Day 3: SLC to Grand Tetons National Park

We were packed, ready to go, had breakfast, which started at 7, not 8, my bad.  But our goal was to leave around 8 and I think we got it pretty close.  Had to take a before picture.

 My sister got me a starbucks.  She's the best.  So, we headed out of town.

Now, I can plan the heck out of itineraries, and yeah, i can get you there, but Mark was driving so he lead the caravan.

 We were promptly passed by the Johnson's who had been driving theirs for two days and were way more comfortable.  They beat us by about an hour.

When you watch the hype video for these, they show pictures of happy kids playing card games while gazing at beautiful scenery that passes by.  And then there is reality.

They had to close the blinds so they can see their kindles.  And then the table fell down.  I put it back up a couple of times before giving up and putting it into "bed" mode.  I think they liked that better anyways.  

The drive up was nice.  It took Mark awhile to get used to the RV.  It was really loud and bumpy.  You have to make sure everything is secure in your kitchen before driving off or it will spill.  There were horrible rattling sounds and we figured out some of them, but some we just lived with.  It wasn't like we could listen to the radio or anything!  The worst was the engine.  It did fine, but it took awhile to realize that it was normal sounds as it shifted gears going up and down hills.  And we did go up and down hills.

It was neat to see a different park of the country!

We pulled into the Grand Tetons Visitor Center parking lot about 1.  Mark and the kids went to find a place to eat lunch and me, well, I made lunch in the RV.  Nice.  Here was our lunch time view.

Grand Tetons were so dramatic.  I think everyone loved it.  I have a thing for snow capped mountains.

We toured the visitor center and then headed to our campsite.

Grand Tetons was a little strange.  All of the campsites were first come first serve.  That sounds nice and all, but I didn't fly all the way across the country for first come first serve!  I wanted to know where we were going.  Well, we had a couple of options for advance registration.  One was an RV park.  Yes, I know we were driving RVs and that seems like the logical choice, but reading up on these, they didn't sound very nice.  Packed in like sardines and no camp fires.  That's not what we signed up for.  Instead we opted for a group campground, and it was great!  We got to be together and there was lots of open space.  

Super fun.  And there was campfire games like Yes, No, H2O.

And Heads or Tails.  The kids really had a great time.

Even though it was a good first day, I still was a little nervous getting into our RV bed.  But once Mark put the white noise machine app on his phone, it was fine.  Slept great!

Day 2: Salt Lake City and RV pick up

We didn't wake up too early in mountain time, but early enough to be annoyed that the breakfast didn't open until 8 on the weekend.  Afterwards, we walked a couple of blocks to the trolley stop to downtown.

When we got there, we had just missed the one we needed.  The boys made rap music videos while waiting.

We were taking the trolley to Temple Square and to walk around downtown.  It seemed like the thing to do in Salt Lake City.  We were able to go into the visitor centers and the buildings.  Here is our lighting expert taking a picture of the lighting.  He was impressed. 

 I let James have my old phone.  I thought he would enjoy taking pictures of the trip and then he could make videos to keep him busy.  This turns out not to be the best idea.  Luckily, it has a bad battery and James kept turning off airplane mode and not keeping it charged so it didn't last long.  Its funny that he knows exactly how to take a selfie.

There were a lot of very nice people to answer questions and take pictures!

James did set up this picture though.  I feel it was a tribute to my detailed itinerary 

Really, we were done about 10, but dragggggged it out until 11 when it was socially acceptable to eat lunch.  Juliet and Mark actually went to an organ recital and the rest of us took the kids back to the hotel to swim.  But we did have plans for the afternoon.

 

Don't we look a little scared?  We went to pick up our RV.  Really, it went pretty quickly considering they were letting us take a very expensive piece of equipment that we didn't know how do drive.  Want to know how that went?  So, after we went to pick up the RV we need to go to WalMart.  Tony and Juliet were going to follow us there.  Mark and I were sitting at a light when all of a sudden, another Cruise America RV passed us and hit our driver side mirror so that one mirror out of two fell off.  Mark promptly ran it over.  What was there to do but continue to WalMart and I won't name the guilty party.  ;)  

Getting to WalMart was another ordeal.  Navigating the freeways in the RV was not easy and we ended up on one way streets.  We finally get to the walmart and turns out there is a parking garage for it.  This is pretty much the worst nightmare in as a new RV driver.  WalMart, well, that is always a nightmare and then our carts wouldn't go to our RV because of a safety mechanism.  I was so frustrated and tired, and HOT, and LATE to dinner.  And that is when the Johnsons had arrived.  We ate and then my sister bought everyone ice cream so it all worked out...  

