Family vacation: the Finale

            When I last posted, I left off at just after Golden Spike national memorial.  The next day we finished our journey to the Grand Canyon.  Let me begin this by saying that just the drive to the North Rim is beautiful.  You pass through two national forests that are astounding.  It makes it even better after seeing desert for a hundred or so miles before hand.
           We arrived at the North Rim campround around two in the afternoon.  This gave us enough time to go to the visitors center and get our initial view of the canyon and it was amazing.  I believe on of the most endearing features of the North Rim is that it isn't as populous as the South Rim.  Whether this is due to the fact that the nearest freeway is 200 miles away, a 50+ mile drive on 2 lane roads, or that it is just not as well advertised as the South rim is up in the air.  Any way you look at it it makes it very easy to get around.  That night the rangers informed us that there was a campfire event where a ranger would talk with us.  We went and learned alot.  The ranger talk was on the ancient pueblonians (I hope I got that right).  We learned about their lore on where they came from and where they got their ability to make pottery and baskets.  At the end the kids got to make figures out of clay.  The kids loved it.
           The next day we took a bike ride from the campgrounds to the visitors center.  It was only about 1.5 miles, but it was over some decent sized hills.  The two older boys rode there bikes and I got to pull the two younger kids in the trailer.  We saw some majestic views and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  The ride back was even harder as the campground is higher that the visitors center.  In other words, mainly uphill.  I actually had to make the kids get out of the trailer and walk with me a couple of times.  Once again the kids loved it.  We got back to the camprounds about noon.  As we were eating a park ranger came up to us and informed us about another ranger talk that was going on at one.  The talk was very informative.  It was on the animals that live in and around the Grand Canyon and the relationships between them. 
          That night we relaxed and just enjoyed being a family.  The next day we headed out to take a few hikes along the rim.  Let me tell you that, unless you have some health defect that makes strenuous activity a death defying feat, you really have to do some hikes to fully appreciate the majesty of the Grand Canyon.  They don't have to be long hikes.  The longest we took was about a mile or so.  I would attempt to describe the views here, but I just don't have the vocabulary.  All I have to say is, after the Grand Canyon, everything else is just a hole in the ground.  Yes, I borrowed that from my dad. 
           The next day I learned that, apparantly, Arizona has a pretty loose definition of what a city is.  When we left the Grand Canyon we decided to make the drive to Mesa Verde in one day.  This meant backroads through Arizona and southern Colorado.  The maps showed towns every 9 miles or so.  Apparantly, if it has a gas station (or did at one time) it gets a spot on the map as a town.  Luckily, the route we were taking stuck to one road for quite a ways and thus my wifes confusion as to where we were was not detrimental.  It really wasn't her fault.  It wasn't until we had passed the fourth or fifth gas station that we realized that those were the towns listed on our maps.  Overall, it was some beautiful country to drive through and well worth it.  We arrived at Mesa Verde about 6 pm.  We made camp and had our dinner.  That night they had a talk about the animals in park.  It was quite interesting.  The next day we headed out right after breakfast.  We ended up going all over the park.  We probably hiked around 5 miles.  We were able to go through a few of the cliff dwellings and were amazed at the sheer scope of the work that went into them.  There was an eerie beauty to it all.  The only downside was the heat.  That night we did another load of laundry and played Uno as a family.
            The next day we headed out for home.  As we were driving we dicided that, since it was on the way, to drive through Arches National Park.  It was decidedly worth it.  The boys got to climb up around the double arch and our youngest wouldn't stop talking about it.  Everywhere we went in the park, he wanted to go climbing.  Overall, the boys fell in love with the park. 
             We ended up making it to Salt Lake City that night despite the 2 hours we spent at Arches.  The next day we drove straight through to Boise.  We arrived around 3 pm.  Since we were a little early, we decided to go to Cabela's.  There I found one of the .22 rifles that I had grown up with.  My wife allowed me to buy it.  This meant the boys got to roam Cabela's for about 2 hours while I made the purchase.
            That night, we ate with my wife's brother at Golden Coral.  It was a good meal and we all enjoyed ourselves.  We ended up talking until almost midnight.  It was a good time.  The next day we shared breakfast and had a good timie.  We ended up swimming for most of the afternoon and the adults ended up getting sunburned since we ran out of sunblock on the last of the boys.  It was so worth it though.  Onec again we talked until late at night before saying good bye. 
          The next morning we made the journey home.  In all it was great vacation.  I know it was because I still haven't recovered from it.
          Thanks for reading and, as always, have a great day.

