....there are a few things that I must honor. Christopher wears it very proud and has not taken it off....it might even replace the Boston Red Sox cap.

Minnesota was quite uneventful....we arrived at yet another KOA and this one, without a doubt, is the smallest one yet. There seems to be a theme as we go across! We played a little basketball....Alex is the HORSE champion of the day, the boys swam, we had dinner and watched a movie. We are getting up early to head to South Dakota and hook up with Uncle Lance, Aunt Amy, Caitlyn, Carlie and Olivia - the boys can't wait to see their cousins!!

Day 4 - Tuesday 7/17

Today we are headed to Noah’s Ark Waterpark. This was Andrew’s pick on the route. He found this place a long time ago in a Guinness World Record Book as one of the top three waterparks in the world. They claim to be the largest in America. We spent all most the whole day at the park going on some great slides and enjoying the powerful wave pool. We stopped at “the Fastest Go-Karts in the Dells” (everyplace here has some type of claim to fame) to have a rematch on the track. This time we switched up the teams a little. (Alex/Christopher, Steven/Shari and Andrew) The ending was a tad controversial (I know that is shocking to most of you out there) I can state without a question that Steven and I did not win. Steven claims that someone cut us off somewhere along the root. Alex and boo boo slowed down to make it a real race and Andrew passed them and ended up being in first. Whatever…I give Andrew this win! We went back to the campsite, the boys swam, I did laundry, and Alex made a yummy dinner of grilled Chicken over salad. The boys made some new friends. Steven asked us at one point if we were in a place that they spoke the same language as us….I assured him that cheese heads were a different breed but they still spoke English.
Sitting at the campfire with an adult drink in hand….Alex states we should buy "one of these" and do this every summer. I am only putting this down as proof, to see if he still feels the same in 12 more days!! In case anyone needs to know all trains or bears are doing just fine!!

Day 3 - Monday 7/16

WOW....hard to believe we are on day 3 already. Today we are on the road for almost the whole day...we are driving from Port Huron, Michigan, through Illinois, and on to our destination for the day which is Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. We have at least an eight hour drive day if all goes well and Alex has decided he wants to drive the whole day. I offered to take the drivers seat for a while but Alex believes that managing the crew is much harder than driving!! The back crew, as we call them, are currently keeping themselves occupied. Christopher is snoozing, Andrew is having lunch while watching a movie and Steven is having a little arts and crafts time. We found these things called Aqua Dots and they are loads of fun. I will write more later when we arrive at our destination!

Wisconsin Dells – were still trying to figure out what Dells are…..do any of you know? This place has got to be the amusement capital of America. Everywhere you turn there are go kart tracks, waterslide parks, Ripley’s Believe or Not type places and amusements parks. Can anyone say over stimulating!! We are now arriving at our third KOA of the trip. This is the smallest, so far, but it has a nice pool for the kids. Swimming, dinner and a great campfire….we now have day 3 wrapped up.

Day 2 - Sunday 7/15

We woke up this morning dry and that is more than most at our campground could say. The boys headed off on their bikes down to the catch and release pond. Alex took his tea to go and joined them. Shari did some housekeeping and enjoyed her coffee in peace. The fishing was very successful. Christopher caught at least 15 Sunfish, Andrew caught Sunfish and a 3 lb. large mouth bass, Steven watched and played on the shore (no interest) and Alex caught “the BIG one” he was about 6lbs. They also met a guy that fishes on the Bass Pro Curcuit. He gave them some lures and shared some fish tales. Andrew is very interested in how you can earn a living while fishing. His only problem is he will not touch the fish, therefore, he would need a “fish caddy like person” to handle that little detail for him. Alex then had to come back to the “home on wheels” and take care of business….his first empting out of the beast. I know there are a lot of you out there, you know who you are, who are dying to see how that worked out. I have to say it went very smooth; he was able to do it without the nose clips. I will say that there has been proper monitoring of who is going where, when and how often and all is good so far. No backage all around. We checked out of the campground and went back to “The Falls.” They are very pretty during the day. We decided to park the RV and take our bikes around to see the sites….what a day. We crossed over into Canada; we wanted to see the falls from that side (much more of a direct shot). We parked, walked down and took some more photos. We went to our first gift shop of the trip (you know there are more to come) and picked up a few items. We met a Mountie and of course could not pass up the opportunity to have the boys pose for a photo. Our trip through Canada was non eventful and for most of it or so it seemed we had lake Ontario to our right…..it is huge! We made it back into the USA….there was a small worry they wouldn’t let us back in!! We are in Port Huron, Michigan. We have now witnessed our second Great Lake and they really are “great”, when you look across the horizon, you do not see anything but water! We had a nice dinner (burgers) and finally were able to sit around the campfire with an adult drink in our hands….heaven at last! The boys checked out the campground and discovered go-karts, after dinner we took a spin. Andrew in his own car, Alex and Steven were teamed up and Shari and Christopher. Let’s just say that as Christopher and I passed everyone his comment was, “so long suckers” and that sums up the race. Team Shari/Christopher now has the first win under their belt! I believe the world’s biggest go-kart track is in Wisconsin Dells so this competition is not over. We ended our night with smores around the campfire and then showers for everyone….Alex was worried there might have been a hint of stickiness.

