more miles.....

I have driven alot of miles in my days, having been an OTR truck driver, but never been able to stop as much or often, as I choose to now. I don't quite remember where I left off but I do know alot more miles have been added. After we left Arches & Canyonlands Nat'l Parks where we stayed at this quaint litte campground for tenters only named "Up the Creek"--Denise was the mgr and gave us some pointers as to what to do in Moab. We headed to Bryce Canyon Nat'l park to hang out with some FOTR (Families on the Road) whose name ironically is Bryce! It took, what seemed like forever to find 'em! I knew they had been here a couple mos and it's not a huge park so I figured someone would know who they are since her name is the same as the Park and there are only 2 campground IN the park. Come to find out there were many more outside the park that had the name Bryce in them too. So I let my investigative trail begin. And what do you know??? I FOUND 'EM, the next morning. We had a blast with them, they have 4 kids--3 boys and 1 girl and my 2 guys had a blast hanging out with them. They rode bikes, scooters, skateboards, hit the pool and we ate out with them. The best part of the trip for the boys (and me too) was renting an ATV and taking it out into forest and trails, Bryce & Steve are the trails guides and what an awesome 3 hr trip that was! We ended staying an extra day with them we were having so much fun. Then Bryce & Steve got a day off and were headed to Archlands in Moab and we were headed the other direction! We drove over to Zion Nat'l Park....and I know I've said it before, but every park we go into I like it better than the park previously!! Zion was magnificent! We went through the longest tunnel I've ever been in acorss this huge nation of ours, every time the boys would see some light they'd be like..."I see the end of the tunnel" "OOoops nope it's just an opening", over and over again until we finally came out the other end. We stayed at a real nice campground a bit spendier ($36 a night) than the others I'd stayed at, but the boys really loved it, nice pool, activities nightly, friends made etc. and we were only 140 mi away from Vegas where we were to hook up with our CA friends Sat the 13th at their time-share, so we stayed an extra night there too! We met some really neat people from all over KS with 2 girls, another family from CA with a boy Taylor 12 yo who came over a couple nights and played games with them, we had electrical hook-ups at this tent site so they were "hooked up" :) Now here it is Tues June 16 and we've been in Vegas for 3 days and were s'posed to leave today but again decided an extra day was needed here beofre we travel over to Albuquerque to meet up with some families from our LiG Conference who live there and that's about 1/2 way from here to OKC where we are p/u our bus to head way over to the East coast to MD for our fireworks selling adventure. What an adventure we are on! Will write more later, toodles for now........

this blogging thing is cool!

Maybe a year ago, I heard the word "blog" and it sounded yucky. Eventually, I thought "here we go with another frazzled way for everyone to get lost in the internet jargon", and here I am a yr later. I am enjoying blogging! I feel "connected" in ways I haven't before when we traveled. I can keep a sort of journal and people who care about it can read in on what we're doing, how cool is that? We are getting ready to leave this beautiful area of Moab, UT. We have to head 30 mi North before we can head West to then head South, make sense? We have 6 glorious days to make it to Vegas where we finally get to see Janice, Darren & Parker, our awesome coolness friends from CA. They are getting their time-share for 2 weeks and privileged "us" to an honorary stay with them during their first week. Awesome, huh? Thankfully there is a pool, since I was told yesterday that it had gotten up to 110 degrees already!!! Well off to get the camping gear wrapped up and head for some other sites in southern UT. Toodles for now.....

YEEHAW!! The PRCA Rodeo was great!

After our big white-water rafting trip we went to the grocery store and saw a Rodeo sign on the door and I asked about tickets to it, $7 for me $5 for Jake and free for Josh! We were ready for the evening activity "PRCA Rodeo was in town". OH MY it was so much fun and Jake has decided he wants to be the clown in the barrel that gets randomly butted at by a raging bull! LOL Josh said he wants to go horse back riding through the arches and canyonlands that we are enjoying for another day. I think we are too! Toodles for now......

a fricken skunk!!!

I was sitting there just outside the tent last night when the boys were getting settled in their sleeping bags and there was a skunk that came within 4 ft of me!!!! I freaked out and jumped up and tried to slowly walk away and he/she just stood there. I was like, PSSST!! Did he/she budge?? NOOOOO! I was like how can I get into that tent QUICK?! And he/she casually turned and went down to the stream just behind our tent. I was temporarily relieved, and hopped into the tent and layed there awake for over an hr trying to hear any evidence of it being close again. I finally faded off to sleep. I have been so hyper aware of bears the last few days and knew there were none in this area, but a fricken' skunk? Who'da thunk? LOL
We are headed out to the Colorado River to go whitewater rafting through these beautiful arches & canyons of Moab! Toodles for now.......

