Sight-Seeing Side Trips

A proper Streixher Family Road Trip does not operate on a set of rigid rules, but does indeed make use of time-honored traditions that not only streamline the operation but also maximize the fun.

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The primary purpose of almost every Streicher. Family Road Trip is to visit our extended families and ancestral Midwestern roots Criss-crossing the country toward our destinations in Michigan and Ohio leaves precious few resources for our own family vacations. So we have come up with a plan to make the best of both worlds.

Within each massive mega-journey, we plan sight-seeing side trips to interesting places along our route. Not only do these daily excursions give us a chance to break up our long road-tripping days with a curious diversion, they also give us a sense of our own private family vacation sandwiched into the sprawling family reunions.

^ Yesterday we swung by The Little Bighorn Battlefield, a National Monument to Custer’s infamous last stand. Just off I-90 in southeastern Montana, the skies above the monument were filled with smoke from distant wildfires and the eerie gloom settled over the sights - including the National Cemetery shown  here - with spine-tingling drama. 

In the early years, my husband and I planned the outings, and first we hit up the. Auto all Parks. Drawing from a wealth of famous and not-so famous options:, we spent a day here and a half-day there at a number of fantastic parks, including

Yellowstone
Yosemite
Saguaro
Great Basin
Crater Lake
Redwood
Rocky Mountain
Monticello 
Badlands
Teddy Roosevelt
Mount Rushmore
Gettysburg
Grand Canyon and
Wind Cave.

^ In addition to the hundreds of American military men and Natice Americans, quite a few horses lost their lives on that June day in 1876. These happy modern-day grazers made me smile and wish that wars would finally cease. 

Over the years, we’ve seen

all of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House homesteads;
every Oregon Trail landmark, museum, and set of existing wagon tracks we could find;
and countless points of interest along Lewis and Clark’s journey.

We’ve waded in the waters where the Mississippi River is born, dipped our toes into all five Great Lakes, stood on the Four Corners of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona; and seen first-hand the headwaters of the mighty Missouri Rivers.

^ A quick sketch of the battle goes like this.  Native Americans, frustrated and fed up with constant treaty violations and countless assaults to their nomadic way of life, went off their assigned reservations. Camped in the cottonwoods along the Little Bighorn River, they gathered in numbers and waited to see what would happen next. 

Meanwhile, American military companies sent out to round up the runaways stumbled upon the encampment and attacked. Unfortunately for the military men, they did not first take the prudent step of assessing their enemy’s strength, and in an instant, the Native Americans counter-attacked. Those who did not instantly retreat were killed, including Custer and his entire command. 

As my daughters grew up, they began to play a part in the planning phase of our side trips. We ate venison jerky in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, strolled through an Ontario arboretum, posed for pics under a giant bison statue, and roamed the street of Old Quebec after midnight. By sharing the task of planning them, our side trips became all the more interesting and far-ranging; we now give everyone in the car a chance to plan at least one day’s side trip.

^ These white markers indicate the places where the military men fell on the soft Montana grasses. I wonder who had the terrible job of pulling aside each body to plant a temporary marker in its place, and I wonder how often his dreams were filled with this horror.

Probably the biggest challenge to our side trip sight seeing has been dealing with our pets. Sadly, our furry friends are often not allowed to fully participate at these stops, so we either have to choose another locale, or - as we often do - break into two groups so that half the family stays back with the dog (and sometimes, cat!) while the other half explores the no-pet zone. When the first group is done, they come back to babysit and the second group takes a turn.. This option can be time-consuming and frankly, quite annoying. But we have found ways to make it work and that’s what matters most.

^ This is the monument at the top of the hill where Custer and his soldiers took their last stand. About forty of them killed their horses and used the bodies as a bulwark, but the Native American warriors were an unstoppable force. The military men were quickly buried here and the stone later erected, but many of the bodies were exhumed and moved to cemeteries in the east.  

I’m a huge fan of sight-seeing side trips. Not only do they break up a long road-tripping day and entertain the troops, but gosh darn it, they are a great way to build memories and maybe even learn something . Many times have the moans and groans gone up when a side trip is announced - just imagine a car full of severely sunburned teens being told that today we’re doing a four-hour auto tour of the battlefield at Gettysburg! - but in the end we almost always experience a sight-seeing side trip worth remembering forever.