Last pics

The camper is washed. Our stickers are on. Ready to put the camper away and move on. 

East bound

West bound

End of the Road!

This blog has been a ton of fun and my first real blogging success! Thanks to everyone for reading and following along on our adventure. I am glad to have the record of the trip and knowing people were reading kept me on task!

We left Lance & Peggy's house around 11 this morning and despite their encouragement to explore the John Day Fossil beds, we headed straight home. The fossils are something I want to see but the closer we got to home, the more I wanted to be there and that would have turned a 4.5 hour day into an 8 hour one and now I know how much harder that is!

We finished listening to Catching Fire and had a mellow drive. We stopped for BurgerVille in The Dalles to get a taste of home (and also we were out of food!). Unfortunately this was one of the weekends that I-84 was being resurfaced and closed on the westbound side right after our exit so traffic was a little backed up. 

As soon as we got home and had the essentials unpacked 2 things happened: the kids were desperate to visit with friends and I realized I had not had a shower since Utah. The kids headed over to a friend's house and were promptly invited over for dinner and I had a very nice, LONG shower! 

The rest of today will be mellow - I've sorted some mail and Tim has started some laundry but the real unpacking of the car and cleaning and airing of the camper will happen tomorrow. For now I'm just going to relax and enjoy being home! And maybe take Tim's car to the grocery store for some milk. My car can have the night off. She's earned it!

The final photo stream:

Getting close!

The gorge is lovely!

We're back!!!

Glad to be home!

If maybe a little travel weary!

Yay!

Trip meter A was our daily mile count, B was set at 0 before we pulled away on the morning of July 16th. 5,476 miles exactly!!!

Now I feel like I can say how well the whole thing went without jinxing it! No car trouble, no camper trouble, no foul play, no big injuries, not much of anything to complain about! 

It was a wonderful trip!

And so good to be home!!

Back in Oregon!

The morning dawned crisp and bright at Castle Rocks and we packed up our camper for the last time. The last 2 days of our trip are Tim Days. We were heading through Boise to stop and visit with one of Tim's oldest friends, he'a known Lyn since they became best friends in 4th grade. Then we landed in LaGrande, OR to stay with another of Tim's childhood buddies. He and the kids have come to Eastern Oregon to visit several times while I've been mired in pre-med studying so the kid were looking forward to seeing their friends and hanging out.

For this drive I pulled out one of my last tricks - travel tickets. I printed these off of a great web site called Moms Minivan along with several other puzzles and games. We had pink travel tickets that could mark the passage of 30 miles or minutes (I chose the latter) and blue reward tickets for "good backseat behavior". The way I used them was to give the kids an approximate number of pink tickets that they needed for the morning drive to Boise and every 30 min they traded them in for a blue ticket. My kids have been such great travelers that I almost didn't crack out this strategy but I'm glad I did. They enjoyed it a great deal. As a reward for their great behavior, I got them full-access wristbands at the place we stopped for lunch. They did laser tag, bumper boats, go carts and a bunch of video games. It was also wonderful for us to catch up with Lyn, who Tim had not seen since well before any of our kids were born. 

The drive to Lance's house was made even shorter because of the audiobook of Catching Fire that we are all enjoying very much. Another great find for our road trip was the app Tales2Go. I got a free 30 day trial that will see us through the trip but I think it is a great service. We listened to How to Train Your Dragon (an interesting lesson in how much a plot can change in a movie) and most of A Wizard of Earthsea ( Tim & I want to finish that one!) and now Catching Fire. 

Last night we settled in to a comfortable visit with Lance and Peggy and today we will arrive at home! As much as I have enjoyed this trip, I confess I am really looking forward to being home!

Here is today's photo stream:

A few dry days and dirt roads and my pretty blue car starts showing her miles!

Tim & Lyn

And the kids

Travel tickets

Today I missed the Oregon Welcomes You sign :-( I would have liked it for the blog but my phone is the camera and the audiobook so it was tied up in cords and not at my fingertips. Imagine it here!!

Penultimate night of the trip

I remember learning the word "penultimate" in high school and loving it right away. Yes the last matters but be anticipation of the end is also felt before that. There us been a lot of silliness, bonding and treats with a little impatience and fatigue that is not unreasonable for having been on the road for two and a half weeks. Today we had a first as well, we failed to follow our prepared directions and went off book for our drive to the campsite. It ended up working just fine since we were still able to follow those brown signs posted to direct people to campgrounds and historical markers and whatnot. 

And it is lucky they were there! Castle Rock state  campground may be the most desolate and undeveloped place we been! There is a lot of sagebrush and we saw jack rabbits aplenty and one deer. We know there are coyotes out there but unless one jumped in front of our car, there's no way we'd see it, he sagebrush is so thick. 

We arrived at camp in time for some down time. 3/4 of us read books for a bit while the remainder went and found some kids to play with. After dinner we droves into the City of Rocks National Reserve that is directly adjacent to the campground. The sun was going down but we had some great views of some interesting terrain. It is a good thing that we are all appreciative of a good view and the wonders of geology. It seems not to have gotten old for any of us, especially when the rocks can be climbed! 

