Last fall, I suggested to Josh and the boys that perhaps we should take a family vacation over Christmas break this year, since the boys are getting older and have most of their needs met, and it would be fun to make memories with the money instead. Everyone asked where we would go...I had a few ideas, but everyone disagreed with my vacation idea. Fast forward a few months--we found out that Josh's brother Malachi and his wife Molly would be blessing their firstborn child Caleb over Christmas break at their new home in Albuquerque, and suddenly Josh was all over going on a family vacation to New Mexico, and the rest of the boys were on board as well!!!
We left the day after Christmas and headed for destination #1:
We spent the night at my parents' home in Providence. We had a family dinner together with Trina & Dan, and Mick & Jen's family. Brendan was sick, so Cody's family was unable to come. We celebrated Trina's birthday a little early (her birthday was on the 28th), and Mom and Dad opened the family calendar gift. We played games, watched TV, and hung around the Perkins home all night. It was very relaxing and enjoyable!
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| I love Sunny's fashion style! |
The next morning, my dad took the boys skiing/snowboarding along with Mick & Jen and their two older girls while Josh and I went to his niece Jessalyn's wedding at the Logan temple. It was a beautiful wedding! It was snowing pretty good outside before, during, and after! It was hard to get great photos amidst the snow...
Josh and I went shopping around Logan, while waiting for Jessalyn's luncheon to start, getting a few more things for the vacation. While we were out, I ran into Josh's cousins Brenda and Shanda!! I hadn't seen Shanda for years (she lives in Georgia). Their sister JaNae's daughter was getting married in Logan the next day, so the family was getting together in Logan for the celebration! Sadly, we didn't know about it and were unable to fit it into our plans, but it was fun to run into them while we were out and about!
That night, I drove over to Tremonton to play games with some of my friends from High School. They get together every year over Christmas break, but I was unable to get together with them until this year. We met at Phil Purcell's home. It was so much fun! We played Jackbox TV games (that was my first time being introduced to them!), ate, talked, and laughed until far past my bedtime!
The next morning we packed up the car (it took some finaggling to fit the skis/snowboard/equipment along with everyone's bags and all the food--including what we had just purchased in Logan and a TV my parents gave me--during the process, Josh and I may have argued just a TEENSY bit ;)--haha!) and left Grandma and Grandpa's house in Providence. We stopped in Ogden to put the skis and snowboard equipment in our friend Amanda's garage so they would be out of our way the rest of the vacation.
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| Kanyon has had a growth spurt lately and is now taller than grandma! |
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| We were ready for the real vacationing part to begin!!! |
We drove all day--we went south through Salt Lake, Spanish Fork, Price, Moab, and then into unchartered territory that we'd never been to before. We drove through Monticello and reached the Colorado border and a big snowstorm at sundown. We drove through Cortez and stayed in Durango for the night. It was the first time Josh and the boys had been in Colorado!!
We got to the hotel, unloaded the bags, and I took the boys down the street to eat at Taco Bell. By the time we got back, Josh had unwound a bit from the stressful drive the past 45 miles, and he drove downtown with me, sightseeing and going to Walgreen's for some medicine, while the boys stayed at the hotel playing Settlers of Catan. It was a pretty town!
The next morning (Saturday the 29th), we drove southwest to Mesa Verde. Unfortunately, it was closed. Due to the recent government shutdown (as a result of President Trump wall idea being rejected), National Parks were closed. However, I'd looked up online before we left, and it said that Mesa Verde was still open but no workers were there. It would've been fine and dandy had there not ALSO been a snowstorm--since there were no workers there, there was no one to plow the roads, so there was a ranger at the gate of the park turning people away because others had tried to get into the park and had gotten stuck, so now preventative action was being taken. I was SO sad!!
We continued west towards the 4 corners: the only point in the U.S. where four states touch. The scenery was pretty as we drove--not what we're accustomed to seeing in central Idaho! As we drove, the boys were watching a marathon of "The Fast and the Furious".
We weren't sure if the 4 Corners would be closed too, but it was run by a Native American group, so it was still open. It cost $5 per person to enter.
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| See what he made there with his snowtracks?! :o) |
We finally made it to New Mexico!!! It was pretty exciting, but we still had several hours of driving ahead of us before we would arrive in Albuquerque. We looked at going to another National Park to replace the time we would've spent at Mesa Verde. As Josh drove, I researched. Aztec Ruins was also closed. The Petroglyph National Monument was open, but would close by the time we reached there (they are only open during the daylight hours). We also looked into riding the Sandia tram, but it was pretty pricey for our whole family. When we got to Albuquerque, we checked into our hotel, and went over to Malachi and Molly's house instead.
