Our Trip: Phase One: Driving

We drove the entire length of a freeway to get to visit Jamie‘s dad. Removing the need for gas, food, and sleep, we could have made our trip nearly stoplight free. I can only remember two stoplights that we had to go through to get on the freeway, but once we were off, no stop lights. Turns are another thing we didn’t need much of. I think we only needed to turn four or five times. But the miles, there were lots and lots of those, more than 2,000 of them. It took us four days to drive the distance. We could have just thrown the kids in the van and driven straight through, but the lure of friends all along the way made it really convenient and fun to stop and rest for a few hours. The kids did really well, including Seth. I was very surprised and relieved with how well they did.


Rest Stops are awesome! Okay, well I've been in some good ones, and I've been in some bad ones, but I sure an grateful that they are there when you are out in the middle of nowhere and your children really need to relieve themselves. The ones with playgrounds are especially nice, but not very common.

Nothing like a good long car ride to get your kids to sleep!
I'm not sure if I could sleep like this, but it works for Bailey.


Of course it was rare that all four were asleep at exactly the same time, I'm not so lucky.

Big Rock Candy Mountain! The kids wanted to know if it was really made of candy. Wouldn't it be great if it were? You could bribe the kids to be good until you got to the mountain, the reward, they could eat the mountain. Sounds better than a promise of a new toy after lunch.

Look at those formations! Rolling hills are so boring compared to that.

Snow, in June. Elevation, about 10,000 feet above sea level. The kids were really excited to see snow.

Rivers and their barges. I like big rivers. I think my fascination comes from growing up in a desert.

More trip updates to come...