Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Arkansas — get ready, here we come.?? We have been planning and budgeting for this trip for over a year now.? This is one of our “bucket list” dreams is to finish visiting all 50 of these Blessed United States.?? After this trip we still lack Maine, and Connecticut.? However, this marks off a lot of the remaining states for us.?? I can’t wait.
We have planned 3 weeks +/- of vacation time for me.? My wife gets every summer off from the school system so she won’t have to burn any of her vacation time.? We are leaving after I work a full day to get a head start on the first leg of our drive.?? We hope to get to Mt. Vernon Illinois the first night, then wake up early to drive another 12 hours the next day to get to Mt. Rushmore.? Our 2 night stay should be enough to see the monument and take several photos and then head on to the lengthiest stay of our journey which will be Yellowstone National Park.
We hope to see a lot of Yellowstone, but realize that the size of the park is just too large to see everything.?? Norma has planned for us to see the highlights at least.? Starting with Old Faithful,? Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, Heyden Valley, Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone Lake, North Geyser Basin, Lamar Valley, Tower Falls, Lower Geyser Basin, West Thumb Geyser Basin, and all the wildlife that we can photograph with a zoom lens.? You won’t hear about me on the news being trampled by a buffalo, or mauled by a bear.

