I Need a Vacation!!!

1 Week
5 States
2,345 Miles

Our travels began with the dreaded 12 hour drive to Salt Lake City, Utah. We have driven the same 650 miles before, but this time it was a quiet and peaceful trip. The kids enjoyed watching flicks like:

on our DVD System that came with our new MPV Wagon. Carly did awesome!
She only got upset as we rolled into Toule, Utah (pronounced Too-ill-a...don't ask me, who came up with that genius spelling). Toule is just outside of Salt Lake City. It's the "Ahhhh, we're almost there" "light at the end of the tunnel" city. Anyone who has ever made the trip numerous times knows exactly what I'm talking about. You may also know that unique smell when you pass this:

It smells like this:


We don't usually stop at the Salt Flats, but Patrick was falling asleep, while driving (a normal practice) and Carly was hungry so we stopped off and were able to see the flats from another view point other than the car.



Utah is an alright place. Patrick and I lived there for about 2 years when we were first married. I don't have hard feeling's for the place, after all, it was while I was living there that I learned to drive in the snow. The mountains are gorgeous especially when there is snow on them and my best friend Holly lives out there, but it's a "different" kind of place or maybe it's the people that make it that way. You go to the grocery store and while waiting in line to checkout, you hear people talking about so and so on their mission and what that nights Enrichment is going to be. I think people assume that everyone is Mormon in Utah. Of course there are those who are covered in tattoos and smoking and even those who are wearing spaghetti strapped shirts who look "out of place". I'm from California...I see that ALL the time. So why was it so weird to see that in Utah? Perhaps it's the stereo type that Utah is forever doomed with even by fellow Mormons like myself.

Anyway...I've always been amused at the billboards I see in Utah. This time around, I made sure I had my camera present to snap a few shots as we drove by them. Here's Utah, in a nutshell...



I also saw interesting things like this:

and this:

Only in Utah will you see an abandoned train cart (or whatever it was)graffettied up with Welcome Home signs for missionaries named Ammon.

I also saw billboards like this:

and others that said "5,000 Boners and Counting" and "We Suck Fat" that I couldn't get my camera ready fast enough to take pictures. I honestly couldn't believe that I was starring at a big set of fake boobs on a billboard, in Utah, of all places...

My favorite was this one:

Only in Utah would they have a billboard with a Road Construction Warning. Here's the thing. Ever since Patrick and I have lived there, there has ALWAYS been road construction. So much so, that they sold t-shirts with an outline of Utah on it and a big construction cone that says "Under Construction" implying that the whole state was under construction. Their roads suck! I guess I can understand why they need all the construction. Maybe if they would fix the road right the first time, they wouldn't have all the construction. Maybe it's a conspiracy with Utah Transit to make the roads suck so that their jobs are secured for the future...whatever the reason behind all the construction, wherever you go, there is always some kind of cones out on the road. The biggest annoyance that I get in Utah is that everything seems to have cones and "slow zone" signs all over, but not once did I ever see this:

This is typical for Utah...That and Cops driving their cop cars while off duty.

After a day in Salt Lake, we headed up to Yellowstone National Park. We started our day like this:

and like this:

because we ate here the night before:

This of course threw us off track and the ride up through Idaho and Montana wasn't the funnest of all rides because Raya and Ethan continued to throw up throughout the drive...

There's two potatoes walking down the street...How do you know which one is the hooker????

The one that has the sticker that says "I-DA-HO"

That's one of my favorite jokes. After seeing signs like this:

and signs to visit places like this:

and this:

and this:

that joke has even more meaning to me now. Idaho was a very quiet place. Most of the state is filled with farm land. I am only guessing that most of the farms we saw grew potatoes...but that is just a guess :-)

We made it to West Yellowstone where we stayed in this:






It even had a cool swing out on the porch



We spent two days in Yellowstone.



We saw sites like this:









and of course, the infamous Old Faithful


where I almost got into a fight with an old lady who so rudely told Patrick and I that "she was saving the seats" we were sitting in (which was actually a tree that had fallen down)and that she "was there first" when all she needed to do was ask us to scoot down a little. I told her that I didn't see any reservation signs and Patrick just left. I didn't. I stayed there and finished feeding the baby and only got up after Ethan had to go to the bathroom. I was already annoyed and her being so rude just set me off. She's lucky that was all I said to her at that point in the trip. I was done with Yellowstone. I was sick of all the tourest. Sure all the natural "artist pots" and "thermal geysers" were absolutely amazing to see, but after 100 miles of driving and dealing with people just stopping in the middle of the road and getting out of their cars blocking traffic to see the 100th one of these:


made me feel like I was

but I wouldn't have the smile on my face and instead of the mail...I would have a gun :-) Two nights cramped in a cabin with all the kids and no one sleeping the way they would in their own beds and it being so dang hot, would do that to mother...

On the way home, we drove back down through Idaho and stopped off at the Idaho Falls Temple

Please excuse my "baby fat"...ya, that's what it is :-)

We then drove a couple of more hours down through Idaho to Pocatello where we met up with Elvis...errr...I mean Kenny Graham.


Kenny and I go way back. He is my best friend Holly's brother and we've been friends for 20+ years. Kenny is an Elvis Impersonator. He actually won a impersonator contest that sent him to Graceland as the award last year. We had pizza and visited with him for an hour or so and then we headed back to SLC once again.

We spent a few more days in Utah with Patrick's brother. He has kids that are all the same ages as our kids. They had a blast together. They played hard and were tuckered out every night from the days activities.


We also were able to go to a children's planetarium where there were free activities for the kids to do.




Carly was enjoying herself as well


I was able to visit once more with my friend Holly and play with her kids. I think that was my favorite part of the trip.



So here's a quick run down of what my vacation consisted of...Packing and un-packing twice each for 5 different people, packing the car 4 times, cleaning up kids with sand all over them, cleaning up poop out of a carseat and throw up out of a bowl, holding a crying baby for pretty much a week straight, listening to a brother in law yell at his kids all day, getting lost while driving to my friends house...twice, having my new car die on me, eating yucky fast food for almost every meal, surviving a monsoon and lightening storms, and having a very bad attitude the whole week.

We got up at 3am and left by 4am back home to California. Patrick drove the first 3 hours or so and then I drove the rest of the way home because Patrick got sick and slept the rest of the ride home. It would have been the best drive home ever until we hit the Sierra's and the traffic from Hot August Nights in Reno were all heading down the Sierra's too. It took us about an extra hour to get home and after being in the car for 11 hours, another hour so close to home just SUCKED! I personally didn't enjoy this vacation, but Patrick and the kids did, so I guess it was a success. I think the kicker was the massive bruise I got while on vacation. I wish I could tell you it was because I was so brave rescuing one of my children from the death grasp of an antelope and I got gored, but unfortunatly it was because of my own clumsy self who fell down the stairs at my brother in laws house. Ya, I have a bruise the size of a grapefruit and the color of Barney on my buttocks. I have a few pulled muscles a tweaked toe and finger and a few smaller bruises on my arms and back. I am going to spare you the picture of my butt even though I really really want to show you. It's a pretty sweet bruise. I've never had one so big and so purple. Too bad it's in a place inappropriate to show the world. Anyway, with all that went on during this past week while on vacation, I have come to one conclusion,....I need a vacation from this vacation!