Day 1: Traveling to Salt Lake City.

Day 1:  We had to drive to Atlanta to catch our flights that would eventually take us to Salt Lake City.

We really timed our flights really well this time.  I mean, we had to get up early, but not crazy early.  We hit Atlanta traffic, but not crazy traffic.  

There was a ton of traffic at the airport so parking was hard.  Checking in and the TSA lines weren't that bad.  Got to ride the airport train and even had time for a starbucks!

Andy was more willing to travel this time, but less willing to take pictures.  Everything worked out so well, we had some time to wait at the gate.

Since this was Southwest, we had to connect, and it was a surprise to see that we would be connecting through Dallas Love Field!  When we move from there Southwest had just won the court battle to have "long haul" flights from this airport.  I guess it was going well.  This was NOT the Love Field of 10 years ago.  We had our pick of Dallas restaurants and ended up at Catina Laredo.  They had charging stations at the tables!! 

This was Mark's lunch.  It was awesome.  I got a salad and it was fine.

They had all these activities in the airport.  Kids could make buttons and there was a live band.  What???

We finally arrived at Salt Lake City and took our airport shuttle to the Crystal Inn and Suites.  And the kids  were so excited to see.........

Oh, our neighbors who we literally see practically every day.  They got down to business to play Super Fight.  Hit a local brewery a short walk from the hotel for dinner and the whole gang was there, including my parents who again live 20 minutes away from us in SC.  So neat to see everyone in a different time zone! 

The weather in Salt Lake City was hot, but dry and honestly, it felt pretty good.  Another funny thing is that the sun didn't set until like 9:30 so these east coasters stayed up way later than they should have!

It was a great first day!  Everything worked out so far!!

Day 0: RV with a K

Trying to get this done in a more timely fashion.

Hello.  Starting this at the beginning which was actually during the planning stage of our Grand Circle Trip.  I read 100 Days of Real Food and they took a huge 6 week RV trip through the Western US.  Well, good for them.  I thought a little bit about it, but mainly about how much it cost!  That is not as cheap as I thought it would be, but I kind of filed that piece of information away.

When we were actually on our Grand Circle trip and I was having a great time, something was nagging at me.  As much fun as I was having, and seeing new things, what I REALLY wanted to do was go to Yellowstone.  I had never been there and always wanted to go.  And if we could do this crazy trip, why couldn't we do that crazy trip.  So, I started thinking.  Doing a little bit of research.

I don't know if you have ever really researched the National Parks.  While they are awesome, the accommodations can be a little bit lacking.  You are searching for a room that is big enough for your family of 4 and you aren't even sure if the bathroom is going to be down the hall.  That is fine and all, but I don't want to pay 200+ a night for that!

So, I looked at cabins.  We are condo people anyways, but again, this area is so remote, to rent a cabin and still be in driving distance to the parks is not really realistic.  It was at this point that I remembered about the RVs.  We saw a ton of rental RVs on our grand circle trip, starting thinking more, and planning and really took a huge leap of faith and started down that path.

There were many many different itineraries and thoughts and plans going into this trip.  We changed what months we were going (August to June), what days we were going (RV places aren't open on Sundays), which direction, where else to stay, having the kids sleep in tents vs the RV but what we came up with really worked very well.

Campsites were rented in August.  RVs were rented in December after much debate.  ALL rental RV places have terrible reviews.  After reading all of them we went with the cheapest, Cruise America.  I wouldn't say we had 5 star service, but I was pretty happy with how it worked out.  Plane tickets were bought in February and that is really the point of no return.  From there it is just a downhill roll to vacation time!  The day before we were supposed to leave I was getting my first mammogram so Mark was the one to check us into our Southwest Airlines flight....

A note on these blog posts:  apologies.  My delete key totally worked.  Sometimes I fixed the typos.  Sometimes I didn't cause I was beat down.

Day 1:  Traveling to Salt Lake City
Day 2:  Salt Lake City
Day 3:  Driving to Grand Tetons NP
Day 4:  Grand Tetons National Park
Day 5:  Driving to Yellowstone
Day 6:  North Yellowstone 
Day 7:  Old Faithful
Day 8:  Yellowstone to Bear Lake
Day 9:  Return to Salt Lake City
Day 10:  Flight home

Day 8: Home!!

