The drive that would never end ... and the visit we wanted to last forever

Spring Break, Friday, 16 March - Sunday, 25 March 2007

My Grandparents turn 90 this year. In January, my dad and his siblings had a 90th birthday party for both of them and all my Aunts and Uncles were there and a few of the grandchildren where also in attendance for this celebration.

I debated long and hard about whether or not to take the children for a short weekend for this celebration, and finally decided we'd wait when we could visit them for a longer period of time and really allow my children a chance to know and experience their great-grandparents. I decided that spring break made the most sense, and so we put it on the calendar, gave ourselves a budget and started to prepare for this trip.

Southwest has amazing ticket prices from KCI to Las Vegas ... but when it's spring break, that isn't the case. When flying was out of the budget, I decided driving would be the most economical way to get from Kansas to Nevada ... 1800 miles.

We left home Friday morning a little after 7am (CST) and pulled in to my grandparents driveway around 10:30pm (PST). I learned a few things along the way:

• A $3 ice bucket makes a great "puke bucket" and will now accompany us on every major road trip.
• Samuel's car seat washes up quite nicely.
  
• I-70 through southwestern Utah just might be worse than western Kansas - there isn't anything for 100 miles!
• Don't buy gas in Beaver, UT it's atleast $.40/gallon more than the towns before and after it on I-15. Instead, stop and have a cone at the Creamery - you get a huge, cone for less than $2 - yummy!
• The Junction City Doubletree has the most comfortable bed I think I've ever slept in other than my own.
  
• I now know how to drive down a mountain, very slowly, in a spring snow storm.
• When it's late at night and you have four sleeping babies, staying in a hotel on the ground level where the room door opens to the outside and you can park your minivan right in front of the room, is so nice! Under other circumstances, I might have moved on, but this was exactly what we needed, and they served a full hot breakfast.
• CO and KS are incredibly long states.
• I much prefer making this trip in two days instead of three. We went in two days and took three days to come home ... three days in the car was more than any of us wanted to endure, so next time we'll push a little harder, and do it two.
• Ice can last in a styrofoam cooler for three days.

We had a fantastic trip and I'll be posting at least one more round of pictures of all the things the children helped with in Grandfather's garden. But here are a few pictures from the trip:

The car is packed and we're ready to shove off:




Valley of Fire National Park in Nevada


At a rest stop around Glenwood Springs, CO: