Okay  luke dominate here at the outdoor boys youtube channel and today we're doing the longest road trip in the united states you guys ready for this yeah.

All right guys we're here in key west florida and we've rented a car with unlimited mileage and uh we're gonna be leaving here and spending the next six weeks driving 7 500 miles north all the way up to dead horse alaska and in case you're wondering where my wife and my youngest child are they're going to be joining us.

Along the way they're off having fun with in-laws right now it's going to be a crazy adventure and we'll be doing lots of stuff along the way we're going to be floating rivers we're going to be noodling catfish you guys excited yeah our flight into miami landed at 5 a.m and we drove straight from there to key.

West and i haven't slept in about 48 hours so we're barely on our feet but uh we're determined to make the most of it is my first time in key west so we're gonna go out and get some breakfast and uh see a few sights before we start trekking north  this look good.

All right let's do it you want to try this  all right now we got some food in this maybe we can stay awake well now that we got breakfast out of the way we're gonna go check out the mel fisher maritime museum real quick check out this banyan tree guys.

Look at the size of this thing these banyan trees are so cool no that right there those are silver coins this is the gold they found in a sunken ship there's golden balls golden coins they found these in the bottom of the ocean see these are hammers and tools yeah i said one of the cannons from the atocho.

Yeah yeah they shoot those one it's a pirate with a head was that cool do you like that yeah you ready to go get a hotel yeah let's go get a hotel i'm terrible one tired we go we got some chinese food great david eat while tommy's in the bathroom.

All right let's go check out the beach and pool oh you guys are getting older we can do this more  hey tommy i think it's time to call it sun setting have you had a fun day yeah it's been fun well it is a beautiful morning and the.

Boys have been asleep for 13 hours i think it's time to wake him up i think we were all a lot more tired than we realized all right before we head off we are going to organize the car we need to get an organization system where this next month is going to be very very messy this is like our.

Everyday stuff that we need when we go into the hotel plus my camera equipment we've got usb splitters and chargers everywhere and over here you can see we got these little organizers hanging on the back of the chair we'll see how that works we got a long way our next destination is crystal river.

Florida that's 404 miles or 7 hours 3 minutes  we're kind of ripping right through the keys and through florida there's so much cool stuff to see in florida but we've been here many many times so we're kind of anxious to go see stuff that we haven't seen before.

All right we're gonna get some fresh fruit here all right we got breakfast who wants some star fruit oh look at that one of my favorite fruits see star fruit i love dragon fruit i used to eat this every morning in hong kong oh it's the pink one that stains i think i was.

Hoping to do the white one don't drop it don't drop it i already sucked on my fingers all right good for you oh these are the best bananas in the world hey guys you want to drive through the everglades and see some alligators yes all right let's do it florida everglades are so cool we love.

Coming down here we just finished a video where we spent two weeks hunting pythons and iguanas and fishing for invasive fish here in the florida everglades if you want to see that video i'll put a link down in the video description below we are seeing tons of alligators see him he's right there steve right.

There well we're in florida so we got to get dinner at sunny's barbecue amazing hey guys guess what we just drove our first 500 miles now we just need to do that 15 more times welcome to crystal river florida so far.

We've traveled 540 miles and i've got to get these guys ready for bed because we're getting up at 6 a.m to go shark fishing i am so sick look at that look at the size of that thing well we got a little bit of a problem it's late neither one of the boys are.

Asleep tommy is feeling pretty under the weather and nathan's got a little bit of a runny nose anyway so i had to call the shark fishing guide and cancel and uh we're just going to kind of see how they feel in the morning and figure out what we're going to do well it was definitely a rough night last night tommy woke up.

With body aches coughs and chills and the whole works he's looks like he's either got flu or coven so we're gonna do some testing and try to find out what it is and in the meantime we need to be isolated and so we're kind of canceling everything we were planning to do here at crystal river we were originally going to go.

Shark fishing this morning and then do some fun activities this afternoon so instead what i figure we'll do is we'll just try to get all of our driving out of the way and uh that way we can isolate and kind of get something done and we should get the test results back by this uh afternoon around 6 pm or so all right we got some medicine and tommy.

And he's starting to feel a little better we're gonna head northwest towards panama city beach florida which is about 266 miles or about five hours away all right guys welcome to panama city beach florida so far we've driven 826.6 miles holy mackerel that is massive that is a.

Pulled pork with a fried onion on it and uh i've got a alligator sausage po boy well good news we got the test results back and tommy's negative for covid so just good old-fashioned cold and flu so uh that makes life a whole lot easier here and uh i think we just take it easy tonight and tomorrow and uh we should be.

Good all right guys got a belly full of barbecue i think it's time to go get a hotel it's getting late well i need to get these guys to bed and i've got a lot of editing to do on my computer so i will see you guys in the morning well good morning it's a wonderfully lazy sunday morning and the boys are feeling a lot better but i'm.

Going to give them one more day of just hanging out and doing nothing just to make sure we get them over this cold and don't spread any germs around doing a little hotel laundry here all right there we go got some laundry done well i just got off the phone with black creek outfitters and canoe rentals in southern mississippi and the black.

Creek is completely flooded we were gonna do a two-day camping float trip in southern mississippi tomorrow and uh that's not happening so we are off to a rough start with with our plans but uh i'm gonna sit here and uh try to see about our plan b's.

We're about an hour away from the alabama florida border and we're gonna cruise right on through to mississippi and hopefully we're gonna be able to do some pretty cool stuff in mississippi by the way i've got a gopro mounted up here doing a time lapse video so this entire trip all the way from key west to dead horse alaska i'm gonna do a time lapse.

So that you guys can watch the whole drive and of course i'll put a link to that video in the video description below look tommy there's a big snapping turtle in the road like little teeth marks and mud marks on top of the gopro all right guys we just got into alabama.

 the government street hey tom tom you want to go see a battleship yeah all right let's go see a battleship we're here in mobile alabama and we drive by and we see a big battleship museum for the uss alabama and tommy is obsessed with military stuff so we are totally getting tickets hey look at.

Sherman tate we've got to drive one of those you want to go on the battleship yeah it's one of those random things we just saw on the highway we just got to pull over and do this is way there's where they patched up holes see they shoot that out of that i thought.

Look at that 40 millimeter cannon see yeah you go you just stare right through there and that's how you aim it you see oh yeah there's a couple right right there next to it oh man they don't make these ships for six foot four people that's where they keep the bullets they have to have a machine that loads it because the.

Bullets are too heavy to pick up oh i'm so hitting my head on stuff this is the hospital hey you guys want to go see the submarine watch out dad's dad's got to get through see this is the steering wheel for the captain and that's the steering wheel for his kids so they can feel like.

They're participating push the wrong button you're in trouble huh oh my goodness that is a good hike there's there's the kitchen all right hop up there bud oh don't kill my back oh son of a gun oh that was cool we got a long way to go we're gonna get back on the road.

Check it out there's mardi gras beads all over the trees and power lines see look at the necklaces all up in the power lines all right guys we just drove 1000 miles all right guys we stopped to get gas and i'm gonna go ahead and make some lunch here all right got some white castle sliders.

And a couple corn dogs here oh that was hot by the time we get to our next spot should be all cooked welcome to mississippi guys  oh yeah those are toasty here you like hamburgers cooked on the engine all right should we go see some alligators yeah.

All right you hold that that's gator food right there you want to go feed gators it says unattended kids will be sold as gator bait look at this boys look at this we got a gator nugget here let's see let's let me try it here oh geez apparently that's how you do it.

Oh well let's go check out the baby gators yeah you guys have held gators that size i caught an alligator about this size on a rod and reel once and tommy wrestled it there's one right there i thought there's one oh he's a lot bigger than i thought.

 barely dodged the rainstorm we were supposed to be doing a two-day float of black creek here in southern mississippi but all this rain and a tropical storm flooded everything out the rivers are super swollen look at those railroad tracks in the water.

You want to try chicharrones they're fried pork skins david here try it it's funky but it's really good you're right funky but good i've lost seven in a row.

Oh my last banana is the best bananas i've ever had in my life all right guys we've done 1247 miles and we're here in mcgee mississippi so tonight i'm going to try to find a plan c and see if we can't go camping somewhere.

Here in mississippi tomorrow night nathan died all right guys we're here in chunky mississippi and we are going to float the chunky river how much sunscreen do you guys got oh not enough that's how much you got it looks like you got hit by a flock of seagulls.

All right oh you guys you guys want to sign your name yeah so you got to sign the chunky mobile put it on the seat tom yeah this is cool i like your ride thank you very much gentlemen we'll see you tomorrow morning so we're gonna spend the days kayaking and swimming and fishing and uh we're.

Gonna camp tonight on the river and just see what happens are you doing it jump out jump out and swim if you want you can wash it out i'm peeing right now you're peeing right now i think right now now careful don't fill up the kayak full of water.

 oh oh ramming speed oh no paddle finds up hey look at that tree let's go over there and jump off that tree go for it hey guys i'm starting to feel some rain i think we got a little bit of a storm coming in.

Oh no attacking your brother get out of the sweeper tom paddle for the bridge there we go all right well we'll just hang out onto this bridge till this rain storm passes and from the looks of it it won't take very long the bridge is peeing on you.

