July 1. The slavedriver—I mean, my spouse—got us all up at 6 this morning to go over to Great Sand Dunes while it was still early and cool. It was definitely worth it, we had a great hike up to the top of the main dune, and the kids had a great time jumping and rolling in the sand, and then playing in the little creek that runs next to the dunes. We also spent some time in the visitors' center, which had great exhibits on the uniqueness of the area and the ...

June 30, 2010 - A day of driving, and history - and then some more driving. I posted my last blog after Tallgrass Prairie yesterday. We drove on that afternoon and did some birding at Cheyenne Bottoms, a world-class wetland area just west of the middle of the state. We were there at the wrong time of the day and the wrong time of the year (e.g., at the "right" time of year there are whooping cranes), but we still saw a ton of birds - scads of great blue...

June 29, 2:00 PM.We started yesterday by heading back to Cahokia to check out the Visitors' Center, which was really well done. They had very detailed full-size dioramas of Mississippian life, as well as the usual artifacts, maps, renderings, archeological re-creations, etc. I don't think I mentioned that it is one of only about 20 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the continental U.S.Definitely worth a visit. Next, we went over the Mississippi River and into St....

We just finished eating dinner parked on the leeward side of a very sturdy-looking highway maintenance building. Let's recap, shall we? We started this morning just outside of Morehead, KY, in a largely treeless and slightly party-zone, but friendly and perfectly serviceable for our purposes, campground near the Daniel Boone National Forest. We took a quick run past Cave Run Lake, where we would have camped if we were more clever about making advance reservatio...

We are finally on the road! Months of planning, and it's finally here. We got on the road about 10:15 this morning, right about on schedule. Day one was a big day of driving, nearly 450 miles I think, ending us just outside of Morehead, KY. We went the shorter/slower/more scenic route, heading straight west and taking I-66 to US-55 through West Virginia. That took us on some tortuous hills-- it was a novel experience to be the one holding up the traffic instead ...