Vacation Part 1

We had a great time on our vacation road trip!  We were actually supposed to leave a couple of days before we did, but Kevin had something come up at work which made us push the trip back.  I kept the days off, however, and really enjoyed spending the time with the girls.  One of the days, we joined Mammy for a picnic lunch at Bug Light, a drive, and ice cream at the beach! 

The girls are ready to go!

Kenzie stole George from Kaitlyn's bag. Kaitlyn is a great big sister though and happily shared him!

After a rough first day of travel...  a typical 9 hour drive turned into nearly 14 hours due to construction and really bad traffic, we rolled into western Pennsylvania around midnight.  Kevin and I have been wanting to visit the Flight 93 Memorial for a while.

The Memorial is beautiful. At the top of the hill is an overlook to the crash site, a path showing the flight path of the plane that day, the Visitors Center, and a Museum.  There is a 3 mile walking path that winds down to the crash site and around back to the Visitors Center (or you can drive).  At the bottom is the crash site and the Memorial.  As the volunteer was explaining this, she told Kaitlyn about the Jr. Ranger program.  She'd been given Jr. Ranger stickers before, but we never knew how extensive the program was.  It amazes me that out of all the National Parks we've visited over the years, no one else has mentioned the program.

Every National Park has a Jr. Ranger booklet geared to the site.  The number of activities and type of activity depends upon your age. After you complete the activities, you bring the book to one of the Park Rangers to review.  The ranger will then swear in the Jr. Ranger with an oath that is also tailored to the park (at MLK's birthplace, for example, she swore not to discriminate against others) and fill it out a certificate of completion.  Then she gets a Jr. Ranger pin in the shape of a badge with the name of the National Park site on it.  Most of the parks just have the badge, but a couple of places she went gave out patches a well.  One place gave out an entire goody bag with stickers, pencils, a toy buffalo, etc!  All for free!  We're going to have to revisit parks we've already gone to just so she can complete the Jr. Ranger badges!

A view of the crash site.

The crash site is marked by a large boulder.

After the site was cleared, the town planted wildflowers at the site.  It's so beautiful.

The path down to the Memorial in front of the crash site.

Kaitlyn being sworn in as Jr. Ranger.

After visiting the Memorial, we headed to our next stop in Louisville, KY.  Our hotel was amazing.  We had a corner executive suite.  The girls loved the view.  Kenzie loved playing in the curtains and bouncing on the bed!

Kenzie was fascinated by the water feature in the hotel lobby.

My Wonder Woman girls are ready to hit the road for our next stop...