All right guys should we keep going yep there's a lot of yellow water in the bottom of this kayak nathan ah it's raining again the storm deceived us uh oh we got a ramp tommy we'll take a little shelter here and see if that storm blows over again oh oh oh.

Hold on yeah put that in there there's your backpack hold on tom you're just gonna flip yourself again climb on the there you go our down sleeping bags and dry clothes were in that bag we're gonna find out if that's waterproof or not the rain's.

Eased up a little bit so we're gonna go try to get a campsite because i do not want to set up the tent in the rain and it looks like we're going to have on and off showers for a little bit do you want to switch nathan hey this beach over here to the left actually looks like one of the best.

Spots we've seen so far thanks boy got two hooks on here one for catfish and uh one for like bluegill and stuff we'll see if we can catch anything  oh there's some good thunder over there all right who wants to watch godzilla movies.

All right we got godzilla versus mechagodzilla too yeah you guys said you want to beef stew we just finished dinner and the storm's blowing over so we got a little bit of time to relax before sunset something was pulling a little bit of drag i think we just might have some junk on the line but tom's gonna reel it in and check it.

Out what you got what you got oh what a gorgeous fish well congratulations tom that's what your first mississippi fish i think yeah what'd you catch nate oh you got oh yeah right there a little baby tadpole there he goes.

Oh those are all your tadpoles yeah okay look at that one he's big i'm trying to swim in my hands well here we better get him back in the water you've got some serious bug bites back there those are doozies  let's get ready to roast some marshmallows.

You got some stick one strawberry one vanilla give that a go all right guys it's officially sunset and their bedtime you guys having a good day awesome well let's get you guys tucked in it's getting late okay got a busy day.

Tomorrow well good morning it's another beautiful day here in mississippi and we got the sun coming over the horizon all right guys who wants some blueberry granola well we've got about four miles to go before we get to our takeout spot and the river is moving at a pretty good clip so we should get there in uh short.

Order nathan you look like a pro oh  here we go oh i hit that i felt that on my butt  there's the bridge we're getting near the end listen if you guys are near chunky.

Mississippi and you want to float the chunky river make sure to check out chunky river kayak canoe rentals i'll put a link down in the video description below say goodbye to chunky mississippi  now you guys might notice that we're not driving a lot of interstates on this.

Trip i selected the avoid highways option on my gps so we're going to drive back country roads all the way to alaska as the last prayer drifted toward the train welcome to alabama boys this is the only state we're going to visit twice on this trip.

All right guys we've traveled 1550 miles and we're at dismal canyon alabama here we're gonna do some camping all right my goodness look at this  and we're here at dismal canyon alabama and we have reserved what is arguably.

The coolest campsite in the entire state not only do we have this grotto and waterfall all to ourselves but it's also home to a really rare globe worm that lives only here and hopefully tonight we're going to get to see some  no.

Is that refreshing yeah look at this all right let's get set up hi i'm going to pick you got the ted set up we got to get the fire going we have some lovely food for dinner tonight we're in alabama so tonight we're gonna have steak and asparagus for dinner and tomorrow.

Morning we're having scotched eggs   oh hey tom look what we guess what we have for dessert  there we go five scotch eggs all hot and.

Toasty ready for tomorrow we can just heat them up in the morning and they're ready to go absolutely delicious all right guys the sun's starting to set and we are going to go on a little tour of dismal's canyon and try to see the dismalites the little rare glow-in-the-dark bugs that uh live here so we're gonna go meet up with our.

Tour guide here and uh it's gonna be fun oh you got a firefly wait oh butt would glow let's go find some dismalates  this is the first scorpion i've ever seen in the wild oh he's he's totally ah i touched him.

Check it out it's a poisonous centipede if you shine a uv light on them they glow in the dark oh yeah well that was really cool but my camera couldn't pick up 99 of it we saw dozens and dozens of dismalites we saw glow-in-the-dark funguses and uv light glowing centipedes and the grottoes down.

There are really amazing we only got an inkling of some of the cool rock formations that are down there uh but uh we're gonna go check them out tomorrow morning in the daytime because i think that is gonna be one cool hike but it's late and uh we're gonna head back to our campsite it's late let's get to bed.

Hey dad there we go scotch eggs tommy do you like scotch eggs oh i love this you really want to get crazy with them you can put hollandaise sauce on them they are delicious so uh we're gonna kind of clean up camp get the car all packed up and uh then.

We're gonna go and do a hike while i'm packing up the camp the boys are climbing up on the waterfall and catching crawfish and just having a ball oh you guys are way out there this is one of the coolest campsites i've ever been but uh let's go do some hiking ready to explore this canyon yeah all right let's do it so this hike we're.

Doing right now is the same hike we went on last night only this time we get to see the scenery hey guys wait look at this  cool  all right nathan you ready to go to.

Arkansas no all right let's go do arkansas all right we're driving to northwest arkansas and it's going to be about seven to nine hours and tomorrow is a little bit of a mystery the water levels i've been a little skewampus in arkansas so my plans to float a river are a bit.

Up in the air  hey guys look it's the mississippi river welcome to arkansas boys i'd rather have a sleepover with a free-filled rabbit carcass oh we've driven a total of 2 000 miles and now we're here in harrison arkansas in.

The northwest of arkansas and i am going to get to take a shower ah morning we had a wonderful night's sleep we got showers done did some laundry so we smell a lot better the weather's pretty miserable and i'm not sure if or when it's going to let up so we're just going to kind of drive down to ozark.

National forest and stop and check stuff out along the way you know we just saw a billboard for something called mystic caverns and so going in a cave sounds like a good idea not exactly what we planned but it's gonna be dry and we're excited about that.

 tall  yeah that was a nice thing to do to get out of bad weather well check it out guys this is the buffalo river and one of the most scenic rivers and best float trips in the united states we wanted to float this.

But the river is way down i drive all right guys check it out it's an old farm well we're driving through and i saw this sign for the parker hickman historic farm isn't this crazy let's turn the.

Turn on our lights yeah i see it oh guys look i see the chimney that's cool that's where they put all the naughty children that was cool you guys want to keep driving yeah poor nathan he was in the middle of.

Saying this is the best day ever when he bit it and just totally hurt his arm and leg it didn't help that me and tommy started laughing did you just fart on me look at this this bridge made by nature it's a natural bridge and then they wouldn't put handrails on it.

So you can kind of get an idea of what it looks like right there  dangerous things can happen that was fun but for tommy the highlight of the day is listening to our audiobook which is entitled i am a genius of unspeakable evil and i want to be your class president wait do you like the book oh i.

Love it you can't have a good road trip without a good road trip book oh snake who's telling a loud nerd story to a loud nerd friend oh that was sketchy  there we go guys it's the car wash waterfall in the ozark national forest.

Car really needs it by the way i'm glad we came  so he just turns purple and starts coughing oh this would be perfect this is like the perfect swimming hole do you want to go swimming yeah look at this.

All you think shy job one two three oh my butt hurts oh that was a bad idea  here here come with me oh i really hurt my butt and my foot and my elbow my back i can't even buy them.

We're getting the boys dried off and i think we're gonna go do some camping here it's just a great campsite and there's nobody here you guys up for some camping all right oh  you want to put waste on your meat yeah.

That warms your belly up oh yeah grab your marshmallow sticks you oh let's send it and put it like that well this turned out to be our plan c but not too bad i'm really pleased with how this day turned out oh good and our fur has been used to make paint.

Brushes and toothbrushes do you guys sleep well this has been an awesome campground we've had the whole place to ourselves on a friday night right next to a gorgeous waterfall and swimming hole so we're leaving arkansas ozark national forest and heading northwest to go find a hotel somewhere around the border.

Between missouri and arkansas  what are you guys in the mood for japanese food all right we'll go get some japanese food you know i've eaten a lot of sushi at a lot of japanese food but never in arkansas let's give it a go i like to shoot you like the sushi.

Mochi ice cream all right let's go find a hotel i need a shower and i've got a lot of video editing to do but we're gonna be here for two days and we're gonna try to see a few things oh poop wanna see four and a half thousand dollars of garbage that's what it looks like right there.

I better find myself a new high performance laptop in the next few days or there won't be any videos for august so well it is a beautiful sunday morning and uh i do a little ironing but uh we're gonna head off to church and it's just gonna be a real low-key sunday today well guys do you have a.

Good time at church yes well i ran into a friend from alaska that i went to high school with and uh at church and so uh we're gonna go over and meet his family and hang out with his family for uh the afternoon so that's gonna be kind of fun well thank you very much for having us let us come and destroy your house a.

Little bit thanks for coming by we'll see you well we've had a wonderfully relaxing low-key sunday but it's time to go hit the sack i'm gonna see you guys bright and early in the morning we're going camping tomorrow you ready yeah all right let's do it who wants frosted flakes well we've drove 2 200 miles so far but.

Today we have a meager 26 mile john to missouri where we're gonna do some uh camping and fishing it's gonna be a good time we're in missouri now okay all right guys we're here at the creekside campground near joplin missouri and uh we're gonna be spending.

The day here and it is absolutely gorgeous that looks like fun this is just a great little whirlpool oh boy here we go walking on broken flint watch out gate oh we lost nathan broken toy car and there's a yeah that's a big rock it's a rock tire.

That was pretty awesome  okay what do you catch oh look at that behemoth whoa you're the legs on that one boys just found a four-wheeler and they abandoned me in a heartbeat it is so nice and quiet here we have our.

