Blondins' Assignment America
Chronicle of a family's nine-month adventure around the U.S. (1996-1997)

Update: August 22, 2010

Note: This site was constructed in 1996-97. To provide context, at the time we took this journey, Google did not exist. We don't claim to be the first travel bloggers but we were among them. We have kept the site as it was originally constructed for sentimental and historical reasons.

Cities:

National Parks:

States:

Other Links:

 

Past Announcements
ParentSoup.com hired us as educational/travel consultants.
Here is a link to the article we wrote for ParentSoup to introduce ourselves and the questions we fielded.  
Our goal is to write a book detailing our adventure. Contact Betsy Blondin or Mark Blondin at baa@blondins.com

 

Images: Acadia NP, New York City, Beach on Florida's Atlantic Coast

For nine spectacular months our family toured the United States on an educational adventure. Border to border, coast to coast, we traveled over 25,000 miles throughout our great country. A unique feature was that our children attended school via the Internet during the course of our journey.  As part of our relationship with Northwest Academy we agreed to develop a website. This site details our adventure and provides links to explore and learn more about our country. Access any location by using the drop-down menus to the left. Click on "Take me There" to begin browsing.  Enjoy the site!

Mark Blondin and Betsy Blondin

  • Sign our guestbook or view others' comments
  • Submit your travel stories
  • Check our special places
  • Meet the Family
  • Buddy, our fearless canine, traveled with us
  • Please read our Thank You Page
  • Petoskey News Review's original story about our adventure
  • Check our site awards
  • Site of the month: History Channel International
  • We thank Northwest Academy for its vision.

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Great Sites
Discovery Channel
National Public Radio
Smithsonian Institute
National Geographic
American Astronautical Society
NASA

History Channel
The Science Why Files
Bill Nye Science Guy
Health On the Net Foundation
Aquariums
Art Museum Network
Natural History Museums
Air and Space Museums
Great Women

Media Coverage:
Last April, The San Diego Union-Tribune wrote an article about our adventure. Then The Jerusalem Post featured our story in an article about family travel and technology. An article we wrote for "Roads to Adventure" magazine is on the newsstand now.Yahoo! picked us as a 'Cool Site' and the hits to our site soared. Our local cable news station did a story about the project and there we were on CNN at the top of the hour.  Copley News Service included an article about our Internet school in their "Back to School" insert. We are grateful that people continue to find our adventure interesting. Our story is about key issues of the next millennium. Family, Technology, and Education.
Educational Conference:
Last Fall we were featured speakers at the U.S. Department of Education sponsored conference,  "Families, Technology, and Education" These are links to our paper and presentation.

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Travel
Fodor's
Excite Travel
Yahoo! Travel

Outward Bound

Lonely Planet
World Wide Event Calendar
Hostels
Weather Channel
MapQuest
World National Parks
U.S. National Parks Home Page
USA CityLink
Search Engines

[ Yahoo! ] options

AltaVista
WebCrawler
Infoseek
HotBot
Lycos
Yahooligans

Educational Resources
United States Department of Education
Educational Resources Information Center
U.S. Charter Schools
21st Century Teachers Network
College Net
College Board
College Edge
Princeton Review
Testprep
Educational Testing Services
College and Universities Home Pages

Edsitement

Research
The Library of Congress
Library of Congress research on countries
Statistical Abstract of the United States
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Roget's Thesaurus
Webster's Dictionary
Grammar and Style Notes
Find Your Congressman
US Census Bureau Information
            Bigfoot (find a friend)
Consumer Information Center
FedWorld
Federal Information Center

News and Media
   Washington Post
USA Today
New York Times
Los Angeles Times
The Nando Times latest news
Pathfinder
U.S. News
Internet World
Traveler Magazine
Wander Lust
Conde`Nast Traveler
Career and Related
Online Career Center
Career Path
HeadHunter
US News Find Your Career
Best Jobs USA
Federal Employment
Cost of Living Calculator (compares cities)
MoveQuest


Thank you for visiting Assignment America! Betsy Blondin, Mark Blondin and the entire Blondin Family