Day 16, Holt, Mich.

HOLT, Mich. -- The journey comes to its end.

We left Milwaukee on the Lake Express at lunch time, and two hours later docked in Muskegon, Mich. The boat is an excellent way to avoid Chicago sprawl and enjoy a leisurely trip from points west to the Michigan peninsula.

We were all delighted to see the old homestead, but equally sad as our adventure is over. It brought us:

• Nearly 4,500 miles
• Hundreds of buffalo
• 35 episodes of Alf
• Countless hotel breakfasts
• Dozens of national parks and monuments
• Several geysers
• Lots of mountains
• A bunch of big rivers
• Too many times through Taio Cruz
• Three water slides
• One alpine slide
• One Great Salt Lake
• Thousands of memories
• And one BIG THANK YOU!

Thank you, Grandma and Granddad, for the trip of our lives!

Day 15, Milwaukee

MILWAUKEE -- Baseball in Brewtown!

Brewers vs. Padres at beautiful Miller Park in downtown Milwaukee, where the fans wear Packers gear and tailgate before the game. Even during a thunderstorm. It was the first rain we've seen, and it was impressive. But the game goes on, because Miller Park has a retractable roof over a beautiful grass field.

The closed roof must affect ball flight, because between the two teams they hit three home runs in the first inning. It was 3-0 after the Padres half of the first, and 3-2 after the Brewers batted. The closed roof also, unfortunately, affects the temperature and humidity inside the stadium. It was stifling, so we only made it through to the fourth inning. But we enjoyed the small-town feel of this major-league venue. Everyone, from vendors and ticket-takers to fans and ushers, was friendly beyond belief. They all encouraged us to "enjoy the game." Perhaps that's because the Brewers are terrible.

Day 14, La Crosse, Wisc.

LA CROSSE, Wisc. -- From the Badlands to the flatlands ...

It's good to be back to the Great Midwest, but today's highlights were few: we drove by the 60-foot statue of the Jolly Green Giant in Blue Earth, Minn., and enjoyed the odor of Spam for several miles after passing the Hormel factory and the Spam Museum in Austin, Minn. No joke -- the entire town smelled like Spam. Just lovely.

Perhaps the grand highlight was crossing the Mississippi River into La Crosse. Even this far north, the great river is majestic, wide and a sight to behold. Looking out from the bridge taking us out of Minnesota into Wisconsin, one can just imagine Huck and Jim manuevering their raft through the muddy water toward Hannibal, Mo., and points south. Alas, if only we could have torn the children away from their Nintendo DS's long enough to behold it.

Day 13, Sioux Falls, S.D.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- "Baby you can drive my car" ... because we need another driver.

Lots of car time today as we have begun the long push for home. Two highlights: we toured the world-famous (because they say it is) Wall Drug in Wall, S.D. They begin advertising this massive store about 300 miles before you arrive. And the signs say you can get just about anything there, from free ice and water to a 5-cent cup of coffee and free donuts for veterans. It has a large cafeteria, huge t-shirt selection, jewelry, cameras, candy, restrooms and yes, even an active phramacy. Despite all the hype, the children were less than impressed.

Second stop, several hours later, was at the "world's only" -- again, because they say it is -- Corn Palace. This place was hokey -- and certainly "corny" -- but actually kind of fun. The ornate building is extensively decorated with ears of corn, corn silk and other corn products. It's really a gymnasium for local high school basketball teams, but they trick it out with all kinds of stuff and show a movie (an offering that is ubiquitous for tourist attractions on the prairie). They set up a huge flea market on the gym floor, with just about anything you can imagine related to corn -- corn trays, corn-shaped candles, corn holders, corncob jelly, t-shirts and hats with corny slogans, corncob-shaped caramel corn, corn on the cob that turns into popcorn on the cob when you heat it, but no actual corn -- and, strangely, no corn cob pens. Hmm. That may be an opportunity for yours truly ...

The day ended with a visit with the Whites, friends from Michigan who relocated to Sioux Falls in 2009. We were delighted to see they have landed on their feet -- and delighted to learn there is an actual waterfall in Sioux Falls.

Day 12, Rapid City, S.D.

RAPID CITY, S.D. -- "There are four faces on Mt. Rushmore, carved in a mountain of stone/Men who lived and died for a nation, giants in a land all their own" (New Christy Minstrels).

It's true, there ARE four faces on Mt. Rushmore, and they are larger than life, just like the four presidents they were carved to memorialize. But after you've seen those four faces from five or six different vantage points, it all seems kind of the same. Certainly a cool venue, a great cafetiera and the best souvenirs we've encountered.