Pick of spots so i think we're gonna go all the way down there on the end we'll have all the privacy we want and the boys can chase crawdads and tadpoles while ice get the car cleaned out and the tent set up boys are down to the last marshmallows so they're gonna try to roast moon pies moon pie on a stick this this could be.

The best thing we've ever done in our lives okay we're losing chocolate what do you think would you do it again you like that thomas nathan it's raining we better go just got the kids to bed and sitting out here by the fire i think i see some bullfrogs you got a bullfrog incredible frog.

There goes oh he's quite the jumper well good morning everyone sleep well yeah oh there we go beauty oh my goodness isn't that the most beautiful fish you've ever seen if you guys are ever in missouri you.

Want to come to the creekside campground i'll put a link down in the video description below well guys we've had a wonderful time but we've got to keep moving we got to get to oklahoma so we've driven 2 355 miles so far on this trip and we're gonna head towards oklahoma city and do another 252 miles.

Welcome to oklahoma boys well we got a lot done today i took a shower we got some laundry done we've eaten dinner and we're just relaxing because tomorrow we're getting up early and we're going noodling for catfish there you go pancake machine that's awesome all right guys i'm meeting here with.

Nate with adrenaline rush noodling and uh we're gonna go out and wrestle some catfish right that's the plan now for those of you who have no clue what noodling is basically you find a catfish in a little den under water and you go and you stick your hand in in the den and you grab them by the lower jaw or you get them to bite you or whatever.

And you wrestle them out and here in the summer time the catfish are spawning and the females will lay the eggs and then the males guard him so you go in there and you try to find a spot where catfish has made a nest you feel into all these little holes trying to see if we can't find one on there and wrestle them out there's not gonna be.

Anything in the holes but a catfish or an empty hole the beavers and the snakes and the turtles they don't really live in these holes you got one back in there i felt one in here but i'm trying to locate his other ways to escape i'm trying to block up his back door well i believe he must have came out the.

Back side will uh it doesn't banged very silty in here i'm gonna noodle a spider okay oh he got away hey don nate you guys having fun oh yeah look at that little leopard frog look at that.

Yeah everywhere oh yeah that is a big boy oh no that's a monster yeah big flathead well we saw one big dead catfish and two pretty good-sized catfish skulls so definitely some monsters in here but the water's really low so i think that kind of kind of killed it for us today we only have a little bit of time left.

But we're going to try one more spot  so we're just kind of bobbing down with the current going to long jam to log jam looking for catfish nests look at that noodle the turtle you want me to jam my leg in there as far as i can yeah maybe put both of them.

In there and just go as far as you can yeah i got as far as i could didn't feel anything empty so there's a big empty log about this big around it just goes back that way and i stuck my leg in as far as i could and he went down in it as far as he could couldn't feel anything but it looks just.

Super fishy there's these undercuts in little caves here along this rock so we're just kind of working our way down did you find the edge over there one just swam over my foot really yeah okay heads up boys don't step on a snake they got rattlesnakes here.

Well me i'm sorry didn't work out but we had a ball yeah we tried didn't we i'm gonna give you a reason to come back and try again awesome well guys did you have fun even though we didn't catch any fish oh yeah it was fun we are now at and seventy 2573 miles into our journey and we're gonna drive another 171 miles to the great.

Salt basin in northwest oklahoma we're gonna do some camping meet up with some friends and we're gonna dig for some crystals he was obviously incarcerated for a your reason is on the right all right we're here at the great salt plains in northwest oklahoma and i have.

A couple fellow youtubers here going to be joining us for a little camping and fishing we've got the walker farm fam here with that great channel here in arms family homestead definitely check out their youtube channels we'll put links down in the video description below but i think we should go fishing shouldn't we yeah we found a great.

Spillway holy mack i could see the carp are you reeling him in or is he reeling you in there you go you got him in the net you try to lift it like a normal net it'll snap well we fished for about an hour i watched a lot of other people reel in fish we're gonna set up camp and.

Get some food well i've been setting up the tent the boys have been playing and swimming in the water apparently this lake is super shallow you could walk across the entire thing this is the goat sausage yep these are from your goats right they got a hard skin on them right out of the middle.

You guys want to eat the mre yeah all right come on let's do it this is army gatorade what do you think of the army gatorade it's pretty good not bad and then we put that heater in here like this that is hot okay now for the main course you ready okay.

So here's your pork patty and you got your maple syrup here give that a shot see what you like date one before what do you guys think of the mre you like it that's really good we gotta grab some jalapeno cashews there how hard is it right guys i stayed up way too late.

Just jaw-jacking with everybody and having a great time but the boys should be in bed so i'm gonna go put them down and i'll see you guys in the morning we are going crystal digging and doing all sorts of fun stuff okay well we're over here with our dehydrated meals here that's the waffle maker thing there's.

Survival and then there's living this this is squarely in the latter category you need a plate for it no it's been just so fun just to hang out and chat with with nice people and the boys are having a ball they're playing in a mulberry tree over there i'm just going to kind of do the slow pack up.

I've got to reorganize the car a little bit and then we're going to go out and dig for crystals out in the salt plains so we got a little caravan driving around to the other side of the lake to go dig crystals the arms family the walker family coming with us this is the oklahoma great salt basin and we're gonna dig for selenite.

Crystals we just finished listening to the book holes on audiobook in the car so the boys are convinced that this is camp green lake all right you want that one look at this it's a big chunk of salt there's actually really good salt in the world.

 so the material here is this fine brown silty sand and then you get these pockets of this coarser like beach sand material and then you look inside it and then there'll be pockets of crystals like look at this this is all crystals right here oh look at that sucker you can see a.

Little bit of an hourglass in there can't you christmas there we go look at that look at the hourglass shape inside hey these kids have been digging up huge crystals they're scraping that's how you'll find them yeah that one that one is look at how.

Look at how perfectly formed that one is  that is pretty oh that's a big one oh this one's this one's uh that is a serious specimen right there look at that that is gorgeous yeah that is awesome.

All right guys we gotta get head north to kansas but we have had such a great time make sure to check out the walker farm fam youtube channel and the arm family homestead youtube channel i'll put links down in the video description below guys we've had such a ball thanks thanks for coming thank you everybody hop on in all.

Right guys so we're gonna drive 247 miles north to castle rock kansas and we're going to get to drive through dodge city so that's going to be kind of cool so far we're at 2750 miles on our journey dead shortly after david hey boys welcome to kansas.

All right welcome to dodge city a town that was once called the wickedest little town in america all right guys we're here in dodge city and that's the boot hill museum according to the sign next week's the testicle festival wow we just barely missed it these are war hammers.

It's a coat made from a buffalo it's a pair of scissors yeah it's a little folding knife this is a list of all the different brands all right we bought a little souvenir for my youngest boy jacob all right guys you want to get some ice cream you got that all right we got some fajitas for the.

Road we're in good shape now all right guys that was fun but it's time to get out of dodge all right little chrysler pacifica you can do this look at those cliffs welcome to the badlands of kansas and uh we're gonna call it home for tonight.

Well now that we've got the tent set up we're gonna try to explore these rock formations a little bit this reminds me of something i'd find in southern utah not western kansas all right we got bellies full of food we're gonna go to bed it is late we'll see you guys in the morning oh that's pretty good morning well today is gonna be a.

Simple day we've got about four and a half hours of driving to do to get to nebraska we're gonna be camping on a beach on a reservoir and other than that we you know we really don't have that much to do oh can you hear that it's a pack of coyotes over there all right guys we're leaving the kansas.

Badlands and heading to mcconaughey reservoir in northwest nebraska about miles hey guys we forgot to brush your teeth we're driving down the street and we saw a sign for the fake fossil museums well i think so that's pretty cool see look we got the selenite crystals from oklahoma.

Look at that is that cool no i think it's a little yellow oh check out the the fossils nathan you make a good annie oakley no this is the old prairie house see it's made out of mud see that's the dried cow food to make the fire go that's a 10 10 gauge shotgun that's a.

Big old beast oh my goodness look at that thing oh yeah that's a fossilized fish that looks like a giant tarpon prehistoric turtle seizure oh yeah yeah yeah it's a mosasaurus that was pretty cool thomas gowdy you guys want to go to that playground yeah.

We're driving through colby kansas we saw this enormous playground this thing's huge girl there's 11 slides here it's nice to stop and look at things along the way  welcome to nebraska.

 we're now in the same time zone as mama holy mackerel this reservoir is crowded okay we're here at mcconaughey reservoir here in northwest nebraska and it is crazy crowded i was led to believe that when you reserved a spot you got a spot look at this.

As far as the eye can see the entire shoreline is solid rv's intense you know i went online to reserve a campsite and it said okay this is beach area 14 do you want a reserve beach area 14 i clicked yes yeah i don't think i got a reservation and i was kind of lame you know you.

Spend 30 dollars on reservations and i'd get more privacy camping at a nascar event yeah the temperature's 100 degrees fahrenheit outside i think is another good reason to find another place in canada wait a minute that's the plaid river i had to cross that on the oregon trail.

Video game okay we're driving down the road trying to look for a campground and i looked at my window and i saw a chimney rock you know from the oregon trail and there's a campground that's not cold here we go we got a camping spot we got the tent set up and look at that there's chimney rock.

