Tripping Out

We rolled into the driveway a few hours ago, after traveling 2,505 miles on what we hoped would be a grand, family-memory-making road trip.  I have tried to distill our trip here on the written page in a way that will hold onto those hard earned memories for me, and be slightly less boring than a 1970's slide show for you.  I will post in chunks, one chunk a day for a few days, so just know that the suffering will end some time next week and you can stop reading until then if you like (unless you are one of the people we visited, in which case you may want to stay tuned to see if I painted you in a flattering enough light, and to make sure any photos of you do not expose your secret double chin).  Away we go!

Day one...

August 1, 2014

“Mama, when you move to a new state do you have to get a new license plate?” Tessa asks.

“I got Washington!”  Ellie blurts out, checking the license plate off her US map. 

“I got Wassington!” Jonah echos.

We are on the road.  The kids are chattery after a good breakfast (by the way, the Quality Inn in Winnemucca had a really nice room and free breakfast of bacon and eggs or giant stacks of mondo-pancakes. And twern't no puny egg platter neither: five,-count 'em- 5 strips of bacon; it was awesome.  Also, the big room was enough for all 8 of us.  Nice, huh?) (oh my gosh, there's 8 of us.  Still flips my gourd to see it in writting).  We are now leaving Winnemucca, making tracks for Idaho.  

(Well, technically Utah.  But shhhhhhhh.  Don't tell.)

I begged Guy to add the extra 150 miles to our trip so that I could see Melissa, who I haven’t seen in many, -too many-, years.  Okay, three.  But they were very loooooong, trying years of great difficulty, so it felt more like seven.  Or twenty.

The last time we had a big family road trip we spent the entire time visiting loved ones in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Utah, and felt frazzled at having to cram in so many short visits, always longing to stay a little longer, always late to the next visit.  So Guy swore next time we would take the states separately as different trips.  This year the coin landed on Idaho.  Utah, and all of our dear ones there, will get the next turn.

(We will seriously only be there about 5 minutes.  Well, maybe 10, but some of that will be spent sleeping.  Please don't be mad.  I already have guilt.  Lots of guilt.)

And now that we are close to Utah, I’m sad we won’t be seeing everyone there. 

“We in Wassington!”  Jonah calls from the back seat.

“No we’re not. We’re in Utah.”  Tessa corrects.

“No, we in Wassington.”

Well, at least if anyone asks Jonah, he won’t be able to rat us out for having been in Utah.  As far as he knows, we went to Washington.

Adam's travel buddy.  He has made this trip with her so much easier.

Packin' up at the motel!

(Shhhh.  We were never here)

No,  Not snow in the distance.  

That is a massive expanse of SALT. 

 Yes, people.  Salt Lake was not just a cute name.  I'm thinking the Mormon pioneers got there and said, Well, we will either do really well here, or we will die.  And if we die, they can pickle us with salt.

To be continued...