The last few days have been fun-filled and exciting for us! For starters, we met up with our Swiss friend, Urs, at a campsite in Badlands National Park.

Here’s some history and background: We’d originally met Urs in March 2004 in Libreville, Gabon, along with Elza, Krissy, Slade, and Vicky — all of whom we had the great pleasure of traveling with for several months through the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, and Namibia. The last time that we saw Urs was near Lusaka, Namibia, in October 2004 and he has been traveling (mostly) continuously since then. His trusty overland vehicle, a blue Pinzgauer (“The Pinzy”) is currently resting in Cambodia during Urs’ short jaunt to the States.

Urs and Elza in the Pinzy in Gabon way back in 2004

Urs, Jen, Witt and Quinn 8 years later

This meet-up was the reason that we’d taken the detour to South Dakota — and we are very glad we did! We had a blast catching up on the past ~9 years of our lives (and introducing Urs to Quinn!) and Badlands served as a beautiful backdrop for our animated conversations. We even got to see an impressive fireworks display for the local 4th of July celebration!

We also met a German family at the same campground — Tanja and Max along with their 2 small children, Carla (3) and Robert (18 months). We shared a really great hike with them and the kids had a great time playing together. Amazingly, they are also on a trip of the Americas so we shared contact info with them and hope to meet up with them again soon.

After we said farewell to our friends, we headed for the Black Hills area of South Dakota. Yesterday we visited the South Dakota State Railroad Museum and took a round-trip steam train ride between Hill City and Keystone. Today we rented a tag-a-long bike for Quinn and went for a fantastic bike ride together on the Mickelson bike trail. Tonight we splurged (using Witt’s frequent-stay points) on a hotel that has an amazing water-park adjacent to it. We are having a blast!

Rain clouds on the horizon in Badlands National Park

Western meadowlark in Badlands

Model train exhibit at the Hill City railroad museum

More pictures…

We’ve been on the move! After 2 nights of R&R (and many yummy home cooked meals) staying in Salida, CO, with Q’s grandparents (thank you, Henry & Kathy!) we drove north toward Summit County so we could see some of our mountain friends.

We camped in our friends’ driveways, ate their food and drank their libations (thank you David, Beth, Ed and Annette!). After briefly considering what it would be like to spend some extended amount of time mooching off each of our friends in succession until we wore out our welcome, we decided it was time to say farewell and officially begin our trip.

To be fair, we were also motivated by our new travel health insurance that only covers us if we are at least 100 miles from our home address. If that doesn’t give someone a kick in the you-know-what to get along with things, well then maybe nothing ever would.

So yesterday we drove to Laramie, WY, and camped in Medicine Bow National Forest. It was a really nice and quiet campsite, especially considering it was just a mile or two off the highway near the highest point (elevation-wise) on I-80.

Camping in Medicine Bow National Forest in Wyoming

This morning we hung out at our campground for most of the morning. Witt went for a bike ride and then I participated in a teleconference for our new volunteer positions with DoGoodAsYouGo.org (The Muskoka Foundation). They enlist travelers like ourselves to volunteer in one or more of the 100 or so communities that they maintain relationships with worldwide.

We are carving out our own little niche by also teaming with The Foundation for Learning Equality (FLE) to deploy the high-quality educational videos and exercises to these communities via their KA Lite product. You can learn more about their mission (and ours) in this TEDx video given by Jamie Alexandre of FLE.

After a long afternoon of driving we are now near Hot Springs, SD. We are taking a bit of a detour from our originally-planned route so we could meet a good friend who we haven’t seen since we traveled with him 8 years ago during our Africa trip. He’s in the States now and we are excited to see him for the 4th of July weekend.

Shower night at the Sparks Van