Yeah we're just right on the oregon trail aren't we it's hot do you guys want to go into town and go do something to kill a little time yeah so i got a little idea to beat the heat the boys have never been bowling yeah this looks perfect get up to the line but don't go over it yeah you got some.

Oh that was a good throw  so we're just here in bridgeport nebraska doing some bowling and having a good old time at the place to ourselves very social distance friendly daddy got a strike oh look at this nathan's kicking our butts.

Someone just turned the party switch on   yeah yeah that's how you do it did you have fun are you glad we were bullied holy crap look how many scooters are trying to get well guys we've traveled 3 400 miles so.

Far on this trip but we're leaving chimney rock nebraska and we're headed for denver colorado where we're gonna meet becca and jacob at the airport and be able to continue the rest of this journey as a whole family which i am so excited about all right we're stopping in scott's bluff nebraska and we're gonna go to the.

Bluffs bakery get some breakfast blueberry bagel bites that's good all right i got a big fat order of biscuits and gravy here oh they're beautiful i think they asked how many counting down the minutes till we get to see mommy and jacob.

Hey guys look we're actually going up a hill i think we're getting close to colorado hey guys welcome to colorado whoa the next left then your destination will be on the left here we gotta get some flowers for mama anything is that good for mama.

Thank you for the flowers that's really cool all right guys we're leaving the denver airport and we've traveled 3 600 miles so far and we're headed 122 miles west to leadville colorado where we've rented a house ah the kids are getting fed they're watching cartoons.

They're making a mess of the floor we're settling in nicely well guys we've had a little bit of a rough morning at 5am jacob crawled into bed with me and becca and then threw up all over us and uh then the other two boys followed suit about an hour later uh so it's been a lot of barfing and everyone's just kind of.

Laying down uh my best guess is it's altitude sickness leadville here where we're at is at 10 000 feet why do you think you're sick and we're not is we were up sleeping upstairs and everybody else was sweeping downstairs today we were planning on.

Hiking up a mountain and camping at 11 000 feet my sister and her family were going to come and join us on the camp out and uh so we got to call them and kind of think about a plan b well tommy and jacob have perked up a bit but nathan's taking a turn hang in there bud.

So we're gonna just pack up and get out of here as quickly as we can well guys i have never seen a car this full but it's okay because they were going to spend two weeks in it so we head down the mountain yeah.

We've already descended about 2 000 feet and the boys are doing a lot better you guys feeling better  you want to go play with cousins yeah all right let's do it hey how you doing oh good to see you hey all right guys it's a hot summer day so what better to do than have a picnic.

With the family so i bought way too much food we're going to do just that if i can't go camping at the top of the rockies with my boys then i'm going to eat good food we put mayonnaise on it have you handed it and there we go mexican style corn.

Cole here has never eaten an avocado before we have this nice salted avocado here we have a belly full of delicious food and uh we've got a whole bunch of water balloons down there and the kids are chomping at the bit to start hurting each other let me look at everybody you're back oh.

My goodness are you having fun yeah go get them nathan look at here come here you've got a nipple welt oh my goodness that one's kind of turning purple in the middle half the kids are covered in welts the other half are in timeout that was a good successful water fight well it's getting late and the.

Boys are gonna go and camp in the backyard tonight with their cousins so they're pretty jazzed about that the best part of this is kendall is setting up all the stuff my back is screaming right now the idea of pulling out all my luggage to get to my camping gear sounds horrible well good morning guys we're here in denver with my sister's family.

And it's just been lovely we're going to do about an hour long drive in the car and then stop for lunch so i'm going to heat up some of our lunch on the engine block yeah hop in and get yourself buckled bud okay we're headed to georgetown lake about an hour from southern denver where we're at.

All right becky you ready for some lunch brother-in-law's got some fishing rods out the kids are gonna do some fishing me and beggar just gonna sit here and relax all right high five cool there we go it looks great monster trout just enjoyed herself but uh now we're gonna go and do a little scenic train.

Ride you guys are enjoy the ride all right we're at the phoenix gold mine just a little bit away from georgetown and uh we're gonna do a mine tour and do a little gold paintings tommy uh this is where that water came up and filled that crack.

Of a turn hit it turn it to turn you twist it you can move it up and down where they got farther around big piece of pyrite right here so you've got copper iron you're going to have gold in there didn't you just tell me the gold is real heavy you have a bunch of black sand in the bottom see all that sparkly stuff.

Because once the gold gets the bedrock it can't sink it we've learned the principles we've studied the technique now we go down the creek and do it for realsies all right guys i'm going to pretend to be pioneer polly here for a little bit let's see if we can find any gold i don't know if you can see it this gold.

Is so tiny but there's little teeny tiny specks right in there you getting rich you got some black sand in there yeah oh is that a flavor emily's hiding in the woods to avoid anyone finding your gold there's some bling in there every pan had a little bit oh look at that so becca is the gold panning queen she's found at least one flake in every pan.

I found diddly squat ah she's always been a good sugar mama did you guys have fun at the mine yes here's the unedited truth of family vacations jacob's screaming at me because i buckled him into his car seat instead of letting him do it nathan's mad because he didn't find any gold.

Tommy's happy and mom's happy and i threw my back out so he just poops her pants that'd be a you know pretty typical day well we're gonna end the day with the bang we're gonna have a babysitter come over watch all the boys feed them full of pizza and all the adults are going out.

Good times well we had a lovely evening but it's time to get some kids to bed i'll see you guys in the morning ah good morning guys and welcome to our last day here in denver my sister's making waffles the boys are watching too much tv and hanging out with cousins we're having a great time.

But we've got a lot of driving to do today  glad we did that rather than camping on a mountain yeah yeah we have traveled 4 100 miles so far we're now going 364 miles west to vernal utah all right guys here we are hoosiers pass at the continental divide if you spill.

Water on this side it'll drain into the atlantic ocean the gulf of mexico you spill water on this side goes down to the pacific ocean we're officially across the peak of the rockies covered the whole seat with we're here in steamboat springs and we've been in the car for four hours so.

We're going to stretch your legs a little bit  there you go that'll keep you nice and cool keep the sun off what is that what you want buddy there you go it's a lucky 13 13 beef patties 13 slices of cheese two buns one pound of.

Fries if you finish it in 30 minutes it's free but you die oh oh my gosh everything on this menu sounds so good for all the wrong reasons oh this is deep fried mac and cheese that's really good this is tommy's hamburger the bun is a.

Powdered donut the la freak pineapple pepper jack jalapeno sweet chili sauce and peanut butter jalapenos and peanut butter dang it that's actually really good what do you think babe is it good i'm trying tommy's it's really good it's really good if you want to eat here it's the back door grill in steamboat.

Springs colorado steamboat strings is fun well we got into the hotel a bit later than we expected so i got to put this down and get kids to bed and i'll see you guys in the morning we're here in vernal utah which is home of dinosaur national park we are gonna go see some dinosaurs you guys excited.

Yeah all right we're here at the utah side of the dinosaur national park so right up there in the canyon is one of the richest dinosaur fossil quarries in the world and a lot of species like stegosaurus were discovered up in there those are dinosaurs those aren't like recreations or sculptures of them like.

You see in the museums these are real dinosaur ones and look at how many hundreds of them there are look that's an amazing fossil look how well well put together that is  all right guys we're gonna drive into the national park a little bit there's a lot of really cool canyons and.

Petroglyphs well we're going to go take a peek at the petroglyphs the kids wanted to stay in the car well here's some petroglyphs of the fremont people that's pretty cool i like the ones at the top best where you can still see some of the red coloring in it all right guys we've driven 4 400 miles.

And we're gonna drive another 130 miles north to fort bridger wyoming we're driving down the road and all of a sudden there's these signs pointing out where you can get fossils look at this it's a crystal oh look at this tommy beautiful oh look at this look at this this is fish scales they got fossilized.

Fish scales right here look at that a whole bunch of them that's a big fish scale right there pretty cool but we still got a lot of driving to do we better get going here's the crystals oh that's super cool we're on highway 191 going north from vernal and there's all these signs along the road telling you which cuts contain what.

Fossils and from which periods and you can just stop your car along the road and collect fossils we're arriving dinosaurs hunted i'll pull over all right guys there might be raptor bones here this looks a little bit like a piece of fossilized wood or fossilized bone or something.

You found a brush yeah i think some paleontologists forgot their tool does that look like a piece of bone to you horizon formation stegosauruses they've got stegosauruses we've got a brush we're still going to find one now look at that there's fossils in that it.

Looks like little clams or something look at the texture you see in the lake when it dries up it looks like this see this was the mud the mud dried up and then it turned into a rock we've passed another 12 or 15 signs pointing out fossil beds but we've kind of run out of time and need to keep moving.

Very seriously guys look there's cowboys driving cows down the road all right guys welcome to wyoming  why are you sad we're here in mountain view wyoming and we're going to meet becca's folks and they're going to join us on a little bit of our sightseeing.

You want to see what his bike looks like yeah we're going to follow becca's folks over to fort bridger wyoming all right this is fort bridger state historic park  nice bison hyde i own two of those this is fort bridger and apparently it was a.

Stopover point for the mormon pioneer trail the oregon trail and the california trail so lots of people heading out west would end up swinging through fort bridger yeah crony express state i think it's a bear trap yeah all right so this is the grave of thornburg the dog which apparently was a war hero he like warned of indian.