Summer Vacation: Part 1, on our way.

          I am back from my vacation.  It was a good vacation.  Ok, my wife says it was great, but she wasn't driving.  The little timer in the truck says we spent nearly 60 hours in it.  That means I spent nearly 60 hours driving through the western US towing a camper with 4 boys.  All that after sleeping on a bed that was less than comfortable and it makes for a very tiring vacation.
          To be honest, if that were the entirety of the vacation, then the vacation would have been the worst ever.  What elevates it to good is the fact that the parts where I wasn't driving (and even a few that I was) were absolutely amazing.  I got 2 weeks with my family and we stuffed a lot into that.
          First we went to Idaho and visited my brother in law, and it was a great visit even if it was only for about half a day.  Then we left for the Grand Canyon.  Due to a slight miscalculation on my part, we had an extra day to get to the Grand Canyon.  We decided to spend it looking at various sights.  We decided on the Hagerman Fossil beds.  Turns out, they weren't that great.  It was interesting and all, but it wasn't worth a day of travel .  I think the family would have preferred Craters of the Moon National Park instead.  The problems with Hagerman are that, in hte first place, it is 30 miles off the main road.  This normally wouldn't be a problem, but the second issue is that the park entrance is a small town and the visitors center is small, very small.  There are a few activities, but they are rather mundane and, for a fossil bed, there were suprisingly few fossils.  Top that off with the fact that the fossil beds themselves are inactive, hidden, and can't be reached without a few mile hike (not recommended with a 4 year old) and the whole thing was disappointing.  We ended up going a few miles down the road before camping for the night.
                 The next day is when the vacation really took off and became what really made it all worthwhile.  We now had 2 days to go about 600 miles.  No problem.  It started off with us looking for a Walmart or something like it because we were low on a few necessities.  The GPS told us there was one not to far off the road so we headed that way.  At the exit, I noticed a sign for Golden Spike National Memorial.  For those of you who are currently having brain farts, Golden Spike National memorial coomemorates the driving of the last spike on the transcontinental railroad in Promontory, Utah.  As we approached this Walmart, we discovered that what the GPS had meant to say was Walmart Distribution Center.  Yup, It was a huge warehouse surrounded by Walmart trucks.  In other words, shoppers not welcome.  We decided that, since we were on the road anyway, why not visit Golden Spike.  it was so worth it.  Sure it was another 30 miles off the main road, but it was informative and the kids loved it.  It helped that it had 2 working steam locomotives and was pretty quiet.
               As we left the Memorial, we noticed a rocket display at a place called ATK.  At first, I was convinced that I had heard of this place before.  Turns out, I had.  ATK is where they built, fueled, and tested the booster rockets for the space shuttle among other applications.  The display actually included a full size decomissioned booster rocket that you could go up to and be awed by.  My wife went nuts and wouldn't stop talking about it the rest of the day.  We did eventually find an actual Walmart and got our groceries before we stopped for the night.
             This is a good place to stop for now, I will continue with part 2 on Monday.  Hopefully, I will be able to complete it, but I wouldn't count on it.
             Thanks for reading and, as always, have a great day.

Vacation planning: changes are expected.

