8/04-07/2010 Dinosaur Provincial Park, Crossing the Border: Getting Searched, Tire Blowout - It Was Loud!!!, & Home Again

After almost 1900 miles of driving over the last four days, we are finally home! Our day started with a 7:20 departure from Welcome, SD. Our day of driving went very smooth as we ran through several storms - we made it home safely!  The only downside of the day was the death of one of our cats... we'll talk about that some other day.

We started on our homeward bound journay on August 4th... Just becasue we were heading home did not mean that vaction had ended... if you know my family, the parties never end!  On Wednsday we made a small detour and stopped at the Dinosaur Provincail Park, located near Patrica, Alberta, Canada.  The area of it's location is known as the Badlands of Alberta... and it did remind us of the Badlands of South Dakota.  The only difference is that as you approach the area it is nothing but flat field and then all of the sudden you see all of the Badland area, below the surface of the surounding field!  If you visit be sure to call ahead beacause the only way to see the fossil sites is by a guided tour and all of them were filled when when got there... it was still neat to see the muesuem and the area.  In the future when our kids are into dinosuars we might incorporate a stop there as we travel up to Drumheller, Alberta to see the Royal Tyrrell Museum.

Thursday, 08/5, we had the excitment of a tire blow out on the camper.  Luckily we were able to pull over fast enough that there was not much damage done to the camper itself.  After we changed the tire (on a two lane highway) we stopped in a small town and had a road side picinic.  Not to much furthur down the road we crossed the border back into Canada.  The difference between Canidan Customs and U.S. Customs was incredible!  The U.S. gaurds completely search both our camper and our parents motorhome.  After a lot of questioning and the confiscation of mom and dad's lemons and green peppers and our firewood, we were back on the road and had a peacfull rest of the day.  We ended the night at a nice campgrounds sitting by our last campfire of the trip!

Friday the 6th was an easy day of driving with no big events which then lead to today, Saturday... Home!  We had an amazing four week trip out west with Mom and Dad and are very thankful for the time that we were able to spend with them and the countless memories!!! In the end, we drove a total of 5062.2 miles and the only issue through out the whole trip was a blown tire.   We look forward to getting to work using this blog dairy and 3087 photos (just counting Ben's) and reliving the trip as we make our photo alblum!  We saw many amazing things that we will NEVER forget and made many memories that will last a life time!