It is going to be chilly tonight after a hot day and the sky is so clear that you can see millions of stars. I wish the kids weren't so tired and that we did t have such an early departure tomorrow  so we could wake them up and show them!  But tomorrow we are meeting up with an old very good friend of Tim's and we need to be in Boise by lunchtime!

Here are some shots of the day: 

Nifty little access mounds for animals to escape when they find themselves in the freeway corridor. We saw these all over Colorado and Utah. 

Timing shots from 65 MPH is hard. Idaho is not a new state for this trip but our final non-Oregon one!

Fun little treats have made the drive continually entertaining. This was a small container of Gak that had googly eyes. It was called Bob Glob and was quite a hit this morning! 

Not hard to see where the name Castle Rock came from!

This rock intrigued me with its amazingly flat surface and the way it was toppled over so casually. I would have had a kid in the picture for context (it was over 6 ft tall) but they were both on the rocks with their father climbing, because they do t care if I have a heart attack and die. :-)

See?

The view

Extended view

Gratuitous fat lizard shot!

Arches National Park

The day dawned a little rainy and grey but still warm. As usual when we aren't loading up to drive somewhere, we made a "real" breakfast and took a little time to lay around in PJs. Not too late though, we set out for Arches NP. The cloud cover and very occasional minor cloudbursts turned out to be a very good thing in a land that often has 3 digit temps and is very dry. We were able to do a lot of hiking and appreciating of the natural beauty without overheating or shriveling up! 

The kids are both nurturing a love of vertical climbing and after a warm up at Garden of the Gods, Arches really let that fun blossom. As some of you know, I had an accident a few years ago from a fall. One of the lingering results of that experience is quite a bit of temerity when it comes to heights. Not only did i not join in on some of their more mountain goat-like behavior, but I actually had to turn around and not watch them sometimes! Tim was there with them and I know they were safe but wow was I nervous!

After some down time back at camp, we tried a not entirely successful campfire meal of cornbread & hot dogs. Baking on the fire is tough! We were chased inside after dinner by the last of today's rain showers and decided to skip a 2nd night of s'mores. A shame to miss out but I happen to know several ways to make s'mores at home so I'm sure the supplies won't go to waste!

Interestingly, Moab is quite an international destination. We have heard German, French, a variety of English accents and some languages we can't place! It seems an out of the way spot to attract such attention. 

Here are just a few of the great shots from today:

Grey skies but still amazing views!

Ainsley up high. 

Duncan - climbing is when he is happiest. 

We really like traveling!

Some fun on the ground. 

Running. 

Beautiful!

Family action shot. 

Road to Moab

Yesterday we said goodbye to Aunt Shirley, cousin Steve & Kelly and their cool kid Josh and headed to Utah (state #11, our final one!). The drive through the Rockies was a little scary because Ainsley & Duncan have the tradition of holding their breath during tunnels. There were quite a few long ones and I thought they were going to pass out! We passed a bunch of skiing towns and saw the dormant chair lifts and ski runs. We stopped by a river (we think it was the Colorado but it seemed too modest a river to have carved the Grand Canyon and be the source of so many water source arguments) and had lunch. We are staying in an RV/campground in Moab that is pretty nice - we have good tree cover and a swimming pool. 

The weather was spectacular yesterday, hot and dry (an hour in the pool was lovely) and then after the sun went down and the kids are asleep we sat out and enjoyed the balmy weather. Today is a less ideal weather day, more cloud cover and occasional sprinkles. Our photos might not be outstanding but I suspect the views still will be. 

The trip is drawing to a close! We have another night here in Moab then a longish drive to some random state park in Idaho then a visit with Tim's old friend who lives in Eastern Oregon and then HOME! I can't believe we've been on the road for so long but I also can't believe it's almost over. The camper has been an unqualified success and I look forward to taking more I depth trips (you know, where you stay someplace more than 1 night!) in the future. This is a fantastic way to do a family vacation!

Yesterday's photo stream:

Fancy breakfast with the cousins - bacon and whipped cream. 

Nerf swords!

Cousin fist bump

Lunch in Gypsum, CO

Beautiful canyon drive

#11!!!!

Tim's camera does panoramic shots!!

Garden of the Gods and more family

Today we explored Garden of the Gods, a beautiful natural feature in Colorado Springs. Because we didn't have much of a drive today we went for a hike at our campsite beforehand. 

After a cold rainy day yesterday it was sunny and warm. The views in the park and the climbing were very enjoyable. Our tourist guided for the park had an ad for a gluten free restaurant not far from the park. Of course after lunch we had ice cream and then headed up to Denver to visit with Tim's Aunt Shirley and her son & family who live with her. This includes another kid cousin, Josh, who the kids were happy to meet a new cousin. They had fun playing ball in the yard (I was too tired to think of taking pics but they were adorable of course). We've taken advantage of the civilization by giving the kids showers and re-freezing our ice packs. Tomorrow we are heading to Moab for a couple of days. 

Scenes from today:

A lizard with a glorious view of Cheyenne Mountains. 

Climbing trees...

And on rocks...

And more rocks...

Ice cream and a tiny bench

Wii with Josh

Tim & Shirley talking family trees. 

Duncan and Josh bunking down for the night.