We ate some GINORMOUS pizzas and played Jackbox TV games for a couple of hours (the boys loved them as much as I did!) before heading to the BioPark's River of Lights, a walk-through light show.
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The boys watching the miniature trains go around
the many tracks.
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| This old ski lift car was in the museum. |
We drove past the Albuquerque LDS temple on the way to to the Hot Air Balloon museum. It's a smaller temple.
There's a HUGE hot air balloon festival every October in Albuquerque that I've been wanting to go to ever since I was in high school. I have a hot air balloon theme in my classroom, and I was thinking that if we were in Albuquerque, we might as well go to the Hot Air Balloon museum while we there. Thankfully, the museum is free for guests on Sundays, which was a bonus! We had about one hour to look through it. There was some neat artifacts, and some really awesome interactive displays. We also watched a 3-D movie, and hit up the gift store on our way out.
We went to Malachi and Molly's house after church, ate a nice meal, talked, and played for hours. It was wonderful to spend time with family!
We left around 6:00, and headed for Arizona. We made a quick stop at Walmart to get some necessary items (including a new movie marathon: Police Academy!). We drove to Holbrook and stayed the night in a teeny hotel room!
We left the hotel pretty early the next morning (Monday, Dec. 31) because there was an incoming snow storm on its way. By the time we reached Flagstaff a few hours later, there was a full-on blizzard.
We had planned on going to the south rim of the Grand Canyon, then driving across to the East Rim, but we decided to stay on the highway we were on, and go to the East Rim only. Every thing we looked at on the internet said that the state of Arizona was stepping in to help staff the Grand Canyon during the government shutdown, so it was still open. We had to go 30 miles out of the way just to access East Rim, and we were crossing our fingers that it was open. Thankfully, it was, but the access road connecting the East and South Rims was closed, so it was a good thing we didn't go with our initial plan or we would've had to backtrack hundreds of miles in order to get back on the road to Utah! Unfortunately, however, the blizzard was at the Grand Canyon north rim, and we couldn't see a single thing!! We were so bummed!
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We could go inside the visitor's center, but not in the watchtower,
as there wasn't enough employees available to man it.
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| The view from the windows in the visitor's center: down below is the grand canyon! |
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| So this is what the view is SUPPOSED to look like on a good day... |
but this is all we saw. {sad face}
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It was about a half-mile walk down to the viewpoints of Horseshoe Bend. The views were spectacular and breathtaking! We took a couple of hours hiking around the area, and taking lots of pictures! This was one of our favorite times of the entire vacation, and it made up for the lack of being able to see at the Grand Canyon. We had such a great time there!
We continued north again, headed across the Glen River Dam, back into Utah, across to Kanab, north to Panguitch, and then finally made it back on to I-15.
We stopped for dinner at Beaver at a cute place called the Crazy Cow Café. It was delicious, and we were glad for the break from driving!!
A few hours later, and were finally in South Salt Lake at Tawna & Bryce's house. They said we could stay with them overnight, and it was fun to spend New Year's Eve with them!! We watched the ball drop, and Bryce even got some sparkling cider for us to celebrate the event with!
We left Tawna's house the next morning. It was Tuesday, January 1, and we were SO ready to be home already!! We stopped at Amanda and Ryan's in Ogden and with Josh's superpower packing skills, we packed the skis and snowboard equipment back in the suburban. It was a tight fit!
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| Last day of vacation! |
When we got back home to Salmon later that afternoon, we unloaded the car, and prepared for Ammon's birthday dinner that night! My school started the next day, so it was the best chance to celebrate his party while I was still home before he went back to college a few days later. Tim and Barb were kind and took care of our house and animals while we were gone, and Barb had left us a meal when we got home which was a fun surprise!
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| So happy to see this sign! |
This was our longest road trip ever! Our longest vacation (length of time) was to Disneyland a few years ago, but we've never gone so many miles on one trip like we did on this trip!
Although lots of things didn't go our way during the vacation like we had planned, we surprisingly really enjoyed this family vacation. We liked being together. It was a great mix of spending time with family and seeing new sights. We were so thankful to have had such a great experience and to make memories with our children! We anticipated this being the last family vacation we'd go on with Ammon (now that he's entering adult life), so this was the last vacation we had with our suburban. I'm so grateful that we decided to go!
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