           This weekend was a pretty good one all things considered.  I finished sewing the knee pads around midnight Friday only to have only one kid wear them at the games.  Speaking of the games, despite the slow start (we came in fourth the first game) we ended up placing first.  Then my two oldest boys and their team also got first.  We ended up just relaxing the rest of the day.  Sunday went well as well.  We even remembered to shift our clocks Saturday night before we went to bed.
            Now for the fun side.  As some of you know, we are in the middle of planning our summer vacation.  For the past week or so, we had planned on going to Yosemite National Park.  Last night my wife turns to me and says, "I think Yosemite is a little close and is somewhere we can go after you retire."  In other words, she wants to go further away.  And now I am trying to plan a trip to the Grand Canyon.  There is nothing like scrapping every bit of planning you have done for a week on the whim of your wife.  That's OK, I only have 3 days to figure it out before the reservations open for the camp sites.  We'll see where we go from here. 
             Not much else is going on so I think I will do some research and restart my planning.
             Thanks for reading and, as always, have a great day.

   It's been a few weeks since my last post.  A quick run down of what has occurred since I last wrote.  The wife and I spent 12 wonderful days in Italy (Sans Kids), The mother in law is in town and we have been forcibly pampering her to the best of our abilities despite her protests.  The boys have been little hellions as usual, the grass has grown tremendously (I still haven't mowed and keep finding reasons not to), and we pulled the camper out to get it ready for the camping season.  All in all, we have been busy.

     The trip to Italy was awesome as previously noted.  We probably averaged 5 to 6 miles of walking a day.  The country was beautiful and even in the areas where English wasn't spoken, the people were friendly and tried to understand what we wanted.  The food was out of this world.  even the sandwiches at gas stations blew our minds.  It was really a mostly trouble free trip.  All of the problems occurred either on the way to, or coming from Italy.  On the way there, we got to the airport in Seattle and realized we didn't have our international driving permits (turns out we didn't need them), then in Paris for our change of planes, we found out that we had to go through customs and then go through security again.  We got to our gate and found out the plane was delayed by 45 minutes.  When we finally boarded, we sat at the gate for 45 minutes before we were informed that someone failed to get on the plane but his luggage made it and they were looking for it.  1.5 hours and 3 times through the luggage and they still hadn't found his luggage, so they lined up all the luggage on the tarmac next to the plane and had us exit through the front door, identify our luggage, then re board the plane through the rear door.  All this after Laura and I had been up about 24 hours.  We finally got to Rome (3 hours late) and headed to the Hotel.  We ended up getting separated on the subway.  Laura (rather than take a return train to the appropriate station) walked to the Hotel and checked us in.  We managed to meet up outside the proper station 45 minutes later.  That was the last trouble we had until we went to leave.  Turns out, our plane leaving was so early, that there was no train to the airport so we had to sleep in the airport or drop 50 euros on a cab.  We slept at the airport.  Then the plane was delayed by 30 minutes since the flight crew was late.  Once again we had to go through customs and another security screening in Paris which meant we barely made our flight to Seattle.  Since those were the only bad spots of the trip to Italy, it was a great trip.  I will post a detailed blog on the trip once I am done typing it up (it's a work in progress since I am transposing the journal I kept with my wife).  All in all, it has been a fun couple of weeks.

    The mother in law has been a joy.  We keep telling her that treating her as we do is the least we can do since she babysat our 4 boys (did I mention that they were boys and that there were4 of them) for us while we were in Italy.  She constantly tries to slip us money and pay for meals, etc.  We have thoroughly enjoyed having her here.  The boys have loved having her here and we are all going to miss her.  I loved having someone else to cook for.

    As for the camper, we have a lot to do with it prior to camping.  We have to get it in to get a new battery, a cable replaced, and the vent repaired (it got blown open during a snow storm and damaged as a result).  We also have to do some major cleaning in it as the snowstorm that managed to damage the vent, also got some water inside and created a little mildew, not to mention that the outside managed to grow its own protective algae layer.

    Well, that about covers it for today.  Come back tomorrow for Happy Hump Day.  See then.