Day 13

Home Sweet Home! 

Loonngg drive to finish today.

Iowa is superior to Nebraska.

I 80 around the bottom of Chicago sucks.

Kitties are happy we’re home❤️

Day 12

Nebraska sucks. We finished Colorado …and honestly once you pass Denver the mountains disappear quickly on the horizon and there’s really nothing left.   Then on to Nebraska. It’s a flat, depressing nothing of a state. Every stop we made was filthy and gross. There wasn’t one thing that made us say…gee we should come back to see that. One exception was the hotel we stayed in on the border with Iowa. It was the cleanest, friendliest Holiday Inn Express of the trip. I guess if a visitor only drove 94 through Michigan they might say the same thing about us…but we still have no desire to spend anymore time in Nebraska. All 5 of us want to click our heels together and just magically be home. Oh well tomorrow we will be. Planning to get up early and get on the road. There aren’t any pics from today except one from the car. Jack has been a trooper taking the way back the entire time because anyone else who’s tried it gets carsick. One more day…

Day 11

We planned our route to Rocky Mountain National Park to make it in our 10-12 window to enter. It was a crazy back route with a large portion on a dirt road…we made it with 15 minutes to spare. The oohs and ahhhs started immediately. We pulled off at every chance to explore. We all agreed we loved this area. It was much cooler today and I wore jeans…quite the turn around from the hot hike yesterday.  Again we took tons of pictures and I’ll share just a few. I did well until we got up to 12,000+ feet driving curvy roads with no guardrail…I had a major panic attack😳 The downside to a car full of boys is zero sympathy and actually attempting to make it worse…Does that look like the road is washing out to the side there? Boy if we hit that edge we’d roll for looong time. Brats! We got down to a lower level and I could breathe again😂 We got to see a lot of wild life including a momma moose and her baby. The grass was so tall we couldn’t catch the baby in a photo. The twins are quite the photographers and deserve the credit. We all agreed this was a fabulous replacement for missing out on Yellowstone.  Now we just have a couple days of straight driving to home. 

Day 10

Arches National Park- Last night we stayed at an almost brand new Holiday Inn Express…so very nice. We were able to sleep in and take long showers. I booked our trip in January and found out at the beginning of May Arches required you to book an entrance time into the park. The earliest I could get was 12:00. It worked out just fine to have a slower start to the day. The back up to get in the park at noon took 50 minutes😳 I was concerned we wouldn’t make it into the parking lot to be able to make the hike to the arch…you can’t park on the road you have to be in a spot in the lot. We were able to find a spot no problem and had our picnic lunch before we hiked. It was 94 degrees so there was a bit of getting set up…sunscreen, a backpack full of water, and a backpack full of Gatorade. The hike up to the arch was tough for me, especially in the heat. I needed lots of breaks. I realized how very blessed I am with the boys and Brad. At every step/ledge I always had a hand/elbow/shoulder offered to me to help. The last stretch is on a wide open ledge…I don’t know how far down exactly because I never looked. Brad and a kid always had ahold of me. When we reached the arch the boys wanted to go right up to it…on a precarious edge. They all talked me into it holding on to me. Geez I sound like a weenie but it was nerve wracking. We got some great pictures and had a comfortable, stable spot to sit and relax, catching our breath and drinking before heading back down. The trip down was very easy once we finished the ledge back. We were fried so we went into Moab to grab dinner at a cool bar. We had a 3 1/2 hour drive after to Eagle, Colorado for the night. This is the first leg of our reroute after the Yellowstone cancellation. We wanted to do Rocky Mountain National Park but it’s also a timed entrance park and it was booked. At 5pm today they opened up another batch of entrance spots and we scored a 10:00 time slot! Looking forward to our last adventurous day…then the long drive home.

Day 9

Wow what an amazing day! We got on the road early to get to Zion in time for our horseback ride. What an awesome experience! I found it right on the Zion website. I highly recommend it if you go. It was the boys’ first time riding a horse. My horse’s name was Sandy so I had to tease my sister😂 We finished the ride and did the Emerald Pools hike. We didn’t want to leave Zion and all agreed at some point in our lives we’ll come back to stay a few days. We headed to Bryce Canyon. We were tired and worn by the time we got there but pulled it together for one of the hikes. Luke picked it and he won the day😁 We did a switchback hike down to the bottom of the canyon…and then had to come back up😳 I made it the last quarter because Brad was pushing me from behind😂 So many amazing pics but most are on our good camera…here are a few good ones. Tucked in now at Green River and tackling Arches tomorrow . It’ll be in the 90s but determined to make it to the arch. We’ll be carrying multiple backpacks of water and Gatorade !

Day 8

Bye Bye California! Brad wanted to see Laguna Beach…one of his favorites before we left. Pit stop to run around and stretch legs. I’d love to spend more time here…some day. Our drive to St. George, Utah was interrupted here and there with heavy downpours with stiff winds…in the desert, and hitting Vegas at rush hour. We made one cheesy stop the boys decided on…a hotel had the actual Bonnie and Clyde car with bullet holes. It was interesting. We made it to St. George and had an awesome dinner next to the hotel. Now for a good nights sleep to be ready for tomorrow!

Day 7

Beach Day! ….our body count on this trip was rising and I worried nobody would ever travel with us again…Brad took us to Torrey Pines State Park. We did a long hike that was awesome. We saw tide pools with crabs…and the boys all put their feet in the Pacific Ocean for the first time…well technically Jacks second…he was 6 months old the first time. We hiked back to the main beach, changed into swimsuits, and turned to play in the waves….only to see the lifeguard running up to everyone getting them to leave the water. That’s when we noticed all the emergency vehicles and the coast guard helicopter come in. There was a missing young man and they pulled all the lifeguards to help. We watched the search for about an hour and decided to leave…you don’t really want to swim and play where someone may have just lost their life. We moved on to seal beach…always a favorite. This time however there were no seals…bummer. Next we tried Mission Point and it was still a zoo. It wouldn’t have been fun. We had a group meeting, checked Twitter for updates, and decided that we should go back to Torrey Pines. The coast guard gave the all clear that the missing person was unconfirmed. Good to know that everyone was safe.  This was our best decision to go back. The kids had a blast playing with Brad in the surf! Got back to Pats in time to catch the last sunset😞 Tomorrow morning we start our adventures on the trip home.