Utah Lake & Moab

We arrived in Utah Lake yesterday and stayed at a nice campground in Orem but we were eaten alive by mosquitos!! Duh! We were right next to a lake! I let the boys sleep in since we were awake batting at bugs over half the night and then I HAD to wake Jake at 10:55 since check-out was 11:00. Thankfully we had only taken out the tent, sleeping bags and tablecloth, so it didn't take much time to get it all picked up and leave. We drove S on I-15 about 10 mins and got off at the US6 exit and found am Albertsons to get some lunch/supper at before headed toward Price, UT. I had a coupon for fresh bread from the campground that was GREAT! So I got some kaiser rolls, a rotisserie chicken, boneless chicken breasts, marinade, corn on the cob, angel hair & sundried tomatoe alfredo sauce for less than $20 !! 3 whole meals, so Josh out the chicken in the marinade when we got in the car and I started driving. We drove for about 30 mi and found a rest area with picninc tables and ate a wonderful picnic lunch by a rushing stream. I wanted to get to Price to see what there was in this beatiful part of the country and found their rec dept and was told that all their activities the boys had in mind were done down in Green River anyway, so we continued driving. Ahhhh the joys of driving, I really love it! I kept going....I ended up in Moab, home of Arches Nat'l Park & Canyonlands Nat'l Park. And all the adventure the boys would want. They have ATV rentals, Hummer trips, whitewater rafting, horseback riding etc. We found a campground for tenters only called "Up The Creek" and that only spot left was the biggest and right next to the camphost named Denise (my sister's name) what a great place. WARM though I'm talking 80's and it's already 10:30 p.m. it's a sweet change from freezing our you-know-whats off though! :) We are going on a white water rafting trip down the Colorado River tomorrow with lunch included, that Denise had suggested through Moab Adventures. We are looking forward to that! Well I better get to bed since we have to get up early for our fun in the sun down the river tomorrow. Toodles for now......

