Saturday, July 30, 2016

{Summer FUN} The Gulf Coast

So this time last week, we were here...



on Mackinac Island in Michigan...

and now we are here, well, the two of us at least...





It's not a happy or fun reason that we hit the road again, but we decided to make the most of it.

One of my dear college friends lost her daddy this week, and well, I've been there, and it is an awful place to be...  So, I figured that the least I could do was show some support during a really tough time...

This little guy came along for the ride as my travel companion...




And, it just wouldn't be right if we didn't make a few historical stops along the way, right???

On the way down, we took a detour through Selma, AL, and visited the grave of our 13th Vice President, William R. King, who served under President Franklin Pierce...






The next morning, we popped over the border into Mississippi...




and visited the site of both Camp Jefferson Davis...





and President Zachary Taylor's summer home






On the way home that afternoon, we made a stop in Montgomery where Rosa Parks made history in the bus we visited (last week!) in Michigan...



 

Monday, July 25, 2016

{Road Trip} Day Ten - The VPs of Indiana and HOME!

We will just call today. "VP Day"...

Continuing on down through Indiana, we stopped at the birthplace of Vice President Thomas R. Marshall...






Thomas R. Marshall served as the 28th Vice President of the United States under President Woodrow Wilson.

From there, we continued on to Indianapolis, and made a stop at Crown Hill Cemetery.  It's really a beautiful cemetery.  On our last visit back in 2014, we had no idea that along with President Benjamin Harrison, THREE Vice Presidents are buried there, too...

our 21st VP, Thomas A. Hendricks, who served under President Grover Cleveland...




our 26th VP, Charles W. Fairbanks, who served under President Theodore Roosevelt...





and our 28th VP, Thomas R. Marshall, who served under President Woodrow Wilson...




We checked in on President Benjamin Harrison again, too...




Also in Indianapolis, we found the final home of VP Fairbanks, right close to the children's museum...




as well as the birthplace of our 44th VP, Dan Quayle, who served under President George H. W. Bush...

 


Last, but not least, we swung by the Indianapolis Colts stadium on the way out of town...






Though we got back home quite late (err, early the next morning), we are thankful for another family adventure in the books!




Until next summer...

More {Road Trip} 2016 Fun
Day Nine - Lansing, Michigan and The Henry Ford

Sunday, July 24, 2016

{Road Trip} Day Nine - Lansing, Michigan and The Henry Ford

After a swim in the hotel pool, we started out the day in Lansing with a rainy (and therefore, solo), run up some state capitol building steps!


Lansing, MI
B's 33rd set of state capitol steps scaled...
#capitolstepschallenge




From Lansing, we headed over to Dearborn, MI (right outside Detroit) to spend some time at The Henry Ford... 




Wow!  We could've spend days upon days in here exploring...  What a collection!

Among a ton of other things, we saw...

the chair that President Abraham Lincoln was sitting in when he was assassinated at Ford's Theatre...




the car that President John F. Kennedy was riding in when he was assassinated...





the Wright Brothers' first aircraft...





and the actual bus on which a brave lady named Rosa Parks made history...


 
 


We can't wait to come back and visit again one day.  There was so much to see in the museum alone that we didn't even make it outside to the Greenfield Village portion of the museum!

On the way out of town, we stopped at the apartment complex where President George H. W. Bush and his wife, Barbara, once lived many years ago...




and on down the road at the grave of Vice President Schuyler Colfax...

 


Schuyler Colfax served as the 17th Vice President of the United States under President Ulysses S. Grant.

Saturday, July 23, 2016

{Road Trip} Day Eight - Sleeping Bear and President Ford

We started the morning off with a quick trip to the Sahara...  Didn't see that coming, did you?




Nah, just kidding...

Make that Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, where we had fun climbing and exploring the dunes...


The view from the top of Glen Lake is just beautiful!


 {I'm a sucker for a good littles picture from the back}

 
Though we'd originally planned to go cherry picking at a local orchard, we decided to continue on down toward Grand Rapids where we quickly learned that while cherry picking season may be going strong up north, it ain't so much so just a couple hours south!  Next time...
Once in Grand Rapids, we paid our respects to President Gerald Ford...
and did a tour of all the spots he lived while growing up in the Grand Rapids area, including this boyhood home...  


 


before continuing on to Lansing for the night, where we grabbed dinner at local dive, Dagwood's Tavern & Grill...