Read This First

This site is meant to chronicle our family's trip across the United States in the fall of 2013, during which time we'll travel across 20 states, visit six national parks and log at least seven thousand miles on our aging minivan.  We plan to sleep under the stars, see glaciers, dip our toes into the Pacific, and wrap our arms around thousand year old trees. We'll pack our brains with the beauty, science, math, and poetry that comprise our nation's most breathtaking landscapes.

Who are we (in case you didn't know)? We are a family of four, living and working in Macon, Georgia.  Craig is an Associate Professor of Biology at Mercer University, and Ellen works as a freelance technical writer for biomedical research institutions and companies.  We have two great girls, Grace and Julia.  Grace is a 4th grader who loves science, reading, playing piano, and rollerblading.  Julia is our bunny loving first grader (she's a mean rollerblader too).  She loves to read, play and create.  If there's paper, tape and crayons around, she will turn them into sculpture.

How are we going to do this crazy amazing thing?  With planning.  Our primary concern for our children (aside from their health and safety) is that they engage in experiences that enrich their learning. With the support of our school, we're taking the girls from their home environment to immerse them in the ultimate hands on learning experience.  While the girls will be required to keep pace with their peers in all subject areas, they will also be learning about the history, archeology, geology and ecology of our National Parks.  It works like this: if you want to know how glaciers scour and transform our landscape, go to Glacier National Park. If you want to understand water's power of erosion, go to Grand Canyon National Park.  You get the idea.

You may also be grasping the weight of this endeavor.  We have to plan for our kids' education, which means gathering supplies to cover all of the materials they will miss in their traditional school, while simultaneously collecting and collating the wealth of information about the parks we will visit (thankfully each park has tremendous resources for students and teachers).  And once we're on the road, we must ensure that the traditional coursework is completed in concert with their enrichment.  It's a tall order.

Of course that's just the educational component of our trip.  The other part is logistics: when, where, and how.  How we'll do it is by camping and staying in hotels and with great friends who have agreed to put us up along the way. The when is from September 1st to October 14th.  We have tried to make each stop just long enough to accomplish our goals.  The reality is that there's never enough time to see our country, and yet there is definitely too much time away from home. That just leaves where, which is described in detail below.

Where are we going? As you can see we're going to cover a lot of ground. Seven thousand miles is a low estimate for the mileage we will accumulate.
  

Here are the highlights (you'll see additional pins on the map above; these are for shorter stops to visit friends and family enroute to certain destinations):  1) Glacier National Park in northern Montana; 2) Mount Ranier National Park in Washington; 3) Eugene, OR (our base to explore several places in OR); 4) Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon; 5) Redwoods National Park in northern California; 6) MacKerricher State Park near Fort Bragg, CA; 7) San Francisco (where we'll stop living like mountaineers for a few days and try to be more civilized); 8) Yosemite National Park in California; and finally 9) Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.

How can we take so much time off from work? This trip is made possible because Craig is currently on sabbatical, and Ellen can schedule freelance jobs around the travel.  During the semester Craig will be working on several objectives that relate to his two main research projects. These objectives include submitting 2-3 scientific research papers for peer-review, developing a new experimental protocol and a grant proposal, and submitting two abstracts to be presented at a spring conference. Additionally, Craig will be using the six week excursion to develop a travel course for Mercer on the natural history of US parks. Finally, producing children's educational content that is based on the park system's natural resources will be a continuous activity as we travel. We hope that we can provide positive synergy with the great teachers at the kids' school.

Want to track our progress?  You can follow along with us on the primary page of this website: What We're Learning.  We will regularly update this page with information about the parks we visit and will include video blogs (vlogs) of Grace and Julia in action.  On Weather-girls Report Grace and Julia will give daily updates on the weather we experience (their classmates will be learning about weather back home, so this is a great way for the girls to get hands on experience and share it with their peers).  For those who follow Twitter, Craig will keep his account active with live updates as we travel from site to site.  Finally, if you're interested in seeing what we're seeing, click over to our photo page on Flickr.

Want to get in contact? You can leave a comment on any of the pages of this website, and we'll try to respond within a day or so.  Our internet access will be limited in some locations, so please be patient when we don't respond immediately.  If you don't like to leave comments, you can send us an email at twolittleladybugs@gmail.com.  We love to read comments and answer questions, so please send us your thoughts and queries.  We look forward to hearing from you.

One last thing!  We would like the thank the administrators and teachers at Alexander II Elementary School in Macon.  Thanks to Prinicipal Canova for embracing our vision and allowing us to take the girls from school.  Thanks also to science teacher, Mrs. Kristy Cummings: without you we might not have had the courage to dream this big. To Mrs. Kris Davis and the other fourth grade teachers, thank you for helping us handle the coursework that Grace will miss. And to Mrs. Jones, we hope to return Julia to you with even better reading and math skills.  Thank you for working with us to ensure that she stays on track.