ID, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons & Bear Lake, UT

It seems as if we've been to so many places and it's been awhile since I posted, so here's the update.
I made it to Mtn Home, ID and retrieved Kathy (who brought along a mtn man named Ron) and we headed toward Yellowstone. First stop was Idaho Falls at her moms where we stayed the night and had a wonderful dinner at my favorite place Olive Garden. We walked around the falls and saw the pretty temple as a backdrop to the falls. The boys got to sleep in Kat's moms motorhome parked in their driveway and LOVED it, it was a 1967-68 travel trailer and they felt like they were at the Marriott! LOL Kat and I slept together which was like our high school days and sleepovers again, FUN! Then we headed NE through Rigby where the first television was invented. Then we went to the awesome Bear & Wolf Exhibit (got pics) and had to stop by the infamous Yellowstone Park sign and got more pics--just have to figure out how to get them on here. We headed toward Old Faithful since I had to stop and get our Access Passes for the boys and myself which enables us to get in all Nat'l Parks FREE!!! It also reduces our rates at campground by half! I just had to show the proper documentation and then we were going to head to our campsite we had reserved, but....Old Faithful was about to erupt so we stayed and watched that amazing experience. We ate at the Old Faithful Lodge and finally headed toward camp. We were stopped for over 1/2 hr by bison grazing and trying to make it between the river & mtns to graze some more. They are much better to wait for than road construction! Finally around 5:00 we started our setup of camp. Kat brought a canopy that we placed between our 2 tents and that was awesome, I had my by camping kitchen w. 3 burners and a fire was started, we had the most perfect tent camping set-up around, all 5 chairs were perfectly placed around the fire, and we decided to not go anywhere else. Dinner the first night was chicken kabobs (that had marinated since Mtn Home)and baked potatoes & roasted corn MMMmmmm!!! Thanks Kat for a better alternative to burgers and dogs. The next morning, we headed toward Mammoth Hot Springs and saw all types of wildlife; more bison, eagles, cranes, elk, mtn sheep, moose (pics to come) a bear had come through our camp the night before we got there! He heard we were coming....
We went by Upper & Lower Falls and arrived in Mammoth where elk just hang around in peoples yards like their family pets would. We had some wonderful ice cream, a tradition Kat has with her kids when they go to Yellowstone. And then we went to the North gate to get a refund on the entrance fee we pd before we got our Access Passes. Then off to the actual springs.....WOW!! It was absolutely amazing how many there have been, the paths they take and turn from and form new paths. The colors were indescribable, you have to see them! Then we continued around the park to the hot pots, which I renamed hot pockets. It was all great. We took a shortcut across the center of the park to get back to camp because we were exhausted & the boys had seen enough--244 miles, just in the park!! Ron had dinner planned this night, it was sloppy joes & biscuits in the dutch oven! Oh my!! Another evening around the campfire and no s'mores?! Kat & Ron both stated they were over-rated LOL! Well.....check out was by 11:00 so by 7:00 the next morning Kat had chopped onions, bellpeppers, smoked sausage & leftover baked potatoes in the skillet before I even got up.....the least I could do was crack some eggs to scramble, THAT was a great fireside breakfast. We tried to keep Ron & Kat an extra day but work needed them both back in ID. What we did benefit from was that Ron had never seen the Grand Tetons either or Jackson and Kat wanted him to take in the whole experience in so we got to use his pull behind trailer to put our big cookstove in and other items that we didn't want to re-arrange our car to fit in. So by 10:59 we pulled out of the campground gate and headed south. The cloud cover didn't seem to dampen our journey. We arrived at Coulter Bay campground that I had chosen since there were no showers at our Yellowstone site. We set up camp and had a nice picnic lunch of cold cut sandwiches before Kat & Ron left. Then the rains came. It was cold!!! We got wet. I got a warning ticket for leaving our stovetop out (not the grill part which we cooked on but..) when we left to do laundry, telling us the bears would be dead if fed. Scary! We heard coyotes sporadically throughout the night.
The Tetons were more magnificent to me than any of the pics I've seen that depicted them, I thoroughly enjoyed that more than Yellowstone. Really!
We arrived in Jackson, WY, where it was still drizzly and I needed a haircut. My hair is too long for camping, so it's much shorter now. And I tried to get ahold of Space & Smiles since I knew she grew up in Jackson and could tell us the places not to miss while there, but no answer. We ate at Bubba's BBQ. Later in the evening she called us back, after we left there to let me know she's worked there!! Ironic huh?
Well we continued through some magnificent country down 89 back into ID then S. into UT, we are currently at Bear Lake at a KOA where we splurged and got a Kabin. I made spaghetti w. meatsauce in the Kountry Kitchen & we had a heater and beds to sleep on! The boys and I played putt-putt in the rain last night, it was so much fun! We then retired to the room and watched Terms of Endearment on our laptop laying in our beds. The boys want to rent some ATV's and go through the hillside and around the lake and they have just risen from bed. The sun is shining, there are blue skies, a light breeze and we are embarking on a new day. Our plans are to hit Lagoon near SLC, like the boys haven't had enough water the past couple days?! I conceded they haven't had the right equipment in all the water we've been in! Then we are going over to Arches, then down to Bryce Canyon on our way to Las Vegas to meet up with Janice, Darren & Parker our unschooling friends from CA who got their timeshare for 2 wks and invited us to stay with them the first week. WOOHOO!! I'm thinking......another bed with a roof & a pool. Life is Good!!! Toodles for now.......

WA, OR & ID

well we HAD to leave the LIFE is Good Conference, they made us! We didn't want to. It is so nice to be surrounded by people who "get it". Really get it. There were friends who we've known through yahoo groups from all over the place, TN, OR, CA, WA, WY, MT, IA, CO, & Canada, get this one of the family's live in the same co-housing as my cousin! The boys had an awesome time and Jake's new best friend is from Hawaii!!! Cyrus is his name, he and Jake were inseparable the duration of the conference. Josh made a great friend named Seth and they skateboarded almost the entire time, Seth showed Josh new tricks and Josh experimented all of them and "ate it" (his words) many times! We ate at this wonderful burger place called "Burgerville", bought more things we really don't need at a store called Fred Mayer's which had awesome prices. When we left Mon after the last good-bye picnic we drove about 4 hrs to Kennewick, WA and stayed the night with one of the family who were at the LiG conference.....the fun continued! Then yesterday we left and are staying at a beautiful state park in OR (again) for a couple nights before we can arrive at Kathy's --my best friend from high school, then we are continuing over to Yellowstone where she'll take us to all the known places to see there. We are also meeting up with the IA family in Yellowstone on their way home who were at LiG too. Then, well we'll let you know more when we do it. My tires are being replaced as I'm getting laundry done in Payette, ID which was the cheapest rate I got for all 4 tires, $ 430!! Then our shoes will be ready for another 50,000 miles of walking! :)