Overview of this year's vacation:

Dates - Saturday, August 10, 2013 - Saturday, August 24, 2013

Part 1 of the vacation is just me, Drew, and Josh.  Part 2 will start next Saturday and will be when we pick up Melissa, Megan, and my brother Jereme.

Total miles we expect to drive:
Part 1 - 1300 miles
Part 2 - 1800 miles
Total  - 3100 miles

New states visited: 6
Missouri
Iowa
Nebraska
South Dakota
North Dakota
Minnesota

Baseball games:
3 Major League
7 Minor League and Independent League

River City Rascals - Independent, Frontier League
Burlington Bees - A-, Midwest League
Iowa Cubs - AAA, Pacific Coast League
Sioux City Explorers - Independent, American Association of Independent Professional Baseball
Fargo Redhawks - Independent, American Association of Independent Professional Baseball
St. Paul Saints - Independent, American Association of Independent Professional Baseball
Omaha Storm Chasers - AAA, Pacific Coast League
Minnesota Twins - Major League
Kansas City Royals - Major League
St. Louis Cardinals - Major League

Two of those games will be in the same day...the Fargo Redhawks and the St. Paul Saints.

Besides the baseball games we will be seeing some tourist destinations.  First up will be the Union Pacific Railroad Museum in Council Bluffs, IA.  Might also have time to see some Lewis and Clark spots in Council Bluffs, although I'm unsure of exactly what is there...it might be just a statue. In Fargo, ND we will be seeing the Roger Maris display in their mall.  In Minneapolis we want to check out the Mall of America, especially the seat high up on the wall where Harmon Killebrew hit his monstrous homerun when the baseball field was at that location.  We also want to check out Fort Snelling, restored to its appearance of the 1820s-1830s. The fort was played a significant role during the US-Dakota war of 1862 and is the final resting place for more than 180,000 men and women who served in our armed forces.  Since we'll kinda be in the neighborhood we will make a quick stop in Sturgis and Deadwood South Dakota followed by a trip to Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial.  On our way back to St. Louis we plan on stopping by Lexington Missouri at the battle site of 2 Civil War battles.  Once back in St. Louis we will make sure that we go check out the Gateway Arch...it happens to be really close to the new Busch Stadium, so we plan on checking it out the same day as the Cardinals game. As a matter of fact, our parking that we paid for is smack dab between the 2 and closest parking to where  our seats are.  Score!

Food!  We don't have too much planned out in the way of food besides a couple famous BBQ places in Kansas City and St. Louis...Oklahoma Joe's and Pappy's respectively.  No Burgess family road trip would be complete without a couple stops at Cracker Barrel along the way.