We couldn’t drive all the way across the United States and not go the rest of the distance and see the Pacific Ocean. We visited Ecola State Park to get a little beach time. The water was cold, but that didn’t keep the surfers away. Despite the cold the girls played along the edge of the water until they just couldn’t help but get completely drenched. They also enjoyed arranging stones on the sand to dry out a bit. The day was pretty overcast, but tons of fun.

We would have loved to camp in this state park because the trees and ferns were just beautiful, but we needed to cover some distance that evening. We hung out for a couple of hours to get our sand and salt fill, stretch our legs, and accomplish seeing the pacific ocean.

The Mama got her feet wet too, but she resisted the complete drenching the girls enjoyed.

The coastline was beautiful and we were treated to the view of a distant lighthouse.

Old Faithful in the cool morning

When picking out locations to show Emily the effects of the magma on the Earth, we put Yellowstone high on our list of must see places. The park is huge and has a lot of different examples of active volcanic effects including geysers, boiling mud, and hot springs. We spent several days at Yellowstone so that we could view both the wildlife and the thermal features at a relaxed pace and rest at bit from our mad dash across the US to that point. We stayed at the historic Old Faithful Lodge just steps from a geyser area. From that location we visited some of the other areas of the park. We saw bison, a black bear, a wolf, and an elk. The animal viewing was nothing in comparison to the fall animal displays we have seen in years past, but for the girls it was perfect.

We knew that the weather would still be cool while we visited. Because of the elevation the evenings were still close to freezing. There was still snow in areas and quite a bit of ice on the lakes. We made good use of our coats and sweatshirts. The best hike of the trip was down to a viewing point of the lower falls of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. We were not sure how the girls would do, but they were willing to give it a try. Before starting back up we discussed the idea of slow and steady to reach the end. Julia took the advice to heart and slow and never-stopping hiked the steep incline to the top. Emily kept right with her. They definitely beat the parents! We were so proud of their effort!

at Castle Geyser – We had passed this geyser earlier in the day and saw the sign with the estimated time for the next eruption. Emily watched the time so that we could go back and see it. She was very pleased when we made it in time.

The all important bison also known as bicey to Julia. The day we entered the park and she saw her first five live-living-free-bison she declared the day to be the “best day ever”.

the Edwards girls all looking at the camera. the girls both picked out matching sweatshirts from the park and loved matching each other.

the only way we could get Julia to take this photo was with Emily promising to hold her up. she was a bit afraid that she would fall backward.

just a silly morning photo of the girls in our rustic room in new jammies.

It was a good year! Looking forward to the memorable and everyday moments of 2014.

All Aboard!

We rode Amtrak’s Auto Train between Virginia and Florida to skip a bit of the driving on the trip and to have a cool experience. We boarded in the afternoon on one day and got off the next morning enjoying two meals and one night on the train.

The girls waiting outside of our car to board.

We had two rooms reserved for the trip and they were across the aisle from each other. We discovered, as a great side benefit of this occurrence, that the girls could play in one room with the door closed and the parents could relax in the other room in quiet. It didn’t seem that we got to spend much time in the room just hanging out because of the early dinner reservation and early bedtime for the girls.

Mama and Julia were room buddies. She enjoyed setting up all of her toys just the way she wanted it. We were given small water bottles which she thought was just her size.

Daddy and Emily were room buddies. Robby decided to let Emily have her wish to sleep on the top bunk. This way he got to enjoy watching out the window as the world sped by.

We caught Emily just watching the world go by from the dining car. It doesn’t look like she ate much food, but she had eaten her salad and bread first and was waiting for dessert. Julia was so tired from skipping her nap that she fell asleep eating dinner and got her dessert later in our train car.

Julia slept on the bottom bunk and felt like a queen doing it. Only once did she check on Mama. She slept the whole night like it was nothing. This proved to be a great experience and was a nice way to cover the miles. The girls want to know why there are no other auto-trains that go places that we can visit. Mama and Daddy would be ok with that too!

We needed a stretch-your-legs stop and knew there was a large mall that could meet our needs. We were delighted when we discovered a double-decker carousel. For as much as the girls love carousels this was double the fun. Of course they wanted to ride on the upper level. The mechanism that moved the horses was a bit different than they are used to and Julia opted to move to a stationary horse instead of a rocking one. We were all decked out in our red, white, and blue to celebrate Independence Day.

Meet my little friend Natalie. She was feeling sad one day as she wanted to keep up with the bigger kids, but couldn’t. She asked for help to climb the play structure. I took pity on her and climbed in the structure to help her get past the tough part. She followed a climbing tip and found out that she could climb the levels all by herself. Thanks Natalie for the grin and letting me help you discover something new about yourself.