Attacks stopped a knife fight between soldiers and saved a drowning boy among other things it's kind of sad when you realize that dog has accomplished more in his life than i have immediately this is called the punishment horse if you did something bad you had to sit on the horse all day and hold that big wooden sword.

Oh tommy don't drop it  what'd you get the gift shop a snake and daddy bought himself a handmade knife you know because they always need more knives  we just watched jacob trip over his own feet and it'd just go butt overhead.

Oh usually that's what nathan does oh yeah going on yeah you knocked your own socks off  well listen it is becca's birthday this week and for her birthday she wants to go to bear lake and get a raspberry milkshake.

This is a famous bear lake raspberry shake and it's really good well babe did you enjoy your milkshake i did thank you very much thank you for the detour all right becca would you like a family photo for your birthday i would love a family photo let's do a family photo well we spent a good 10 minutes yelling.

Begging and threatening our children to look at a camera family photos tearing families apart for the last hundred years  good morning we're in cameron wyoming and in a few minutes we're gonna get in the car and head to a fossil quarry all right guys you ready to go fossil honey.

All right guys we're here at american fossil core in kemmer wyoming and uh we're gonna be digging fossils fish fossils turtle fossils stingray fossils there's all sorts of crazy fossils here as we can find and these fish are approximately 52 million years old so they're out of the eocene period this.

One's a stingray poop almost every rock you split will have some kind of fish poop in it and that's why all right guys grab your tools look at this just little fish fossils everywhere oh little fish right there and one of the fellows will cut that you want you want to take that one tomorrow.

There we go there's one missing its tail look at that fish scale right there that is really clear oh here we go here we go you got that real careful laying it down this is pretty awesome isn't it got a whole one in there i just need to pick it out really careful all right guys we've been banging on rocks for.

About two hours and uh we've got a big pile of stuff right there and uh now we gotta cut these things up get them all cleaned up and ready to take home we're supposed to let these sit and dry for a couple weeks and then come in with a little exacto knife you can pick off the rock that's stuck to the fossil.

Should look really nice ah there you go did you have fun tom yeah i did yeah you caught you found some really nice fossils ah thanks you like that jacob yeah i'll put a link to american fossil cory's website down in the video description below all right guys we've driven 4 800 miles.

And we're gonna drive 165 more today so we're gonna head about three hours north to jackson wyoming well jackson's a cute little town but it's covered in tourists i mean even in the rain it's just tons and tons of people on the street but uh it's also kind of an expensive place to stay hotels which would normally cost you 150.

Bucks will cost you three four hundred dollars all right so we finally found a place to stay and a place to eat we got checked in at the lodge here at jackson hole and i got a whole bunch of food for becca's birthday dinner hey guys all the benefits of fine dining without.

The shame of eating with our kids in public fluffy butter with some smoky rosemary and honey and nuts oh that's good a little wild boar sausage and pasta here the mushroom fettuccine and rack of lamb with mint pesto i'm going to use my new knife see it's already coming in handy.

It's good it's really good buddy i think you'll like it it's my favorite but we gotta get some kids to bed i will see you guys in the morning get to bed stupid well here we are at another hotel and getting ready to take off we're gonna head north from jackson and go see.

Yellowstone national park and the grand tetons and we're gonna try to get all the way up to montana if we can we have driven 5 000 miles so far on this trip and we're going to drive another 231 today we're in teton village at jackson hole ski resort we're going to see if we.

Can't ride the gondola  happy birthday mommy we believe birthdays are like chinese new year's they should be celebrated over a whole week yeah i took my sweat david's just making himself comfortable look at the deer see the deer that's pretty.

I like this going up mountains without having to hike  hey guys isn't it fun to think that if one cable snaps we'll all plunge to our deaths do you like wyoming yeah congratulations wyoming you converted jacob favorite place to look for both and nathan yeah.

I like my book all right we didn't drive very far we're here at grand teton national park well we sprung a little leak all right i think that's my culprit right there got a little nail in there look at the air coming out of that oh we can make it to bozeman i'll be able to fix it there.

Here we are yellowstone national park no it's hot water but it's boiling you're giving people access there's two buffalo right out there it's pretty cool you got the steaming hot spring the river and a bison right beyond it there's a buffalo walking down the road went to park and there's a buffalo.

Walking down the sidewalk growling at people but it was covered that looks like concrete hope nathan's gotten naked again you look like you're giving yourself a heck of a wedgie there oh the water doesn't feel great when it gets in your eyes it kind of burns like really salty.

That was cool mud volcanoes were awesome  that is hot oh that's nice so we really wanted to check out graham prismatic springs and this is the one crazy crowded thing we're gonna do today it looks really cool from there it looks like a big rainbow kind of bullseye becca did you like doing that i did that.

Was cool there's a whole bunch of elk out there tommy there's elk just on the other side of the luggage there they are way out there a couple elk welcome to montana that's a lot of beef jerky oh it's probably different flavors of dirt oh.

The beef jerky experience that's neat well we made it to bozeman montana and we are hungry so we're gonna go get some japanese food all right guys we're gonna try hokkaido ramen house chicken karage we got gyoza's all right well it's good to have some food in us all right i got the family checked in.

And the kids to bed now i gotta go fix the tire i got myself a five dollar tire repair kit well it wasn't exactly easy but did it there we go i'm going to bed good morning it's a beautiful sunday we're getting ourselves all ready and trying to get to church on time.

I'm going to put the camera down and i'll see you in a little bit well guys did you have fun at church yeah well we ran into some old friends from virginia and uh they invited us over to their house rebecca are we ready to destroy someone else's house let's do it let's do it well thank you very much thanks for.

Stopping by guys all right guys you have fun with friends yeah so we're actually at 5 300 miles traveled so far and we're headed four hours north from bozeman montana all the way to missoula montana becca you're eating a leftover corn dog are you hungry got spaghetti and meatballs.

And uh roast turkey this is gonna cook up good all right becca let's give that about 40 miles and we should have dinner ready here oh good morning guys i did something kind of crazy i scheduled us to go on a two-day float fishing camping trip.

It starts at six in the morning we are here in missoula montana with blackfoot outfitters and we are about to go on a two-day floating fishing camping adventure you guys ready yeah let me introduce you to our guides here we've got chad and kurt here who have both bitten off more than they can chew hop in the truck.

How's this for a boat ramp have you guys ever seen a boat ramp like this and that's how you launch a boat in montana the truck are they all gone spraying it got the pepper spray for the kids you can't shoot them and they don't listen so you know tom you look serious yeah you've been wanting to learn how to fly fish a lot.

Haven't you yeah yeah hold on tight tom come up one two because you want your line to straighten out behind you before you go forward all right we're gonna get tommy fly fishing here he's been chomping at the bit to do this good perfect man there's mama and.

Company coming down the river how you guys doing you guys catch anything we're like one hour into the trip and becca is already out fishing me she has two trout oh there we go that's the fish beautiful rainbow oh look at that isn't that gorgeous all right my very first montana trout becca's.

Landing one right now anything i can do she can do better mom kind of trout that big she's so out fishing you got four i actually i have zero surprise at all i mean if you were a rainbow trout who would you rather be caught by exactly.

Caught me that's for sure i have to tell you i see why people like fly fishing this is fun whoa in front wasn't pretty but i got the second one becca is tearing him up i'm just watching her land him over here she's she's a natural oh you ready oh there we go.

Oh i've got a white fish on oh new species of fish beautiful fish i'm no becca but that's three fish you know becca's got another one oh i asked her how many fish she had she's getting uncertain holding up both hands oh my first round.

I've wanted to catch a brown trout for years look at that that is just gorgeous oh that's a nice one tom all right tom keep that rod tough high over there just like with catfish there you go there you go that's the biggest white fish of the day tom.

Biggest white fish of the boat all right there he is a little bit a little muskrat or is that me well there we go tommy just landed his first white fish and it was a monster and shortly after that we had a mink swim under the boat so we've seen some bald eagles a marmot meek tommy you hit the chocolate milk.

You've caught two nathan oh guys you got a big one it's hard to fish with an earshot of becca it's it's a little down hardening becca my fishing queen how are you doing i landed on that i missed time to stop for a little bit of lunch you guys sound good guys this is quite the spread this is.

Crazy it's a little hollow though it's a good sandwich like watching a suckling pig nothing like out fishing everyone else combined to give you an appetite huh well you look very fashionable in your grundens why thank you yeah i told you i didn't need to take a shower yesterday real good.

Here tom you use the reel you can use the reel on this one look at that that's my reward for all the good casters i did yeah yeah i think the 5 am wake time has got to jacob he's out passed out on your mom's seat oh yep he's just passed out right in there.

Feeling like a pretty decent fish it reminds me of a grilling a little bit mama's got another one what is that is that trout oh a nice cut throat you're not gonna leave me for a better fisherman are you pull the rod tip up a little bit there you go flip it look at it that's a.

It's a good fish let him run oh well you think it's a snag and then the snag starts going upstream that's a good fish even though i did catch it i was like that's totally awesome oh sucked it right off the surface my first cut throat in over 20 years oh beautiful fish you're getting back in.

There oh on the surface just watch oh come up and nail it that is 100 all by yourself oh there we go oh and he's off it's all blanca grande okay he's going back in he's been out too long.

