During fall break this year, my mom and I planned a roadtrip to visit Jake's family in Waco, TX!
It was a 2,725 mile roadtrip that we somehow managed to do without any tablets, screens or DVD players. Pretty darn impressive!
We listened to a little bit of the Chronicles of Narnia and a lot of my Disney playlist on Pandora. Tai colored an entire princess coloring book, Kasen wrote his own book and my mom was the Queen of car games and kid songs.
Kohen's favorite was the Itsy Bitsy Spider and saying "Knock Knock" and then laughing when we said, "Who's there?" He also loved telling me to hide, by turning looking straight ahead and then saying, "Boo!" and playing hide and seek with his blanket. And oh how he loves his suckers. He insisted on holding the whole bag and I ended up finding a handful of them in the car that he never finished, he just kept opening new ones. And pointed out all the "mills" we saw along the way!
Tai made up the rainbow car game where we had to find all the colors of cars in order of the rainbow. We actually did find orange, purple and finally a pink truck!
I got pulled over in Price and ended up not getting a ticket. Thank you officer!!
We left at 6:30am on Wednesday morning and our first stop was at Mesa Verde, CO. I had been to 24 states, but never the state right next door to me. Colorado is #25.
I got us tickets to go on the Cliff Palace tour and was crossing my fingers that Kohen would be able to do it. And he did! He climbed all 4 ladders like a champ. It was a quick 30 minute tour and my mom painted an amazing painting of it while we were at Jake and Kristi's!
That night we stayed the night in Albuquerque, NM and got up in the morning to finish our drive to Texas!
Friday morning Jake and Kristi took us all around Waco! We visited Magnolia and the kids loved playing on the beanbag chairs. Kohen was all about playing soccer though. He found every stranger to kick the ball with him.
We had lunch at Union Hall, stopped by a park and then went to the Children's Museum, where the kids got to stand inside a bubble!
There was a room there all about SpaceX, where Jake works, and he showed us how this Merlin Engine works. It's his job to help test it and has sent over 30 astronauts to space.
On our way home we stopped at a pumpkin patch to pick out pumpkins for the kids to paint. That night Jake set up a tent in the backyard to have a campout with green monster s'mores.
Saturday morning the kids painted their pumpkins and Aunt Susan came over to visit with us for a little while. Kristi also made pumpkin cookies for the kids to decorate with halloween things.
Later we went to see the Waco Mammoth National Monument to see real mammoth bones!
Early Sunday morning we packed up and headed back home! We took a different route though so that we could visit Oklahoma. We drove through a 30 minute piece from Devol to Davidson.
Then just outside of Amarillo, TX we visited Cadillac Ranch. It's a public art installation that has been there since 1974. Just 10 Cadillacs from different years, buried nose first in the ground. Kristi sent us with some spray paint to paint our names on them too.
It had rained most of the day so it was kinda cold and muddy.
That night we stayed in Albuquerque again. We wanted to find a yummy local restaurant to eat at and ended up at Papa Felipe's Mexican Restaurant. Definitely not the best Mexican food I've ever had. And that night around midnight, Kasen woke up to puke. Luckily he felt better afterwards!
We stopped to see the Monticello Temple right as we came into Utah. It's the only temple in Utah that I'd never seen, so now I have been to all of them! So far.
It was a LONG drive, but we made it home around 8pm on Monday night.
I am so happy that none of the bad things that Kyle was worried about happening happened to us! No car problems at all. Which is good because we spent $500 last month to fix the brakes and rotors and $500 this month to get two new front tires. Gas was not over $6 a gallon and was actually a dollar cheaper in Texas and since I split it with my mom I was able to do the whole 6 day trip for under $500.
The trip went as well as I could have hoped and now I am so glad to be back home! So glad nobody got carsick and puked in the car and I never had to pee on the side of the road!
Thank you Jake and Kristi for letting us come stay with you and thank you Mom for coming with us!
Only 22 states to go!
I've never seen Mount Rushmore.... I'd be happy to help hit a few states. We drove from Utah to Minnesota to Texas one year with our van and trailer when I was 11, but we didn't stop anywhere in between except at KOA campgrounds.
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