Another beautiful day! More than one Nebraska native has commented on how incredibly nice the weather has been. One gentleman who was wearing a flannel and working the microfossil table today even called the cooler weather, “Unnatural.” Sorry, we can’t help it if we bring beautiful weather wherever we go. :-)
Scott’s alarm went off at 6:30. After cleaning up the tent, making a breakfast of bacon and eggs,and showers we were finally on the road by 9:15. This is the funny part about our vacations. Normally when Scott needs to get up for work he lingers in bed just a little longer than his alarm and lets the shower water lull him into the day just a few minutes longer than necessary. While I have already exercised, showered, and dressed by the time Scott’s alarm goes off. During vacation Scott frequently throws the fly off the tent showering us with sunshine long before our eyes want to open. I managed to squeeze a few minutes of snuggle time out of him before he was out and hopping to get breakfast rolling.
There are bunnies everywhere! Cody loves picking me flowers, even when I politely remind him that he shouldn’t be picking them in certain places. He was very worried that I left these flowers out on the table last night. I showed him they were just as beautiful in the morning and complimented our breakfast.
Nebraska is a new state for the kids! West of the Mississippi River the kids are still missing Kansas, Texas, Louisiana, and Washington. If all goes according to plan they will get Kansas on this trip too.
Scott reported that Cody did a great job with the shower. No screaming! Despite every effort to keep the soap out of his eyes somehow Cody wiggles and manages to get soapy red eyes. There are also times where the water comes out frigid, boiling, or the water pressure is so great it could peel paint off a wall. None of that this time! The showers were fantastic. They were incredibly clean, warm, and spacious. Brooke’s competitive spirit works out well with paid timed showers. She was out long before the boys and she wants everyone to know it only took as long as it did because I made her comb her hair before showering. It is also important to note that while on a typical school day I take 10 – 15 minutes to shower Brooke and I both showered in under eight minutes today.
Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historic Park
Cody loves fossils. Well, we learned today that he is a little more partial to dinosaur fossils, but he loves fossils. The Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historic Park is famous for the mammals forever preserved in a volcanic ash fall that occurred around twelve million years ago. Cody was directing me to take a picture of everything within sight.
There were university students throughout the park finding fossils and ready to answer our every question.
There were a lot of fossils of teeth. The display of horse feet showed how horse feet went from three toes to one. We took a walk to the large barn that protected the large deposit of fossils. The fossils were mostly located in a shallow watering hole.
Before going into the large barn we stopped at a microfossil station. It reminded me of the fourth grade activity of carefully digging through and putting together little bones from owl pellets. The animals found in the large excavation site included: rhinos, hedgehogs, elephants, deer, and camels among many others. It is hard to imagine camels and rhinos wondering around Nebraska, but twelve million years ago Nebraska was also covered with sub-tropical grasses and patched of jungle.
The picture with the kids is of a three toed horse. The picture next to that is hard to see through the glass it was behind, but it was a baby rhino still unborn in its mom. The mom passed away due to inhaling the volcanic ash.
The skeleton is of an adult rhino. The university students were each given a portion of the grid to slowly work through. 
Some days it is impossible to get Cody to pose for pictures. Today he was so excited to pose for pictures I couldn’t include every single one of his adorable pictures. I really can’t express enough how much Cody was glowing from being at an excavation site. He wants to be a paleontologist right after a toy truck driver and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Exactly a week before we left on our trip the van broke down on the way to piano lessons. It was quite a convenient breakdown if you have to have one. I pushed the van to the curb (I almost had one of those moments where the car got away from me. Who knew I could push a van uphill by myself and have it move so quickly?) Meme came and picked us up after piano lessons, and then the tow truck driver delivered the van later. The driver even let Cody press the levers to release the car. He dreamt of being a tow truck driver all night. He was still so excited in the morning he ran in and asked if he could be a tow truck driver when he grew up. “You can be anything you want to be,” was our response.
We even had an opportunity to dig for bones ourselves. The kids had to uncover each and every bone. Just when we thought we had found every bone we entered a barn which had…more!!!