Oh my gosh look at that tommy well that's number four seven tommy's finally figured it out and he's kicked it into overdrive i'm catching up on you i'm catching up on you i used to do this to my dad thomas said get another one.

Get that right i think chad just saved my life i almost got killed by cut throat amazing thomas you're rocking me man you look down the river and see becca on the other boat at the campsite so i think we're about to have dinner and i.

Landed uh 11. becca how many fish did you catch i landed 14 i had nine on that i did not land jacob are you having fun yeah well i guess i won't be needing snacks out do you have snacks oh look at this look at this kitchen area.

This is legit you know i just realized that camping's a whole lot more fun when you walk into the woods and someone else has set up everything and is doing all the cooking he can come back on you huh that looks really good though hey becca did you want did you want any seasoning spice hot sauce i'm good i'm.

Good you're good of course i always i always get greedy with my tacos they've been chewing your mouth closed you like watching an anaconda eat yeah are you having a fun time babe i'm having a great time this is really fun turns out i like fly fishing ooh that looks good you like angel food cake a lot don't you.

You're wearing most your whipped cream okay well guys it's been a wonderful day but it's late and time for me and beg to get to bed so uh we'll check in with you guys in the morning see you then  good morning do you wish mommy would come on more camping trips.

 oh this is gorgeous this is this is nice you get used to this kind of camping couldn't you it's pretty nice it doesn't look like it's made right in missoula are you guys sword fighting fighting this is really good good breakfast isn't it oh that was delicious oh sweet mama's packing lunches.

If you're washing dishes then you catch more fish to be out fished by mom oh there we go oh beautiful back on the head of you it's the only time today that'll happen oh nathan's got a fish oh that looks good oh that's a nice fish bud fish look at that giant cut throat.

There we go double white fish all right becca has another massive trout over there geez that's a nice cut throat oh nice one oh thomas nice.

Oh i got one there we go check it out it's white water sherpa extraordinaire robert making it look easy robert you got yourself a truck dobb's got a brown drought frown drowned you know bigger is pretty nice we go on.

A fishing trip and we get a white water rafting trip and a camping trip and all that stuff all rolled into one good one becca you got one too sweet tell you what becca looks so pro over there i've just seen becca like hook four or five fish in the last five minutes she's.

On fire i'm doing great i'm excited to brag to my family about what an awesome fly fisher i uh married oh you feel a little better buddy love you becca thank you for the sandwich i'll take it out.

Oh you're in your hoodie fun little break a little bit of food is nice there you go buddy oh give your give a rod tip up  oh guys that was so much fun but all good things must come to an end nathan's out.

Figured becca caught slightly more than half of all the fish caught but yeah we got about 50 fish that's awesome that's so much better than i was expecting guys this was so much fun if you're ever in montana want to do one of these camping fishing trips check out blackfoot river outfitters i'll put a.

Link down in the video description below to their information so definitely check that out this is a really fun trip come on buddy we've done 5 800 miles so far and we have 532 miles to go you guys ready to go on a long drive yeah all right let's do it.

We just saw a sign that said warning forest fire activity ahead this will be interesting this is the firefighter camp we are seeing a ton of firefighters like almost every car we pass we just drove past the national forest campground and they had it closed off with a sign that said no entry fire.

Hazard and all the wooden signs and information boards were wrapped in tin foil welcome to idaho this road we're on this is the same trail that lewis and clark took to discover the path to the pacific ocean well guys welcome to lewiston idaho got ourselves a little hotel.

Well good morning guys our plans are all up in the air we were supposed to drive about six hours to mount hood oregon and go camping with some good friends of ours they called us up early this morning and said they've got colds and are six so our camping trip in oregon is cancelled would you guys like to go to rainforest.

All right guys we've driven 5 800 miles so far on our trip and our new plan is to try to see the pacific coast along washington state which we weren't going to get to do so we're going to make lemons out of this lemonade no we're gonna make lemonade out of lemons yeah there's a cruise ship over there never expected to see a cruise ship in.

Northern idaho all right guys welcome to washington   we just saw a sign for royal city washington and becca's like oh my goodness i have a friend from college who moved to royal city washington so she's really quick texting them to see.

If they're around and uh i think we might make a quick diversion becca are we gonna go see polly here you go see folly are you having fun with your friends yes our children are horrible look that kid was so well behaved before we came over say goodbye.

One two three kids okay we got them all let's go they gave us a tupperware full of fresh blackberries and uh oh and they're so good it's 102 degrees outside it's hot out here in washington the whole side of the hill is nothing but tumbleweed.

We've probably seen 50 to 70 elk including some cute baby one  well good morning everybody we're just sitting here enjoying some breakfast and i'm excited for today because unlike the last two days we don't have to cover a whole lot of ground and we are going to be exploring.

The pacific coast and a part of washington that is absolutely gorgeous look guys there's a tank what a wonderful state where you can just drive down the road and see tanks look that's the pacific ocean hey guys there's a beach you want to go to a beach air we have made it.

All the way from the atlantic to the pacific run singles he'll kill you all do you like this is this cool yeah we've made it from one coast to another from the atlantic to the pacific those there's only clean pants well marginally clean no pants playing in a.

Cold ocean that's my boy they said your shirt's gonna get full it's only 70 degrees out now water is so cold we just saw a sign for a lighthouse and my wife loves lighthouses there you go babe you happy yeah i saw lighthouse we're in the olympic national park and this is a temperate rainforest.

This is quite the stump isn't it here babe hi this is the first time we've ever fit the entire family inside a stump wow there you go world's largest sick of spruce 58 feet around 191 feet tall and about a thousand years old and he gets 12 feet of rain every year.

All right guys welcome to forks washington home of the twilight books what team edward all right we got our hotel booked we're gonna go out and get some food and nathan do you guys like to be honest we got poutine.

That  got some food in us got a hotel let's get some rest stop video taping this well good morning and welcome to our last full day here in the lower 48. we're leaving squim washington and we have driven 6.

480 miles so far well we finally got our bags all packed up and we're heading to the airport mom tommy and nate are gonna head north to alaska on an airplane and me and jake are gonna be taking the long route you guys ready to see grandma and grandpa though yeah me and jacob are.

Gonna hang out and have an awesome time aren't we jake  shall we continue north jacob let's do let's do this north to alaska go north to russia welcome to bellingham international airport in washington and no we're not.

Getting on a plane it's time to give up a rental car we have driven 7 thousand and five miles in this thing but uh this is as far as alamo rental car will let me take it everybody to come hop on it so we took a taxi from the belly hand airport here to the bellingham marine terminal and we're going to be taking that boat all the way to alaska.

Now i wanted to drive to alaska but the canadian border is closed because of covid shouldn't have put that fishing rod in my backpack no i guess it pushes in and look at this this is gonna be our room for the next five days here aboard the kennecott yes.

We got our own bathroom toilet in our own shower here so this is the biggest most luxurious room they have here on the ferry it fits four people we've got the bunk beds over here this folds down into a bed this folds into a bed um most people don't have bathrooms in there and their births and some people don't.

Even have births at all they can camp out on the deck of the ship are you going to crawl under there well i am doing a time lapse of our entire trip from key west to dead horse and i'm going to include this as well so i'm going to get my time lapse set up and we're going to make sure it's filming out the window there we go got.

Our time lapse set up and that thing will just run the whole trip i brought my laptop because i am going to be doing a lot of video editing on this trip this video is about two terabytes and somewhere around fifteen thousand video clips it'll take me probably two weeks if i work about 60.

Hours a week oh looks like we're moving we're shoving off all right we just pulled out of the port of bellingham and we're going past the san juan islands one thing that's kind of funny about this boat is that everything on the boat runs on alaska time no matter where it is so when the cafeteria says it opens.

At six it opens at seven o'clock local time but i'm so sitting on the couch doing some editing and then it got really quiet yup oh those boats will put you to sleep you hungry you want some dinner and ice cream let's go.

All right it's getting dark outside isn't it yeah i'm gonna sleep right up there are you warm in there turn the lights off okay good morning jacob what do you want to eat for breakfast all right buddy here we go hey look at this.

They've got a play area you like that fishing rod don't you look i bet you'll see some sea otters hold on to the rail the boat's moving a little bit this is turning out to be such a relaxing day and i needed this so badly you're a robot yeah i think there might be some killer whales out.

Here oh see there it is right there see the black way way out there oh this is the perfect end to a perfect day sitting on a bed cuddle up watching godzilla movies kind of excited because tomorrow morning we're going to pull into the port of ketchikan alaska um and so we're going to hopefully get to see that in the morning but until.

Then good night i'll see you guys in the morning  you want to get out of your sleeping bag and go to breakfast ah come here welcome to captain jake you ready to go explore catch again.

Welcome to catch can jacob just hopped in a taxi and we're gonna go see catch can we only got about two and a half hours before the boat leaves so uh we're doing the whirlwind tour all right guys we're at totem bite park in catch ken alaska and uh we're gonna see some real totem poles now fun fact about me when i was a teenager i used to.

Carve totem poles and sell them and stuff like that so i nerd out on this stuff i love southeast alaska and british columbian native of carvings now ketchken's nestled in tongass national forest it's the largest rain forest in north america it rains almost 280 days out of the year here it's a clan house.

Oh the cedar smells so good i actually came here when i was a teenager with my dad so it's been like 25 years but uh i remember coming here when i was young man i seriously considered becoming a professional wood carver and then i'm really glad i didn't life turned out pretty darn well hop on in jake.