Day 1 - Saturday 7/14

We were fortunate enough to be able to pick up the RV on Friday (a day early at no charge) so we thought we were way ahead of the game. We spent most of the day on Friday packing everything that was not attached to a wall in the Besterman house into the RV. Shari being the placement of items coordinator, packed every cabinet, drawer, and nook so strategically that if you take one thing out you cannot possibly fit everything back in. We noticed on Friday afternoon that the fridge did not seem to be cooling down…first phone call in for help. Alex took the RV back to Peekskill and they replaced the thermostat. They sent him on his way with assurance that it would be fine. Several hours later, we have a packed RV and a hot refrigerator. We spent Friday evening on the phone with “the guy” following instructions and trying different things to make it work, including moving the house on wheels to a flat service. Those of you that have been on our driveway are laughing now and who knew RV’s should always be on flat surface. After a few hours of sleep we woke up knowing that we had to go back to Peekskill. We loaded everyone up said our goodbyes to Cat, the pups and our bon voyage crew (aka Pattie and Mark D’Alesio, throwing bird seed at us might I add) and headed out of dodge…..to Peekskill. This time they replaced the circuit board that controls the fridge and sent us on our way…finally. As the saying goes “everything happens for a reason”….while we were twiddling our thumbs in Peekskill, Alex was enlightened with a thought about passports and Canada. Back to Yorktown we travel, to pick up our passports and of course, given the opportunity to make another list, items that we had left without the first time around. To be perfectly honest, while Shari was twiddling her thumbs in Peekskill she found a few hidden places to put more crap. Now we say goodbye again to Cat and the dogs and promised to not return again until the end of the month. It is now 11:00 am and we are two hours behind schedule. We head to Corning, NY which is our first destination. We went to the Corning Museum of Glass (because we are so artsy) and looked around a little before our glass making class began. I would like to point out that we did make it through the museum without breaking anything or having to buy anything. That is huge for us! Shari and Christopher made some glass wind chimes, Steven made a glass bead (smallest thing of course) and Andrew made a holiday ornament. Andrew’s was the most interactive, he was able to do glass blowing.

We had to quickly get back on the road in order to be in Niagara by dark. Our drive to Niagara was uneventful and we arrived at our first KOA of the trip. We ate a quick dinner and the boy’s road around on their bikes and checked out the place. We ran over to “The Falls” to see them illuminated at night. We looked around a bit, took some photos and then the rain began. Thank goodness Shari had us wear the rain gear (so we could look like everyone in the tourists books that she had been scouring). It rained most of the night and we were very happy being in our RV and not in a tent. This is definitely the way to go. The only downside to the rain meant no campfire or smores for our first night. We made it through our first day and that we are happy

about!!

RV Layout

For those who are interested, here is a layout of our rig.

Points of Interest

Here is a list of the POI's we have so far:

• Corning Museum of Glass - http://www.cmog.org/
• Niagra Falls - http://www.niagarafallslive.com/
• Lake Ontario
• Lake Huron
• Noah's Ark in Wisconsin Dells - http://www.noahsarkwaterpark.com/
• The Corn Palace in Sioux Falls - http://www.cornpalace.com/newpages/palace.html
• Mt. Rushmore - http://www.nps.gov/moru
• Crazy Horse - http://www.crazyhorse.org/
• Bear CountryUSA - http://www.bearcountryusa.com/
• Lake Michigan
• Lake Erie
• Cedar Point - http://www.cedarpoint.com/
• Pro Football Hall of Fame - http://www.profootballhof.com/
• John Deere Capital - http://www.deere.com/en_US/attractions/pavilion/index.html
• Dutch Springs PA for scuba diving - http://www.dutchsprings.com/