It was an incredibly beautiful day. I took this picture of Scott for two reasons: he just told a really dirty joke incognito style so the kids didn’t understand (notice the proud of himself smile) and I wanted to point out his oh so adorable fly sunglasses. He says they need a new name because I call all of his sunglasses fly glasses, so suggestions are welcome. We were at a very fun wedding this weekend where Scott traded out his previously ridiculous sunglasses at the church lost and found in exchange for these. He feels the goofier the better and that there should be a worldly sunglass exchange.
Cody abandoned unburying the bones at one point and decided to bury himself instead. So much for the clean clothes and fresh shower. There was a fantastic life-size puzzle that allowed the kids to put together a skeleton.
Scott’s happy moment of the day. Drum roll please…he discovered that if he put his bike closest to the van on the back rack and if he leans the rack back as much as possible then he can sneak the chuck box (the box with all our kitchen essentials) out. He was really excited about this. It means not taking the bikes off every time we want to eat. Yeah!
Brooke took this picture. She asked to borrow the camera, but wouldn’t explain why. She said, “You’ll see.” I spent the next five minutes trying to get the bone attached back to the box where it belonged. I left the kids for two minutes to help clean up lunch…
We finished our visit with a quick hike up scenic Verdigre Overlook. Verdigre means dull green in French. It is also the name of a system of creeks that carved out the valley below the overlook. Cody was our tour guide on the hike.
Cody asked for his container of Legos for the first time on the trip. I have never allowed him to bring Legos before and it could be a bad idea, but he happily spends hours playing Legos at home. Provided we are able to keep them all in the container life should be good.
We stopped shortly before two at the library in O’Neill, Nebraska. They were incredibly accommodating. Their Internet connection rocked! We even arrived just in time for story time. Brooke was too shy to join the group, but she listened from a distance. She loved explaining to me that she had known about the topic of static electricity and positive and negative charges. Cody sat on a little bench and looked through more than a dozen books. He even made a little friend. When story time was over at 3 and we happened to be leaving they offered us a fruit snack and juice box along with the other usual participants.
The people in the town of O”Neill helped direct us to the intersection in town painted with shamrocks signifying the unofficial Irish capital of Nebraska. The image is supposed to be really clear on Google Earth. Lynn, the camp host in Pierce first told us about the intersection.
Scott cracks me up. He said, “I know it seems like we have been in the car all day, but we really haven’t.” Then we added up all the hours in the car and it amounted to between seven and eight hours in total today. I responded, “Um…It kinda has been a lot of the day.”
7:30 pm Chicago time we arrived at Chadron State Park. Now the mad dash scramble to set up the tent and make dinner.
Our campsite came with a playground just a few feet away! Yippee! The state park also offers horseback riding, hiking/biking trails, showers, a swimming pool, tennis court, volleyball court, face painting, archery, and tomahawk throwing. The kids and I were ready to be done for the night, but Scott wanted to check out the tomahawk throwing and other activities. Since we couldn’t cook dinner, set up camp, and enjoy the activities Scott volunteered to set up camp while we went exploring. Since he was the one all excited for the adventure I decided to stay back and let him go with the kids. That marks the first time I set up the tent and cooked dinner all on my own. It took about forty-five minutes to cook our chicken dinner and get everything blown up and set up in the tent. Since they were a little late arriving back I even had a few minutes to read my book before they returned.
Cody got an angry bird painting on his arm.
Brooke had a rainbow unicorn. Cody was hopping to do archery, but they ran out of time. This is definitely a state park to return to some day. Speaking of returning places, when we happen upon South Dakota again we need to look into a Toadstool National Monument Scott heard about during the face painting. It is twenty miles north of Crawford, Nebraska.
Brooke was eager to go for a hike after dinner. It is hard to tell but there was some pink dancing in the sky behind her. Scott warned the kids about potential snakes and so Cody was a bit frightened of walking on the path. He said his little legs were tired, but the kid had frightened eyes. We discussed how knowing about potential dangers is like having fire drills at school. Do fires happen often? No, but it is good to be prepared. He wasn’t convinced, so I carried him most of our hilly hike. I needed a workout anyway.
When we finished the hike Brooke and Cody were pretending to get married. The goofy giggles were out in full force, again right before bed.