Got a little pot of pinks right there oh no it's my first salmon i've seen this year well thank you very much thank you we only have about two and a half hours on shore and uh one of us pooped their pants so uh we're gonna head back to the room a little bit.

Well we just left catch ken and jacob's watching some godzilla movies on my phone and i'm getting some editing done next stop juno alaska well i've spent most of the day editing videos and so we're going to take a little break and give you guys a tour of the ship here bottom level is the vehicle storage that's where everyone's.

Rvs and cars are this is the cabin level where we're at here's the dining room the lounge the theater so a lot of the cabins don't have their own restroom so they've got restrooms over here so people who don't have their own can you know use the bathroom so this is the cafeteria they got breakfast lunch and dinner served here.

During specific hours and it's actually not a bad menu jacob loves the dining tables because they all the different animals on them the movie theater they show documentaries in here every few hours throughout the day so this is the lounge area on the front of the ship uh when the weather's good.

It's a nice place to watch the scenery and uh just read a book and if you don't have a three-year-old it can be a nice quiet place they got a bunch of board games and puzzles over there you can borrow as well let's go up the stairs so when the weather's good people go and camp out here on the on the ship.

You'd see all the duct tape marks it's where they tape their tents down but it's windy and raining today so nobody's camped out here right now this is one of the sun decks when the weather's nasty is one of the better places to pitch your tent if you're not going to get a berth see here if you're trying to take the.

Ferry on a budget you know camping out here it'll save you quite a bit of money rather than renting a berth almost every level of the ship has a walkway all around the ship so there's plenty of places to get fresh air and just kind of stroll all right this is the aft observation lounge where you can sit and watch the.

Water stroll by there you go guys this is the front of the ship and this concludes our tour of the kennecon now we're going inside can i get a set of brussels a whale goes by kids are going bonkers well jacob and i got to play with friends we got to see whales i got a lot.

Of editing done it's been a nice low-key day but it's uh jake's bedtime so we will see you guys in the morning well it's 6 30 in the morning and we should be pulling into juno in about 30 minutes ah time to wrestle little boys out of their sleeping bag.

All right guys welcome to juno the capital of alaska it's a small little town and uh you can only reach it by boat or airplane well this is my first time spending any real time in juneau i've been to the airport a few times i got this taxi for an hour and it's a great way to see the city if you're in a.

Hurry there you go state capitol right there we were driving through the downtown and just like catch can a lot of little tourist shops are closed there's only about two and a half thousand people that live in downtown juneau but when a ship comes in it's like 20 000 people come in here so the.

Cruise ships are a big deal to a lot of these small businesses and they haven't been coming into port for the last year and a half we got a whole bunch of sea lions sitting on on that bar out there hey jake you wanna go see the salmon real quick we're here at the salmon hatchery just outside of town and they've got.

A salmon window look at all those chum salmon there's some pinks down in there okay come up here we'll show you where they jump the water's just turning with salmon down there waiting their turn to get up into the ladder hey.

Once the salmon get up in here then the hatchery workers milk the salmon harvest the eggs mix it all up raise the fry and then release them yeah a little black bear sitting in the marsh right off the road do a big jump i got you all right we've started the engines and leaving juno next stop yak attack when.

We get back to editing videos i have about three terabytes of unedited video footage to take care of and if you are prone to seasickness now is the time to take your medicine we'll be out to see in about five hours well the captain just alerted us we have some stormy seas ahead in about five hours we're gonna hit nine to 15 foot waves.

And 30 mile per hour wind it's gonna start rocking and rolling around here uh me and jacob were just hanging out in the playroom while i do some editing and we get a lookout for whales we've got a code whale code whale see right there oh is he right there see right there he's right over there see him.

 little jacob's zonked out and the captain's not wrong about the weather look at that well i'm curious to see what happens the waves are supposed to get worse before they get better the ship's rocking and rolling and we figure we go exploring.

This is a little bit of a new experience for jacob man i'm gonna see if he gets his sea legs or not all right we figured out how to beat the line at the cafeteria go in the ships rolling all right jake how you doing bud let me let me take a look at your lips yeah let's get some juice in here nice potatoes.

I took jacob up to dinner and he didn't need anything and he said he wasn't feeling well so i took him out for some fresh air and now we're just cuddling up and watching some cartoons well things are rocking and rolling pretty good but i kind of need to take a shower and i've never showered in a.

Moving ship before so i figured now is a good time to try it well good morning waking up and we're just turning on the engines to leave yakutat bay we pulled in at like 5 a.m i was thinking about getting up to go visit yakitat but i got jacob up so early yesterday for juno and he was just.

Off all day so i figured we'd just get our sleep got a little rough last night i was in my bunk bed and it would kind of slide like this and then the ship would go and i'd slide in my bed like this it was it was a little crazy we've got to go back out into the gulf of alaska a little bit today so we'll see how it is we're going.

To try to get breakfast before it gets too rocky well me and jake have been on this boat since saturday and it was the perfect amount of time we got a lot of work done and got to spend some time together and have fun but i think we're all ready to go and i'm really ready to see becca tomorrow morning did you like the.

Playroom jacob well let's get your teeth brushed and get you changed and ready for bed okay all right jacob get to bed we're getting up really early to see mama and grandpa okay we're pulling into the port of whittier and i've got to get my bags and this little guy off the boat as quickly as.

Possible my dad's going to meet us at the dock and we got to get loaded up and out of whittier quickly because there's only one way in and out of whittier and it's through about a mile and a half long tunnel you can only go out of the tunnel during certain times and outbound traffic goes at the top of the hour until about 6 20. so we've got.

We've got to make the outbound tunnel otherwise we'll get stuck in whittier for an hour nothing says alaska more than towing your uh airplane on a ferry with a pickup truck good job jacob you're keeping up we made it to whittier thanks for coming picking us up 6 15 is when they close it.

Off i think so i'm not sure we're going to make it let's touch and go we're going to see if we can make the tunnel out of whittier well here we go we're following an airplane through a tunnel when do we get to do that and we're doing it through the second longest tunnel in north america but it's a one-way tunnel.

You share it with both directions of traffic and with railroad tracks so we're driving on the railroad tracks right now   my missed wife i missed you.

Tommy now we're heading off to the airport to go pick up our another rental car so i'm here at alaska 4x4 rental at the airport and i'm getting my car to head up to dead horse so you can't take a normal rental car up on the dalton and you really really shouldn't do that so we get a little jeep we're going to rent.

And take that up you don't want to mess around with this so i'm also got a cb radio and a satellite phone that i rented as well i paid extra to have a full-size spare in addition to the donut you better believe that's worth every penny i'm actually from alaska originally and.

We visit frequently to visit family and film videos so we've actually done six different travel videos here in alaska with lots of fun adventures including survival camping and fishing trips if you guys want to see those videos check out our alaska travel video playlist well good morning we spent yesterday messing around with family and just.

Having a good time relaxing and today we are up and at it because we are packing the car and headed north we have driven seven thousand and ten miles from key west to bellingham washington then we did 1450 miles on the ferry we did another 50 miles to get to anchorage so right now we're at about eight thousand five.

Hundred and ten miles give or take we're gonna head north through palmer and glen allen we're doing about 303 miles today you guys ready yay do you guys know where your kindles are at no well we got a long drive today so we're gonna make a little stop at a reindeer farm here in palmer.

All right they got dasher dogs that seems appropriate oh yes excellent  don't let her you off  okay  um.

Oh he's so soft that one was chasing me you guys have fun yeah used to take me here all the time to get big burgers you like your food yep hey mom the kids are kind of sleepy do you have any snacks oh my goodness.

Hey guys see that pipe in the hill that's the alaska pipeline all right guys here we are at the lodge at black rapids uh just a little south of delta junction well it's a little bit late it's the kids bedtime but we got here just in time to enjoy a little bit of food before to bed come here jake this is pretty.

And here's our room that's the last in front here we can have a moose in our backyard all right time to get the boys ready for bed well good morning we got to sleep late last night and ended up sleeping in but uh getting the kids dressed we're gonna grab some breakfast in the lodge upstairs before heading on up north to.

Fairbanks oh thank you welcome to north pole alaska you want to see santa's workshop you guys see reindeer oh my goodness  what did you get it's a survival knife with me that can transform that's just.

My name on it yeah look at this caribou well we've driven 850 miles so far we're gonna drive just a few more go up to fairbanks and uh we're gonna see what there is to see there and we're gonna visit a friend from college all right we're meeting our friend at.

Pioneer parks here in fairbanks it'll be a fun little place for the kids to play around a little bit wow there we go gosh i'm so excited so in about a week and a half it's going to be me and becca's 20th wedding anniversary and when we were engaged i was working on the dalton highway and heidi was here and so it was like 20.

Years ago to the day we were like hanging out in fairbanks or something all right so this is pioneer park and you can see like these little shops and they got a the old paddle wheel boat that used to be on the tanana trees down there they're already changing i know boys we have to go together yeah they have to get the wiggles out.

Hey jacob you're way up there aren't you we got to go so there's about 700 000 people in alaska half of them live in anchorage and the second biggest city is fairbanks with about 50 000 people all right we're taking our friends out to dinner here we're doing some japanese food.

