Our Mount Rushmore Adventure

At the cabin

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

Getting to the Mount

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

Did you know that the creative mind behind Mt. Rushmore was the son of a Danish Mormon immigrant?

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

Wildlife--We see you Mr. Mountain Goat

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

This was a simulation of blowing up part of the mountain with dynamite. Max loved it of course.

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

Tony, Doug and I explored Mt. Rushmore caves (not a part of Mt. Rushmore though.

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

Then we visited Crazy Horse and the Native American Cultural Center

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

The mountain will look like this sculpture some day

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

The artist made this sculpture of Crazy Horse from "word pictures" from the Lakota Elders

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

Our Adventure--Week One

Tony was scheduled to work in Billings for one week and we decided to make a family vacation and drive there and back. Then Mt. Rushmore was thrown into the mix and Tony thought it would be fun to visit cousins in Salt Lake. This coincided with a trip I was going to make to stay with my friend and the 1 week vacation turned to a 3 week vacation. There was so much work to do (annuals on equipment, etc.) that Tony and 2 other guys worked for two weeks in Billings instead of one. So it was a working vacation for Tony, but...it was still lots of fun!
We stayed at Dan's Landing the first night (just west of Spokane). We don't recommend it, but it was still fun.

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

Check out that sweet new tent!

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

Father and son going fishing on the dock

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

It was beautiful (Clear Lake)

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

The next morning

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

We stopped in Coeur d'Alene to visit Grandma Kate's former haunting ground. The lake is beautiful.
Max checking out a plane with "floaters"

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

We must always throw things into water

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

Exploring the castle park

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

We had a few "pit stops" that made me grateful to have a boy.

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

We made it to Billings Saturday night and enjoyed a restful Sunday.
Monday we were spoiled with a trip to Candytown USA

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

We love Pioneer Park

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

We had a fun trip to the Pictograph caves with some new friends

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

Max had to check out the echo

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

They got to make their own pictographs

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

Max loved hearing the stories (passed down orally as done in the past). He had to go back and talk to "the man" several times.

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

We celebrated our baby's first birthday and played some frisbee golf.

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

One Year Older!!!

Ryan celebrated his first birthday in Billings with 2 of his grandparents. A few of Tony's work friends came as well since it was a "working vacation" for him. We can't believe a whole year has gone by since this sweet boy joined our brood. He was so delicate in eating his cupcake and could have cared less about his presents. Here are some pics and video of his special day.

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

After we got home from our trip, we saw that Ryan had received a package from Aunt Stacey who is on a mission:

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

And a story book that Aunt Nicole wrote called, "Ryan's Big Adventure":

From The Epperson's Excellent Adventure May 15-June 4, 2010

Here's our cutie pie delicately sampling his birthday cupcake:

It's Funny How Much Can Change in Three Weeks

I'm enjoying a little bit of down time in Utah before we fly home tomorrow. There are many many pictures to post of our marathon road trip/vacation. Our adventure started out May 15th and we have visited 5 states (Tony visited 6). We have had so much fun and I think our boys are ready to be home. We have so many family memories to record once we get back. Here's hoping for room on tomorrow's flight so I'm not stuck in the airport with 2 busy boys and here's also hoping for a nice plane ride and two easily entertainable and/or sleepy boys. I'm crossing my fingers because those two cute boys do outnumber me!