Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Day 31 - Utah to Nevada

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

We spent the day driving through Colorado and across Utah.  Dave listened to political podcasts, Cam & Seth watched kids movies, and Lex & I watched chick flicks together in the back seat of the van.  We arrived at my parent's house in Paragonah a little after 3:00 pm.  We talked to my parents about our trip and they fed us dinner.  It was so nice to have a home cooked meal.


We were tired of being in the car, so we had decided to go ahead and drive the rest of the way home.  It was good to see Vegas again. 7,002 miles, 783 photos, 31 days, 22 different hotels, 18 states, and 5 very tired people.  It was such a good experience and I feel so blessed that we were able to make this trip happen.


Monday, July 21, 2014

Day 30 - Colorado

Monday, July 21, 2014

It was a driving day.  Lex drove a lot in the morning, getting more practice hours in.  We stopped in Denver to eat lunch.  We found a place from the Food Network's Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.  It was called Steuben's Food Service.  The restaurant was a auto repair shop that had been converted into a diner.  The food was good and we were ale to sit by the big, open garage doors.
 

It took until after 4:00 in the afternoon to get to the hotel in Rifle, CO.  We decided to hike to the local Rifle Falls. We had to drive about 20-30 minutes and there wasn't a lot of hiking but the falls were beautiful and it was nice to be outdoors.


The kids took off their shoes to put their feet in the little creek.  It was pretty darn cold.



We hiked up and around the falls and checked out some caves along the cliff walls.


It was a long day of driving, but we enjoyed our little hike.


Sunday, July 20, 2014

Day 29 - Colby, KS

Sunday, July 20, 2014

We attended the Chapel Hill Ward in Kansas City.  It was a very friendly ward and Lex thought the boys were so funny.  This one looked like the darker version of her friend, Alan.


We changed after church, ate lunch at a nearby park, then drove ALL DAY to Colby, KS.  It is basically a bunch of cornfields.


To get out of the room for a while, we went to a local park (Cam opted to stay it the room), which was trapped in the 60"s. The toys were so old and looked a little unsafe.


We played a round of Disc Golf, which was pretty fun until the frisbee fell in the gross pond that the course went around and the gnats started to attack us.


We saw some train engines just sitting on the tracks and thought it would be a good place to take pics.


The trains were pretty cool, I just wish we had a bit more light.



I have loved exploring these little towns we travel through.

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Day 28 - Kansas City, KS

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Lex chose to go to a professional soccer game as her big activity on the trip.  We saw that Sporting KC would be playing LV Galaxy in Kansas City, so we got tickets. Our hotel was across the street, and we just walked over.


They call the stadium The Blue Hell or the Cauldron.  They actually started the game with the "I Believe" chant.  


They also did a clapping pattern and yelled "Everybody!" each time Sporting took a corner kick. Soccer fans are the craziest!  We thought they were booing one of their own player until someone explained that the palyer's name was Zusi and they were yelling "Zu! not "Boo!"


We were pretty excited to see Landon Donovan play, but he didn't have a great game.  We were on the 4th row, so we were pretty close to him.


Sporting KC won 2-1.  Going to Pro games of any sport is always fun, because the energy of the crowd.


Day 27 - St. Louis, MO

Friday, July 18, 2014

While driving, we saw a sign for Blue Springs Cafe with the Food Network symbol on it, so we decided to check it out. It had good, country-style food and was chosen on the show "The Best Thing I Ever Ate" by Kerry Vincent (the scary cake judge) for their pie. They were huge slices!


It took us a while to get to the Arch because of all the construction, but we finally made it.  We had about an hour before we were scheduled to go up to the top of the arch, so we checked out the Western Expansion Museum that is under the Arch. It has a lot of info about Lewis & Clark. We are a bit museum-ed out, so the kids were not too interested.  


The last section of the museum that we saw had these really creepy animated mannequins that spoke.  They reminded me of the Stars Hollow museum that Taylor Dosey creates on Gilmore Girls.  Freaky!



Dave was not freaked out by the mannequins, but by the thought of going up the the top. We had to stand in line for a pretty long time, then we finally got in this pod-like elevator. Dave and Seth were pretty scared. Dave rambled the whole way up to distract himself from the fear. 




When we got to the top, Dave immediately wanted to go back down.  He kept bending down, as if being lower to the floor would be safer.  The second they had available pods going down, he and Camryn were out of there.


Seth, Lex and I stayed up a few minutes longer to check out the view.


We could see the Cardinal's Stadium on one side and the Mississippi River on the other.



When we were all safely back on the ground, we took a few selfies.


I am pretty sick of hotel rooms and watching home renovation shows, so I got us tickets to see "The Adams Family" at The Muny.  It is a community theater company that puts on plays at Forest Park.


The show was cute enough, but the kids said they didn't get a lot of the jokes.
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It took forever to get out of the park, then there was construction on the freeway and we got stopped at a train track. We didn't get back to our hotel until midnight.  We are tired!

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Day 26 - Indianapolis, IN


Thursday, July 17, 2014

I brought The Great Brain and Me and My Little Brain to read to the kids in the car.  It took us a wile to get through the first book but the second book we read in two days because the kids kept asking for one more chapter.  I loved these books as a kid.


I looked up family activities in Indianapolis and found a link to the Rhythm Discovery Center.  It is a children's discovery type museum just about percussion instruments. Seth has been taking drum lessons this past spring and really loves it, so I thought it would really interest him.  It did, but we all had a good time. OK, Lex hates loud noises, so it took longer for her to warm up to this.



They had huge drums and gongs.

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There were electric drums, which only the drummer could hear in their headphones - I would love for Seth to have these! They also had sound-proof rooms so you could crank up your volume to an 11.


They had percussion instruments in every shape and size, from all over the world. Lex played the cowbell, because you can always use more cowbell.


Seth loved the xylophone and wanted to buy one.  He really needs to find smaller instruments to be interested in.  My favorite part of the experience was clashing these huge cymbals together.  It was a fun, but loud afternoon.