So we viewed the four faces from the President's Walkway, and from the Sculptor's Studio, and several points in between an beyond -- including the side of a distant mountain we reached by chairlift. We also viewed the incomplete visage of an important Native American leader, Crazy Horse, at the native's version of Mt. Rushmore. I must confess I didn't get it at first. The sculpture is far from complete -- basically just a face. A face that I completely missed for about the first 30 minutes of our visit. The sculpture is a work in progress, and up until 1987 sculptors focused on finishing the horse Crazy Horse is depicted on. Then in 1987, the sculptor's widow directed the team to focus on finishing the face. So there is a doorway-shaped hole in the mountain just beneath the face, which will become part of Crazy Horse's arm. The hole is all yours truly could see, until someone pointed out the sculpture's nose. So it took me a while to appreciate the $27 we spent to enter and view a hole in the mountain.

We then moved onto the venue Joe was really interested in -- the Presidential Slide in Keystone, S.D. We were summarily transported up the side of a mountain on a chairlift, with plastic sleds in tow -- for the return trip. Basically a plastic toboggan run back down the mountainside. Joe took the fast lane and loved the whole thing. We finished the day with another three hours in the waterpark, and I am convinced that when people ask the kids what they remember about the trip, it will be the six million times they went down the waterslides.

Day 11, Rapid City, S.D.

RAPID CITY, S.D. -- A weird and unusual landform is overshadowed by a weird and unusual human activity.

The Devil's Tower is a 1,000-foot anomaly in the high plains of eastern Wyoming, towering over the scrub like the mashed-potato model Richard Dreyfuss made in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Geolgists believe the odd landform is the remains of an ancient volcano. Magma was forced upward into a layer of sedimentary rock as many as 50 million years ago. The softer sedimentary rock eroded over the millenia, exposing the harder volacnic rock below, and leaving the monolithic Devil's Tower for people of the 21st century to marvel at. Unless you are 12 and 10, and then climbing on the boulder field around the tower is way more interesting.

Devil's Tower

Along I-90 en route to Devil's Tower we observed another geological anomaly: a series of rocks in the highway median that looked exactly like a giant herd of poodles had used the area as a litter box.

After a brief stop at Devil's Tower we continued east to what is easily the most commercial stop on our quest -- Rapid City, home to Mount Rushmore, along with mini golf, chairlift mega-slides, a water park and every one of the national restaurant chains (Applebee's, Olive Garden, Chili's, Arby's, McDonald's, etc., etc., etc.).

The waterpark was a huge hit with the kids, who spent three hours running up 70 stairs to spend about 30 seconds careening back down in a water-filled tube. And in the waterpark, I was struck yet again at one of the universe's most inexplicable questions: why do ugly people continually seek to make themselves uglier with tattoos and piercings?

Day 10, Sheridan, Wyoming

SHERIDAN, Wyo., August 15, 2010 -- Another trip back in time, another brilliant commander -- but this time, the commander's brilliance gets the best of him.

The Little Big Horn National Monument provided us a sobering glimpse of yet another of our country's skeletons in the closet -- our eradication of the Indian way of life. We toured the site of Custer's Last Stand, and heard the story of our country's second-youngest major general, a storied Indian fighter whose success and confidence on the battlefield was his undoing. Custer was impulsive, and was known for a "sixth sense" on the battlefield -- an uncanny ability to read the ebb and flow of fighting and take advantage of the enemy's moment of weakness. That ability served him well, until he met Sitting Bull and a battalion of Lakota, Cherokee and Arapaho braves fighting desperately to preserve their way of life. In this battle -- his last, as it turned out -- Custer mis-read the situation and set himself up for a cataclysmic defeat.

We were sobered by the monuments, especially one marking the mass grave of enlisted men who died on that fateful Sunday afternoon. We were sobered by the monument commemorating the Indian tribes who fought -- three against the U.S. forces, two alongside -- in a striking memorial full of native symbolism. We were astounded by the enthusiasm and knowledge of our tour guide, an art professor from Temple College in Temple, Texas, who -- because of an intense interest in Custer's Last Stand -- has spent the last 21 summers leading tours at the monument. And Joe was particularly enthralled. As he said, "It's amazing that I am even here."

The road led us to the "#1 Western Town in America" -- Sheridan, Wyo. Which is #1 because they say it is.

All day we've been sharing the road with Harley riders leaving the Sturgis event. Here's hoping that they all make it home tonight. Great folks, but I for one am tired of listening to the roar of their hogs.