Yesterday was a nice day with family, and I chose to skip it here. Today is our last day with the grandparents in Illinois, and Grandpa decided to take us out on his fishing boat on the Rock River. It was a beautiful day for a boat ride.
Katie and Mark ride in the bow
Bethany and her stylish life preserver
Grandpa teaches Luke to drive the boat
Time for a swim!
We ended the evening with dinner at Cracker Barrel to celebrate a significant birthday for Grandma!
Kelli and I celebrated her parents ‘ 30th anniversary by running off and getting engaged. Twenty years later, we celebrated with a big party with all of the family. We started off with a portrait session with all of the kids and grandkids.
On the way to the portrait session
Then we headed out to the neighborhood lakehouse for a meal with more extended family.
The neighborhood lakehouse
Before everyone arrived, Grandpa had some alone time with his youngest grandson.
Grandpa and Jonathan
While the adults arrived and greeted each other, the kids played some basketball.
Bethany tries a granny shot
Friends from the church catered a delicious meal.
Cousin Taryn with her first plate
After lunch, some headed for the playground and others returned to the basketball court.
Luke shoots
Others opted to go check out Grandpa’s collection of wood boats and old outboard motors.
Grandpa’s hobby
When the party died down, we headed indoors and the kids played some games.
Uno
The ladies divvied up the photos from the morning session.
Sorting
And before the day was over, Kelli had a few minutes to hang out with her sister.
Kari, Kelli, and Jonathan
We took a short drive this morning in the direction of Chicago to meet up with our friends the Riddles. About 10 years ago, A.D. contacted me by email about my photo collection. In the years since, he has helped me to improve the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands in many ways. We met in person for the first time in the airport in Athens before beginning a two-week photo tour of the Greek islands and southwestern Turkey. It’s probably fair to say that without his help the last two years, I wouldn’t have finished the new edition. His wife Katerine translated www.lugaresbiblicos.com.
I did not take any photos, but Kelli got quite a few. We ‘ll start with the kids on the playground.
Bethany, not camera shy
Jonathan, learning to enjoy the effects of gravity
A.D. and I talked for a long time about a lot of things. We have too many ideas and not enough time and energy.
A.D. and me
Then A.D. fired up the grill and made some amazing barbecued chicken.
Everyone is getting hungry.
Two cute Riddles
The Riddles and the Bolens
A.D. is now the fourth OT scholar I’ve shared a meal with this week. All four either have or are earning PhDs in the Old Testament. If you can tell anything from the friends you keep, maybe there is hope yet for me.
We spent yesterday with Kelli’s parents, enjoying some down time to relax, talk, and catch up on a few things. Today we were off again for parts east in Illinois. We spent the morning in a small town of Illinois with Kelli’s aunt. Here Bethany find an appropriate sign.
Bethany with library sign
And the kids found a playground.
Kids on playground
After a visit to a nearby Pizza Hut, we said goodbye and headed to Wheaton. Our first stop was the Wade Center which features a museum for seven authors from the U.K., including C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. Tolkien wrote The Hobbit which Mark and I recently read, as well as the Lord of the Rings trilogy. C. S. Lewis wrote the Chronicles of Narnia, the dramatized audio version of which our family listened to several years ago. The museum includes the wardrobe which was in the boyhood home of C. S. Lewis.
Kelli saw the lamppost!
Jonathan with the writing desk of C. S. Lewis
From here we headed across the campus of Wheaton College to the Billy Graham Center, where a museum is dedicated to the history of American Christianity.
Billy Graham Center
Bethany with banner of Jonathan Edwards
Jonathan in the “Heaven Room”
Our friends Austin and Heather Surls met us after our museum visits and gave us a tour of the Wheaton campus. Austin is now working on his PhD in Old Testament after studying at IBEX, seminary, and Hebrew University. Heather was a (great!) student at IBEX at the same time as Austin and later served a couple of years as IBEX volunteer after we had left. We really enjoyed our time with them and the wonderful meal Heather prepared for us.
Our family with the Surls at Wheaton College
We headed south today, leaving Minneapolis headed for Iowa. Friends live in Dubuque, next to the Mississippi River and they took us out to Eagle Point Park for a great view of the river with its lock and dam.
Looking north up the Mississippi River
The dam is necessary to raise the water level so that boats can navigate the river. The lock is necessary so that boats can get through the dam.
Lock and Dam on Mississippi River
I’d go a long ways out of the way to spend time with my friend Steve, and over the years our kids have gotten to know each other. Steve is professor of Old Testament at Emmaus Bible College, where they have Bible courses online for free.
The Sanchez and Bolen clans
A day went by in which I didn’t take any photos, and so I’m going to skip over our drive into Minnesota and time with some family. The next day we visited a few sites in the Twin Cities area, including Kelli’s alma mater, Bethel College (now Bethel University). The older kids have seen The Master’s College and all are going to become very familiar with it, so it was nice for them to see their mom’s old stomping grounds. Kelli was a Bible major who excelled in Greek. She really was hoping to see her old professor for whom she was a T.A. (and for which she was mentioned in the preface of an important scholarly work), but no one answered a knock on his office door. Kelli took the time to write out a note to him and by the time she had finished, the professor had returned. It was a great blessing, not only to her, but also to me, as this distinguished scholar put everything down to give us a tour of the new buildings on campus. I will never forget his generosity (of time) for some people he could have easily dismissed with a kind word and a handshake.
Kelli with her Greek professor
The kids at Bethel University
Then we headed to Como Park, a favorite place of Kelli’s while living in St. Paul for four years of college (minus, of course, one very important semester in Israel). Somehow I thought that the carnival-type rides there were free, but after everyone got over their disappointment, we enjoyed our time at the zoo portion of the park.
