Into the woods and beyond

So yesterday, yes yesterday, because 2am just wasn't a good time to try to recap the longest day I have had in a long time, was amazing! We left Idaho Falls later than we wanted and headed out to the Grand Tetons. We arrived at the visitor center to figure out what to do with limited time and disability friendly. We signed the girls up to get their junior ranger badges and bought Papa a lifetime membership to all National Parks for $10...sweet! The girls participated in a Junior Ranger activity, learning about all the wild animals in the park and checking out their pelts, which was so cool and creepy. Mila answered the first question they asked. "What are the two types of bears we have here" Mila raised her hand high and said " Grizz-a-ly bears and black bears". She was very proud of herself. We headed out with maps in hand into the wild :).  Immediately after entering the park we saw a commotion on the side of the road. It was a mama moose and her baby calf. That was an amazing start to our adventure. We went to Jenny Lake and Jeremy, Mila, Kaiya and I headed out for a short hike while Papa caught up on some reading. We found a cute little chipmunk and a gorgeous spot on the lake for us to splash around. We drove through Grand Tetons and saw gorgeous scenery. It was so lovely! Mila passed out in the back seat just after finishing her junior ranger packet, so Kaiya had to be sworn in for the both of them. So Cute! After that we were Yellowstone bound. We headed into yellowstone and quickly came upon a herd of over 20 Elk basking in the sun in a field. It was a great find. We got out and Kaiya got scared because the Elk were flicking their ears at her. We continued on our drive headed for the Old Faithful Geyser. Papa felt everything was taking too long, but we convinced him that Jeremy could drive late into the night and that spending more time in the park would be worth it. We finally made it to the Geyser with 10 minutes until the estimated eruption time, nice work, right? Otherwise we would have waited about 72 more minutes until the next one. The girls loved watching the water come out of the earth like that, it was so impressive. We thought we should make our way out of the park so we started our drive all the while searching for animals as we were told late afternoon was the best time. We came across another group of people on the side of the road with cameras and looked up on the hill to see and enormous grizzly bear making his way down. We watched and took pictures in awe, but also wanted to get out of there before he came much closer! A little further down the road we saw a Bison grazing 5 feet from the roadway. We got a great view of that enormous fellow! As we drove further I looked down in this lovely valley to see a huge figure walking along. This was an even larger grizzly bear with cubs! AMAZING! More bison and awesome birds and then out of the park and into the night. We had over 300 miles to drive to get to our hotel destination in Gillette, Wyoming. Jeremy was the driver and he was ready for the challenge. There was an amazing lightening storm for several hours which was gorgeous to watch from the car. Then into the mountains where Jeremy had to drive 20 miles per hour due to hundreds of deer on the side of the roadway. Someone wasn't so careful and we saw ambulances headed to them, but even they could not drive fast. It was a stressful drive, but we made it to Gillette at 1:30am. We thought we would take it easy this morning and rest a bit. The girls and I headed to the water park at our hotel and went on a few water slides and we are now gearing up to go to Mt. Rushmore and the Badlands. Everyone is having the best time and the irritation is minimal to date, we continue to feel blessed that we have the opportunity to take this trip and will take the good with the bad! Keep those happy thoughts coming our way. Until later...xoxo

Day One...rolling, rolling, rolling...

Here we are, day one complete. We made it to Idaho Falls with only a few rough patches. I am exhausted, but committed to this blog, so here I write. A road trip with kids does sound really crazy,  but what I realized today is that it creates this opportunity to connect and interact that my usual world seems to exclude. When Kaiya asks me to play a game at home there always seems to be a million reasons why I don't have the time, but on a 10 hour car ride, I totally do! I am so looking forward to making stronger and more connected relationships with my family over the next 3 and 1/2 weeks.

As for our ride today, it was LONG. We left Milwaukie at 7:00am, which was an hour behind schedule. We almost ran out of gas due to a Siri error, that near nightmare led us to this cute funky town in Oregon, Huntington. The gas station had only one working pump and it looked like it had been there since 1950. We saw a very sweet little lake on our way trying to coast downhill to the gas station, so jeremy thought we should get out and stretch our legs. As we were investigating what we thought were ducks in the bushes we stirred a mosquito compound. They took off at us with a vengence. It was like out of a cartoon, they seriously chased us back to the car. We made it to Idaho Falls at 8pm and quickly hopped in the pool for some volleyball and water wrestling! Yahoo!

We had a family meeting at dinner tonight, we all shared our thoughts about the day and what we thought was awesome and what could be better. We shared what we loved the most and overall the consensus was spending time with family. What could be better than that.

What I realized today is that we will all have our moments on this trip, or in life and that we all roll at a different pace. My dad was really tired at the end of this day, but happy. The girls were exhausted, but peaceful and Jeremy and I didn't have to clean the house or deal with work stuff after everyone was in bed. Maybe life is good on the road, just maybe.

xoxo

Not quite on the road

As most of you know we are embarking on an amazing adventure this summer. We will be traveling across this AWE-some country of ours to see sites, visit friends and family and to strengthen our bond as a family and challenge our patience as individuals. Are we crazy, you ask? Why yes, we are, but we are looking forward to the wonder and madness of it all. Who had this idea? Well Papa Art has fond memories of traveling across country with his boys when they were young. He wanted to make some new memories and well, let's be honest, at 91 we are so fortunate that he is healthy enough to make it happen. If not now, maybe never, so we say now it is!

When do we leave? Next Friday morning, June 28th at the crack of dawn we will cruise out in our rented minivan to destinations known and unknown, but our first stop will be Idaho Falls, where we will rest up, splash in the pool and head out in the morning to see the Grand Teton's and Yellowstone National Park. I am hoping the girls earn their Junior Ranger badges there, I remember doing that at Mt. Lassen when I was little, fun times!!

I think I will save the rest of the blogging to keep you posted on the travels and all the sites, stories, sisterly quarrels, threats of turning the car around and well all the stuff that I could not even imagine will happen on our three and a half week adventure...are you ready? I honestly can't wait, but for now I will get back to work. I have a lot of planning at work and a big conference next week to get through first. It is becoming increasingly difficult to concentrate. Grrr.

Love you all and I am counting on your blessings to get us to the other side and back...xoxo