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!!