And   oh then place is awesome i thought you would like it what happened it wasn't two minute bathroom i found something out my mouth and it's my two what you.

Yep oh my goodness i love it too okay we'll see you guys at church tomorrow okay good morning get up and adam guys you ready for breakfast let's do it well today is sunday so we're getting the kids ready for church and the timing's working out just perfect.

Because the only church in between us and the arctic ocean is here in fairbanks well we just finished up church and we're sitting here in the parking lot eating cold leftover japanese food but in here in a little bit we're gonna head north of the dalton highway 255 miles to cold foot and the dalton.

Highway is super remote even by alaskan standards it's a two-lane dirt road that connects fairbanks to prude bay and it's really just a supply road so we've got food and supplies and emergency equipment and uh hopefully we won't have to use it all right guys time to say goodbye to.

Pavement it's dirt road time  we are the best dressed group on the entire dalton highway look at us man we are keeping it classy when it's dry this road is dusty and when it's rainy it's muddy and there's only a little bit of sweet spot in between look at all this mud.

I can't see him okay a little baby black bear just ran off into the woods i just seen my second black bear of this trip see pick it up guys it's the yukon river yeah biggest river in.

Alaska the deck of this bridge is made out of wood becca's gonna go touch the yukon let's go touch the yukon nice that's a bit chilly two three cars properly dirty the kids are properly climbing the walls 20 years ago i used to come down from.

Our man camp where i live down to here and the cook used to put his phone out on the front porch and i'd call becca the dalton is a supply road for pluto bay so about half the traffic is 18 wheelers hauling goods to and from the oil field the dalton highway is also the service road for the great alaska.

Pipeline and so you drive parallel to it the entire way to prudent bay and you can see it quite frequently from the road there's an 18-wheeler with a big bulldozer just parked at the bottom of the hill over there he's waiting for another 18-wheeler with a lighter load to come along and help push him up the.

Hill you having fun we're having a great time it's beautiful it's fun it's fun my friends with us for a little bit it's fun guys check it out we're at the arctic circle 66 degrees in 33 minutes we're up on the top of the earth hey nathan do you know why the arctic circle.

Is important what it is the point on the earth at which at the solstice the sun doesn't set one two three all right the clouds have started to urinate on us we're getting inside we shall we continue north all right guys welcome to cold foot the city with the most extreme temperature.

Swings in the united states one year they went from i believe it was 93 to negative 82 all in the same year if you like being hot and frozen this is the place for you i guess i'll see you later guys i'm gonna go wrestle these guys into bed it's the middle of august and uh it's supposed to get down to 31 degrees.

Tomorrow night winter is coming quick we got a legitimate chance of seeing a little bit of snow up in atagan pass tomorrow come on in bud guys what do you think have you ever stayed in a hotel like this this is an alaska bush motel see look they got shiplap.

And plywood well guys it is late and we gotta get these kids to bed so i'm gonna put the camera we gotta get up really early tomorrow oh last night was interesting uh there's no heat in this building and it's it's pretty cold so that was uh that was interesting.

And there was a mouse under our bed last night good morning becca did you have any mice in your room uh not that i know i only had one and anthony hungry well it's about 200 miles before our next service stop so we're gonna get some gas here and uh let's run about 550 a gallon.

That's actually not as bad as i was expecting i have jacob's milk thermometer says it's 43 degrees outside typical balmy august weather next services are 240 miles away guess how far dead horse is 240 miles away in alaska you'll notice that people never use the route number.

For the highways they always call it by its name so it's not route 1 it's the seward highway it's not route 2 it's the glen highway it's not route 11 it's the dalton and in the case of the parks highway and the dalton highway and some of the others they're named after the engineers who designed the road it's been almost 20 years since the last.

Time i was on the dalton i've noticed two big changes one there's a lot more sections of the road that are paved and the road's in a lot better shape than it was 20 years ago and the other is there's a lot more trees a lot of areas that i remember being just completely tundra have you know birches and willows and stuff in them.

Look there's a moose right there there's a moose over by the alaska pipeline just chilling eating some seaweed in the bottom of the pond well he pulled over on the side of the road for a brief explosive diarrhea break and uh we found blueberries but they're all over here just covered.

In blueberries so this stuff i'm standing on is tundra it's also called musk egg and it's swampy nasty stuff to walk in there's all this water and mud and then these rolling knobs that you turn your heel on anybody who goes hiking across the tundra better have good ankles there's the blueberries.

For you tommy's outside oh i'm sorry did we forget somebody hop in the car all bud guys we're beginning to climb into atigan's pass to cross the brooks range from here on we're gonna see very little trees we got a better chance of seeing.

Caribou we could even see muskox and eventually maybe even a polar bear we've got snow  oh my goodness guys this is a real store still sir oh i'm gonna get wet it's too cold to get wet all right back into the car back in the car wow that's slick.

That you guys have played on a beach swam in a river and been snowed on all in the same trip just saw an suv that rolled off the road into the tundra instead of recovering it someone just wrote for sale on it with their phone number that's such an alaskan thing to do.

Time all right guys welcome to dead horse yay we're at what 9 500 miles give or take hey guys check out these oil wells these a little different than the ones we saw in oklahoma aren't they see over there the parking spots with the electrical plugs they have the.

Electrical plug so you can plug your car in in the winter time and it won't freeze solid you have your oil pan heater going while you're inside  see these are plugged so you can plug your car in oh there's a herd of caribou right there across the river that's.

Awesome a dead horse ain't a big place so the one thing we're gonna do is get a souvenir shirt at the general store this says dead horse on it now we made it to dead horse alaska which is the furthest north the public can go but it's not the furthest north you can drive there's actually a good oh 15 20 more miles to get to the arctic.

Ocean but you have to go through the secure oil fields of fruit bay to do that and we are going to do that but first we're going to get check in to our hotel here yes don't let the door slam all right let's check this out all right.

Yeah this'll work but they got heat and no exposed plywood check it out we even have five millimeter plastic blackout curtains sun doesn't set until 11 pm tonight so it's nice to have those okay we haven't been in town very long and we already get the vibe that there's a serious bear problem because all the doors have special bear proof handles.

And they told us not to leave any food in their cars because the bears will vandalize their cars so i am going to go and start hauling stuff out of the car so kind of fun fact when we checked in we didn't get any room keys they don't lock any of the doors or issue any room keys it's all kind of honor system up.

Here i bought it how far is it to the arctic ocean uh about 10 10 12 miles guys we're here we have been driving for a month and a half and we are finally here it's way shorter than i thought it would be dog you ready to touch the arctic ocean.

Oh that is cold that's nippy people do you want to touch it jacob was it cold you touching me i did it was this is crazy oh look at this that is so cool more of those creepy little bug things.

Hey hey becca it ain't fancy it ain't fancy you found shells i love it these are arctic ocean shells mama are you glad you came i'm very glad i came this is uh it's been crazy a month and a half hasn't it pretty crazy once and a half that's an adversary all right.

That spit right there is the farthest north we can go we're gonna go there now fruto bay is not the furthest north you can go in america you can actually go up to barrow and that will be the furthest north but you can't drive to barrow so this is the furthest north you can get by driving yay and you did it and it's.

The longest road trip in the united states unless you're gonna go do little circles or zigzags if you're gonna go in a straight line longest road trip in the u.s is key west to prudo bay and we did it yay now we gotta head back oh.

Now we didn't go in a perfectly straight line but according to my gps and odometer we did slightly over 9500 miles since july 7th and today is august 16th so we did about 9 thousand miles in a month and a half we can't start school on monday yeah kids start school on monday we gotta.

Really make tracks and to do that we've gotta drive 987 miles back to acreage and then catch a flight and then we'll fly 10 hours to virginia we will have driven uh about 10 500 miles on this road trip there you go tom let me get your picture you are now at the furthest north you can drive.

You guys have traveled almost 10 000 miles is that pretty cool yeah now we're sword fighting hey jacob should we go back to virginia yeah i'll race you there go you guys have fun though yeah chicken yeah mom you like the food it's very good.

Has this been a pretty crazy adventure yeah all right guys i'm gonna fish from the sag river it's a beautiful beautiful arctic grayling i would have been sad if i hadn't caught at least one arctic railing on this trip can't tell you how it makes my heart.

Feel to just be in a beautiful place like this and catching these fish but it's uh time to go to bed that right there is what a grizzly bear print looks like there's his claws way out there in front there's his front paw there's his back paw oh it's pushing midnight it's almost.

Dark outside so i better get going to bed i'll see you guys in the morning we got a lot of driving to do all right guys we're leaving dead horse and heading 1 000 miles south to anchorage   all right guys we did it we drove from.

Prudow bay to anchorage in one day 18 hours in the car we got to get some kids to bed we'll talk about this in the morning well there you go that's it we've completed the longest road trip in the united states 10 410 miles but i hope you guys enjoyed this video we got lots of travel videos.

In our travel video playlist and definitely check it out i'll put links down in the video description below and a lot of the fun activities we did i'll have links to those as well in the video description i'll tell you what though i'm exhausted and i desperately need a shave and a haircut so i'm gonna put this up and i will see you guys next.

Saturday morning so don't forget to click subscribe if you like this video don't forget to check out the outdoor boys youtube channel where we have hundreds of videos just like this and don't forget to click subscribe so you can see other great videos every saturday morning and hit that bell button you'll get notifications thanks.

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