Summer adventure days 1 and 2 (San Jose to Rexburg)

Soon after Natalie and Pete left for Idaho last December Claire started asking when we would see Elaina again.  Apparently Facetime does not count, so we said that maybe we would be able to make a trip up there in the summer.  It turns out that Grant's daycare was closed for a week in August so we decided that would be a good time to go.  It has been one big countdown until the trip.  Everyone was very excited to go.  The next several blog posts will be about our trip.  We covered over 2400 miles and were in six states not counting California.  I am including a lot of the pictures of the trip so that the kids can see and remember what we did. 

 

It is about 13 hours to drive straight through from San Jose to Rexburg and we knew that we would have to break that up into two days which meant that it would be two days to get there and two days to get home.  Then we thought that it would also be great to see Yellowstone again since we would be so close, and we quickly ran out of time on our schedule.  So we decided to take an unprecedented (in our family at least) two week vacation.  We left at 8:30 am on Saturday, August 3rd.  My mom came with us because she was going to watch Grant at Natalie's house while we took Andrew and Claire to Yellowstone and Jackson (more on that later).  Here we all are including Claire's doll who made the trip.

 

I sat in the middle row next to Grant so that my mom could sit in the front since she gets car sick.

 

 

Movie and headphones on!  The DVD system has been really nice for long trips.  It keeps the kids occupied and allows us to still listen to the radio.  We are always prepared for Andrew getting car sick, but somewhere on Hwy 80 before Reno Claire got car sick.  She isn't used to sitting in the back and we didn't turn off the movie soon enough.  We always turn off the movie if the road is curvy from experience with Andrew.

 

Our first state - Nevada!

Our plan was to stop in Reno for lunch.  We also had a plan to stop at as many temples as possible on our trip.  We would have gone to the Sacramento temple, but it is off of Hwy 50.  So, the first stop was Reno.  We looked pretty bad compared to everyone who was coming to the temple that day.  Claire still didn't feel great and Andrew was mad that this wasn't the bathroom break.  Happy family!  This temple is a smaller one, but sits way up on a hill in a residential neighborhood.  For all of our temple pictures we tried to get the sign in the picture, but you will see that isn't always possible.  This temple was built in 2000.

 

 

 

The next stop was lunch and Scheels.  What is Scheels you ask?  It is a huge store that is a combination between Cabella's and Sports Authority.  They have truly everything.  Natalie had gone to the one in Utah and we thought it would get some of the kid's energy out.  After walking past the massive aquarium at the entrance, we were walking through the hunting area.  There was a shooting game that kids can play.  It was like laser tag with fake rifles.  There were lots of things to shoot and the game would give you points for everything you hit.  Everyone got a turn and Andrew was a pretty good shot.

 

There are tons of "stuffed" animals in the store. 

 

Then we found a kids bowling alley.  Everything was miniature including the balls.

 

 

Grant loved this small tent, if only we had a place to put it.

There was this cool half of a jeep that the kids all sat in.

 A literal mountain of stuffed animals.  It had every type of animal you could imagine.  There was also a Ferris wheel in the store, yes a Ferris wheel.  We didn't have time for that which greatly upset Andrew.

Then it was back to the car and onto Elko.  It was about four hours from Reno.

 

 

Long, long stretches of very exciting scenery.

 

 

We stayed at a hotel in Elko and the kids thought that the carts that you transport luggage on were the best thing ever.  They rode it up from the lobby...

 

 

...and back down with the luggage.  We got quite a few looks from other guests.

 

To get some energy out, we decided to go to the California National Historic Trail Interpretive Center.  If you've ever driven across Hwy 80 you have seen it just outside of Elko.  It is free and is really nicely done.  It is all about pioneers, Mormon or not.  It shows you how they lived, why they left the east, how they traveled and about all about their experiences.

 

 

The grounds outside were nice as well,  they had a covered wagon and pioneer camp you could look at.  The wagons were much narrower than I had imagined.

 

 

There were many hands on things for the kids to do, including a miniature covered wagon.  They blocks of various sizes with labels on them like wheat, clothing, etc.  They had to try to fit everything into the wagon. 

There were dioramas showing various scenes from pioneer life.  This one showed how they would have cooked food over a fire.

 

There were also pioneer dress up clothes.

 

 

Since the center talked about the pioneers heading to California there was a diorama about panning for gold.  Little did Andrew know that later in the trip he would get to pan for gold.

 

 

They had some trails that you could walk on to see the valley.  The center is just behind us and Hwy 80 is just beyond that.

Exploring the area - Danny and the kids hiked to the top of a hill.

 

 

The landscape had a lot of spikey bushes that would not have been nice to walk on.  One of the volunteers told us that most of the children walked without shoes.

 

 

They had several statues, quotes and stories outside the entrance.  Claire was fascinated by this statue of an Indian woman carrying a baby on her back.

 

Our next stop was Twin Falls, ID for lunch.  Yeah, we are in Idaho!

 

Grant stole my ice cream!

 

When we got gas in Twin Falls we also went to the restroom.  I saw this 100 ounce jug for sale.  Yes, 100 ounces of soda!!  That is a little over 12 cans of soda.  So I just had to ask the clerk about this.  She said you purchase the jug for $10.99 and then you can bring it back for refills of soda for only $2.20.  Wow, I can't even imagine drinking that much water or soda.  She said that people actually do it.  I wanted to get the jug just because it was so huge.  I thought it would be awesome on my desk at work.  We also saw these at Maverik in Utah.  Maybe next time.

 

After lunch we went to the Twin Falls temple.  The gates were closed, so you can't quite see the sign behind us.  This temple was built in 2008.

 

 

During the trip we crossed the Snake River many times.  This was the first time and it was worth stopping to see what a large gorge the river created.  In other areas the river was much higher up

 

One more stop before Rexburg - the Idaho Falls Temple.  It also sits on the Snake River.  The Falls are just behind us.

 

 

We were at the temple in the late afternoon so the sun was not in a great spot to take a picture in front.  This temple was built in 1945.

 

 

 

It was so hard for Grant to stay out of the fountain.

 

It was a short half hour drive from Idaho Falls to Rexburg.  Elaina and Chris were watching out the window waiting for us.  Andrew and Claire literally leapt out of the car into hugs.  They were all so excited to see each other.  There was lots of screaming and excitement. 

I didn't get Mateo in the picture, but Andrew and Claire were amazed at how big he is.  He can walk!  Natalie had made us dinner so we all went inside to eat.  There was a lot of playing and fun that night.  It was the beginning of many late nights.