How to Display Your Travel Souvenir Patches

If you're anything like me you probably like to collect certain things from your travels.  There's always a wide variety of items to buy to remember special places you've been.  Some popular items are tee shirts, sweatshirts, stuffed animals, flags, stickers, patches, books, coffee mugs, key chains, and magnets.  You get the drift.   My favorites are tee shirts, stickers, books and patches -  especially patches.  I have been collecting patches on and off for years and I have quite a few of them.  I thought I'd show you what I like to do with my patches.

My jean jacket has a good variety of them and includes patches from when I did a lot of snow skiing when I was younger.  I also have a couple of geocaching patches on there...

When my jean jacket got full I started covering another jacket that I love to wear.  This jacket also has all of my event patches from when I was a Girl Scout.  I still have a little room on this jacket to squeeze a few more patches .... 

I always get a lot of compliments from people when I'm wearing my jackets.  They love to see all the awesome places I've visited and the jackets are quite the conversation starter.  Below is my camping quilt....

Back in the late 1970's I hand stitched our family crest onto the back of my dad's jean jacket and he wore it for many years.  When he passed away 2 years ago my mom gave it to me as a keepsake.  He also competed a few times in the annual Des Plaines (Illinois) River canoe race and had a patch from the race.  So I took his patch and the family crest and sewed them onto the center of a camping quilt that I made last year....

Along the outside rows of the quilt I sewed all my girl scout merit badges and all my Awana badges.  It was a great way to display all these patches and I take the quilt with me on all my camping trips....

When I returned from my Yellowstone Trip I had 10 new patches to display...

I needed a new shower bag for my trips so I decided to make myself one.  I used an old pair of jeans and lined the bag with red and black buffalo plaid fabric to match the backing on my camping quilt.  Then I attached all the patches from my recent trip...

I think it turned out cute and it was the perfect way to display my patches.

What do you like to buy as a souvenir from your adventures?  What do you do with your patches?

Yellowstone Trip ReCap

I had such a wonderful trip out to Yellowstone National Park.  I left from western Kentucky and over the course of 14 days I travelled to Yellowstone and back, stopping at multiple points of interest along the way.  Here's some of my stats:

Total mileage: just under 4000

Money spent on gas:  $ 505.00

Total spent on campsites:  $ 458.36

Vehicle:  2019 Dodge Durango with a JEGS roof top cargo carrier.  

Stayed at:  All campgrounds where I car and tent camped

Geocaches found: 43

States visited:  9.....  Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska and Idaho.  Of these, 4 were new states I've never been to before.  I'm slowly filling in my map!

10 new patches:

USA map on my Coleman cooler...

Favorite stops along the way:  The Badlands...

Devils Tower....

The Tetons...   

Register Cliff...

The Lewis and Clark Discovery Center...

Favorite campsites:  Rushmore Shadows in South Dakota, near Mt. Rushmore...

7th Ranch in Montana, near the Little Bighorn....

Riverside in Nebraska, near Scotts Bluff.....

Favorite drives:  Needles Highway

Beartooth Highway

Favorite hikes - The Notch in the Badlands...

Uncle Toms Trail in Yellowstone...

Favorite equipment to have along...

Sassy Lady Siren.  I really like this device.  I keep it attached to my purse or my backpack.  It packs one hell of a screech when set off.

Key clip:  I don't know the technical term for this key clip but I've had it for years.  I bought it at Home Depot.  I don't like worrying where my keys are and I have a fear of setting them down and not being able to find them.  I clip them on my belt hook as soon as I get dressed in the morning, before I even get out of my tent.  It's the last thing I unclip at night before I go to bed and I hook then it next to my bed.  My keys are always within reach...

SetPower Refrigerator/Freezer:  I love this thing - it's awesome!!   My food stayed frozen as needed and it's so nice to have ice cold drinks at my fingertips.

Hope's Perfect Glass window cleaner.   This stuff works great for cleaning your car windows, inside and out.  I keep a bottle of it and a roll of paper towels in my trunk.  I can't tell you how often this has come in very handy.

Car organizer:  I keep one on my front seat and one in the back of the car.  SO handy for holding a lot of items and they help keep me super organized.

My favorite new item purchased on the trip was a Cabela's Canvas Rocking Chair...

I took a lot of fantastic photos on my trip, but I think my absolute favorite was this one of a stream in Yellowstone...

If you missed any of my trip posts, you can go back and start at Day 1 here.

Thanks for reading about my journey.  I enjoyed sharing it with you.  Please like my Snug Harbor Bay Facebook Page for any updates and future trip posts.  I think The Grand Canyon is calling my name.....

Yellowstone Day 13

 Sunday Sept. 19

I slept in a little bit later today and didn’t get out and on the road until about 8:30.   I had plans to stop outside Nebraska City and see the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Trail and Visitor Center and according to their website they didn’t open up until noon on Sundays so I was stalling for time.   I stopped, got gas and drove an hour and a half east to get there.  I had looked and there were two geocaches hidden nearby the museum so I stopped and grabbed the geocaches first.  One geocache was just located just outside the Lewis and Clark Center, near a picnic table...

When I arrived at the museum I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they had opened at 9 o’clock.  I hurried inside and with my senior discount it was only six dollars.  Oh my goodness - it was six very well spent dollars!  The museum itself is laid out over three floors. 

Outside there’s an Indian Earth Lodge/Hut that you can go in.  I was surprised at the size of it - 48 ft. diameter and they were built to house up to 30 people....

The Center also has several hiking trails on the property.   One of the trails lead down to the Missouri River, the very river that Lewis and Clark and their Corp of Discovery travelled on over 200 years ago.  

I was there for over two hours and I could’ve easily spent several more because there was so much to see and do.  It was honestly one of the best museums I’ve ever been in and by far the best presentation on Lewis and Clark history that I’ve ever seen.

After that I jumped in the car and drove 2 1/2 hours to my KOA campsite for the night     Before I pulled into the KOA I stopped at the gas station and filled up my tank for the next morning and ran into Popeyes to get myself some chicken strips for dinner.  Then I headed over to the KOA which coincidentally was also the same campground I stayed at for my very first night on this trip.   This is a nice campground with easy expressway on and off and the bathrooms are clean.  My tent site was actually next to the site I had the last time so I parked the car, ate my chicken strips and then went and took a shower.      

I still had about three hours until dark so I just sat and read a book for a while, cleaned out my car, and reflected on the amazing trip I had just taken.  I couldn’t believe all the places I had been and the unbelievable number of things I had done in two weeks.  What an experience!  Tomorrow I’ve got about 6 ½ hours left to drive and then I’m home.  Is it too early to start planning my next trip??

For those of you who followed along on 13 separate posts about my Yellowstone trip - THANK YOU!   I've gotten so many wonderful comments and notes from people who enjoyed the posts and photos.  I'll be back in a few days with a trip "wrap up" that will include mileage driven, money spent on gas, favorite stops along the way and some helpful tips.  I hope you've seen something here that you'd like to see yourself.  And if I've inspired you to get out your tent and do some travelling, well, that's even better.  Safe travels!!