For myself and family - we sort of recreated a vacation that my parent took my brother, sister and I on almost 46 years.
First off - we headed to Oklahoma where my wife is from to go to a family reunion. We actually had to change location as the pavilion we first rented was under 4 feet of water when we got there. We were able to find another site right next to OU and had a wonderful time.
From there we head to the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, then to the Grand Canyon, up to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, to Mount Rushmore, Crazyhorse and then down thru the Badlands. We went thru something like 22 states and drove 5947 miles before ending up back home!
The whole family had a great time. I was a little shocked with Yellowstone as to me it seems like bison have taken over the park. We saw very little other wildlife except for bison. We were there only two days and spent all day long in the park driving and hiking. Just a guess though I sorted of figure that we saw close to 1500 bison! We only saw about 10 elk and 4 black bear and that was it. No deer, moose or grizzly bear. We actually saw more elk around the Grand Canyon and possibly had a mountain lion siting - it was near dusk and what ever it was had a long tail... LOL
I was impressed with the trip from Yellowstone over to Mount Rushmore - through Wyoming. If I recall correctly it was Rt 14 - it looked beautiful and was National Forest - open to hunting I believe. Wish I would have had more time so could have done some fishing - but we were traveling pretty fast from one park to next.
I hope to hear from some of the rest of you on your family vacations! Its been a little sad to see how much the participation on here has dropped to almost nothing....
Me and the wife usually only do a couple weekends per summer at our cabin in Monroe County for "our" vacation. However, I've learned to refrain from calling it a vacation in general terms because all we do is work our butts off when we are there. What can I say, we are simple people that derive pleasure from simple things. God Bless
WV Mountaineer - I loved our vacation - but I could not wait to get home to be able to hit Back Creek with the kayaks and do some fishing! Plus we are clearing some around the house to make a nice firepit. My oldest daughter has about 10 other 15 year old girls coming over later in the month for several days and nites of bonfires and kayaking!
We spent 3 days in the mount Rushmore area and three days in Yellowstone. Then I hunted in Roosevelt national Forest while she relaxed at the camper for 2 weeks. I got my first bull elk with the recurve and dropped it off in Fort Collins at the processor, bought our 1 day fishing license and caught trout in a mountain lake.
Spent a couple of days with friends still elk hunting on the mountain and then headed home
Great trip! Great memories! That was my first year of retirement.
