Today we visited Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. It has several large rocks at the base of Pikes Peak. Olivia had a great time playing with Matt and Chris's girls. Here are a few pictures of Garden of the Gods.

View through an opening in Balanced Rock toward Garden of the Gods.

Prickly Pear Cactus

Mule deer eating yucca.

We are in Colorado Springs. We are staying with Brent's friend Matt and Matt's wife and three girls. Olivia is in heaven with three girls to play with. Yesterday we drove all the way across Kansas. We stopped in Hays, Kansas, at the Sternberg Museum. They have lots of dinosaur fossils, fossil casts and life size replicas of several species. There is also a discovery room where kids can learn about science up close. We all enjoyed it. While driving through Kansas, we passed several wind farms. We plan to visit the Garden of the Gods today with Matt's family.

Wind turbine on a wind farm in Kansas.

Dinosaur tail.

We are in Kansas. Today we visited the Gateway Arch. It was fun seeing the Mississippi River from the Arch. Olivia was reluctant to go up, but in the end her curiosity won and she and I rode in the capsule up to the top (630 feet). She earned another Junior Ranger badge by answering lots of questions about the displays in the Westward Expansion Museum. We left St. Louis and drove to Kansas City. Brent remembered a great barbeque place in Kansas City and with the magic of cell phones and GPS technology, we were able to find the restaurant: Arthur Bryant's Barbeque. The walls had pictures of lots of famous people, and the food was really good. The security guard in the parking lot reassured us that our boat and other belongings were safe. On our way out of town, we saw a Police Arrest Bus. It looked like a regular yellow school bus, but on the side was painted Police Arrest Bus. I guess big cities need buses on a busy Friday night. We crossed the Ohio River, Mississippi River and the Missouri River today. So far we've been in NC, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri and Kansas. There are several more states left before we head back home. Here are a few pictures of our fun day. Notice the security guard standing by the door.

View of the Mississippi River from the top of the Gateway Arch.

We left Thursday morning at the "crack of dawn" as Olivia says. We headed to Mammoth, Kentucky. We toured Mammoth Cave, the largest cave system in the world. It was huge, but I like all the formations in Linville Caverns. Mammoth doesn't have all the formations that wet caves have, but the size is impressive. It was quite hot. We camped at the park. Thunder woke Brent and me this morning at about 4:00. We decided we would rather break camp in the dark than in the rain. We put Olivia in the car and packed up and left the park around 5:00. We're heading to our next destination. I'll post more later.

This is the natural entrance to Mammoth Cave. The temperature inside the cave is around 54 degrees. Olivia earned a Junior Ranger badge by earning nine bat points.

Preparation

We are in the preparation phase of our trip. We have received Trip Tiks, maps, and tour books from AAA. We have reservations for our stays in Moab, Yellowstone, Portland and Seattle. We have packed some of our stuff and have had a practice run with the canoe and dry bags strapped to the top of the car. There's more prepartation. Check back later.