We were up early for our flight home, and even though we were at the airport at 4am for our 6am flight, we had to return the car, catch the shuttle, check our luggage, go through security, go to the bathroom, by the time we did all that it was time to board.  We didn't even get our big breakfast.  Wah Wah....

We connected again through Houston and this time, opted for Mexican.  Much better decision.  The kids entertained themselves playing Pokemon star wars until it was time for our final flight.



The kids were old hats at this traveling stuff by now.



When we landed in Charlotte, Andy was overjoyed to be almost back home.



The next day was Easter Sunday.  We skipped church to recover, but thankfully the Easter bunny knew where we would be!



It was a great trip and I was so glad to be able to show a different part of the world to James and Andy!

Day 7: Zion National Park

Day 7 had us getting up early in Moab.  Our flight was ay 6am on Day 8 in Las Vegas, but we had one more stop to make on our Grand Circle tour.  Even as late as nighttime on Day 6, Mark and I were debating on what to do, but we ended up heading for Zion National Park.

Really, this drive was on of my favorite things to we did.  Very nice.  Quiet.  Not too much traffic.  Kids were good.

Oh wait...

Turns out I didn't figure the fact that it was Good Friday and probably a three day weekend for a lot of people when planning this part of the trip.  It took us awhile to get into the park, and by then it was lunch time and we pulled off onto the first vista stop we could find.  Andy was kind of done.

As another aside, one the recommendations I got for this trip is to get a cooler and buy stuff for lunches.  We were out in the middle of nowhere quite a bit and being able to to make sandwiches whenever we wanted was pretty handy...no matter what Mark or the kids say.

Again, we almost skipped Zion to make things easier, but I'm so glad we didn't.  Even though it was another canyon, it was different and still very nice.

Since Zion is actually inside the canyon, there isn't a whole lot of room.  Instead they had a shuttle system, kind of like the Grand Canyon.  Except unlike the Grand Canyon, they make everyone park in one parking lot and get bused into the sites.  Since we didn't get there until after lunch, we weren't really sure we were going to get a spot.  Luckily, they opened up one of the overflow lots right as we drove by.  Score!

Similar to the Grand Canyon, we got off on different stops to see different things and take pictures:

James posed that one.  Andy was photobombing.  We also hiked the Emerald Pools trail.

It was a nice little hike that was perfect for our day trip.  Then we headed to a nice grassy area and got ice cream!

I do wish we would have stayed the night there and spent more time, but I figured we would be ready to get back home and I was trying to save some money.  I'd love to go back and hike The Narrows and Angels Landing.  

We left Zion and went back to Las Vegas.  Ate dinner at a California Pizza Kitchen and went to bed early for our flight home.

Day 6: Arches National Park

I was really excited to spend some time in Moab.  I rented a 2 bedroom condo and this was supposed to be the relaxing part of our vacation.  The condo was really nice, but expensive.  It took me awhile to figure out what was going on.



Something called Jeep Week?  We were lucky that other than dinner on our second night here, we didn't get stuck in any traffic, but these jeeps were everywhere!  However the kids did enjoy our condo, and so did their sleepy pets.



We got up earlish and headed to Arches National Park.  It was a short drive and we went to the Delicate Arch hiking trail.  They were doing construction in this area so you have to get there early to get a spot.  We were lucky!  The trail was part trail, part rock scrambling and we ended up here:



It probably would have been fine but I wouldn't let anyone move from this spot!  Look, the trail here was like a 2 foot wide strip off a cliff and James would turn around and say hey mom look at this.  TURN AROUND AND WATCH WHERE YOU ARE GOING JAMES!!!



Haha.  Mark and the boys liked to tease me.



The hike down.





Other rock formations:



Double arch:



Forshadowing:



This was at Sun Dune Arch.  It was in this canyon formation.



The wind from the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley had followed us here so it was a lot colder than it was supposed to be.  But in this formation, all the wind funneled in here and blew sand.  It was terrible.  There was a bunch of people who ran from here yelling.  Sand got everywhere.  It was like living in Lubbock.  No, Andy, you don't need to get dirtier.



After this, we weren't sure what to do.  We had planned to stay longer, but with the wind we didn't want to stay in Arches.  We decided to drive about 45 minutes to Canyonlands National Park.  We didn't do a lot of hiking, but still got to see a lot.  We drove to the edge of the canyon.



See, still windy.

 

Then we drove to Mesa Arch where there was a little hike, and you could see the canyon through the arch.



This was my favorite picture from the whole trip:



From there we drove back to the condo after a full day!