The seal and sea lion show
Giraffes with tall sunshade
We spent the late afternoon and evening with an old friend from our Institute days and his wife and four children. He is now an OT scholar teaching at a new seminary and it was a joy to see how his passion for the Lord has only increased as his knowledge of God’s Word has deepened. He and his wife will be traveling to Africa later this month to bring home two children they have adopted. It was a perfect evening with one exception—I forgot to take a photo!
We were on our way to a grocery store for some breakfast when someone observed that we were driving east in southwestern North Dakota. By the end of the day we would be in Fargo, and our schedule called for two major stops along the way.
Fort Mandan was the first winter camp of the Lewis and Clark expedition and it was here that they added Sacagawea to the team. The actual location of the fort is unknown today, but a reconstruction has been built in the area. We were given a guided tour of the site.
Fort Mandan reconstruction
Cabin of Lewis and Clark in Fort Mandan
Interior of Fort Mandan
From here we opted to skip the Interstate and travel the more direct route via rural highways to our next stop. I should have known that it’s never wise to pass by a gas station in rural North Dakota. The Lord answered our prayers and though the first gas station we stopped at was out of gas (!), we were directed to an unmanned pump in the next town over. We arrived on fumes.
Our next stop of the day was at a site of more recent historical import than we are accustomed to. The Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile Site preserves an underground control center for launching missiles at Russia. Many of these sites are still operational, but some have been decommissioned because of the START treaty of 1991. This one was opened to tourists three years ago.
Underground control center for launching long-range nuclear weapons against bad guys
We spent the night in Fargo, a city which I’ve always pictured as cold, rural, and white. (I did not see the movie, but the movie posters may have influenced me.) In fact, it looks like a very ordinary, suburban US city, with every kind of store and restaurant you could want. One difference, however: North Dakota has the most strict “blue law” in the country. We discovered that when Kelli took an early Sunday morning grocery trip to Walmart and found it closed.
What is there in North Dakota to see, you might wonder. Well, we spent the first of two full days in the state at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The site is protected because of the beautiful scenic landscapes, and its name comes from the president who established a ranch in the area during his early adulthood.
The only thing preserved related to Roosevelt is the Maltese Cross cabin. The name comes from the name of the ranch that he purchased in 1883. The park officials like to stress the value of Roosevelt’s time in this area, as reflected in a statement the president later made: “I would not have been President had it not been for my experience in North Dakota.”
Maltese Cross cabin of Theodore Roosevelt
For the rest of the day we drove around the 36-mile scenic loop, stopping at various spots for short hikes. Along the way, we saw bison, wild horses, and even a few tourists.
Kelli with the boys near Wind Canyon
Overlooking the Little Missouri River
The badlands of North Dakota
Kelli with the girls
At some point, it’s just hard to stay awake any longer.
I didn’t have much of a plan today besides having fun on our way to an overnight in North Dakota. I figured that we wouldn’t see all of Custer State Park and the Black Hills yesterday and that it would be nice to have some extra time to look around and possibly go on a hike or two.
We started off with a scenic drive through the Black Hills, not too far from Mount Rushmore. The drive was beautiful and when we saw a trailhead for Cathedral Spires, we pulled over. I thought we might hike up the trail 15 minutes and back, but the older boys and I made it all the way to the top before we had to return.
Mark and Bethany with the Pinnacles
The view from the top was worth the climb. I think a dream vacation for me would call for a backpack of books on some mountain trails.
View from Cathedral Spires
Something caught my eye yesterday about a place called “Devil’s Tower” and I ran the calculations to see how much time it would take to sneak into the northeastern corner of Wyoming before heading north. We decided to go for it.
Devil’s Tower
This igneous intrusion is one of the most impressive geological formations I have ever seen. The site was and is sacred to Native Americans and today is a favorite spot for rock climbers.
Devil’s Tower with the kids
We didn’t climb the rock, but we did enjoy a 1.5 mile hike around the base. It was a warm day and the wrong time for Jonathan (nap time kept Kelli off the trail with him), but everyone else enjoyed the varied views from below.
The park also includes a prairie dog village, and the little creatures first observed by Lewis and Clark were not afraid to come up close.
The girls with the little rodents
It might look like Luke is out in the middle of nowhere, but he’s actually in the officially designated “geographical center of the United States” outside Belle Fourche, South Dakota.
The center of the United States
We ended the day in Bowman, North Dakota, the first of three planned nights in this state. With my arrival here, I’ve now been to 49 states. Since 2009, our family has traveled to all but two states in the lower 48.
I wouldn’t have guessed that the most expensive part of our trip would be in southwestern South Dakota, but it was. I expected that such a remote place would have affordable hotels, but because the area is so beautiful, it has become a vacation spot and thus expensive. We certainly enjoyed our time in the area.
We decided to beat the crowds and head to Mount Rushmore first. When we arrived we found that the visiting area has been entirely transformed since our stop there 18 years ago. The monumental entrance, massive gift store, and huge restaurant are designed for large crowds of tourists.
Mount Rushmore from the first entrance
Bethany with the four presidents
Tourists who arrive on a bus don’t get this view from the forest.
While I enjoyed our time at Mount Rushmore, including the loop trail along the base, my preference is certainly more along the lines of a secluded lake in the mountains. We ate lunch here and I imagined what it would be like if I never left.
Some lake in the Black Hills
Just south of Mount Rushmore is Custer State Park, home of prairie dog villages, pronghorn antelope, and one of the largest bison herds in the world.
Bison in Custer State Park
Bison not afraid of man in car with camera
This looks like a scene out of the Old West.
Bison in Custer State Park
We ended the day with a spectacular view from the summit of Mount Coolidge.
View to east from summit of Mount Coolidge
This was my favorite day of the trip so far.