Monday, August 4, 2014

epic, part 1

Remember how we don't take vacations? Even when we try. We take trips.

I want to be detailed in writing about this, because there are just SO MANY DETAILS, but because my kids said several times that "this was a good day"/ "this was my favorite ___ ever" etc. So here goes:

My brother and his (now) wife Stephanie picked the wedding date of July 26, in Idaho Falls. Spencer's wheels were immediately turning and he asked me if we could take the motorhome and do an "epic roadtrip," including going to Yellowstone. Yellowstone is his happy place. I said no because, duh. But he came up with a spreadsheet and showed me how aside from paying a million dollars for gas, there weren't many other expenses. I finally conceded, and the planning began.

We left on July 23, a Wednesday, and went just as far as Reno. We were thinking of driving the whole way in one day but that would have been about 14 hours and that just wasn't going to happen at this stage of our lives. So, to Reno we went. As we drove toward Sacramento Spencer got the kids started on looking for all 50 license plates. The first one they found was Texas, and we had a list of 10 before we even got to the Nevada state line. This license plate game would get old, but it definitely kept them paying attention.

This was when we noticed the first item to break on our trip - the door and slider pretty much fell out of the ceiling of the motorhome. The RV park where we stayed was weird for a lot of reasons but we were just there briefly, we all slept ok, and we were off by 8:00 a.m.

This day, July 24th, was our long day. I do believe it was our longest. About 11 hours. By the time we reached Twin Falls we needed a break. Spencer gassed up at a Costco, the kids and I got food from the food court for dinner (yay), we saw the temple from a distance (#2, Reno was #1), saw the gorgeous Snake River and stopped for a pic, and then drove the last 3 hours to Idaho Falls.



In IF we stayed at the Snake River RV park. Random...after I made the reservations I realized that the owner is the sister of a lady in our ward here. Small world. It was fun to meet her. This place was great, and it had an awesome park, as well as laundry facilities. It was about a half mile from the hotel where my parents and other family members were staying.

On Friday morning we had a slower morning. We didn't have to be anywhere until 10 a.m. We headed north to Rexburg to see President and Sister Wightman. Spencer has been home from his mission for 13 years and they have been home for 12, but the way they talked it was like they picked up right where they left off. Spencer was close to them on the mission and it showed. We sat in their gorgeous backyard for an hour and a half while our kids ran around and played with their dog. It was wonderful and littles were happy.

We then called Adam and met him at the Rexburg temple (the Wightman's are the current temple presidents). The kids got to "touch" the temple.


We walked around campus and admired how much it is growing. We contemplated buying some property there. I liked Rexburg much more than I did last time we were there. We bought fudge...of course we did.

We headed back to IF via a crazy burger joint called Big Jud's. Sadie was asleep so I stayed with her in the motorhome while Spencer took the kids and Adam in. We got back to IF, Sadie woke up, and we went to the hotel where family had just arrived. It was swim time. Spencer was having issues with the generator so he went to a local mechanic (ended up being quite pointless, and the issues continued).

It was time for the wedding dinner at the hotel. We had great food, I saw lots of family (both sets of grandparents!), sang an embarrassing song (think "My Best Friend's Wedding"), and then called it a day.

Next...WEDDING BELLS!