Sabbatical Trailer Adventure

We're home! It was a great trip, everyone loved it, but everyone is also very glad to be back. Comfortable beds, good coffee, and furry friends that apparently missed us! We ended up driving a little over 4000 miles: And according to our RV fridge tracker, We visited: 9 National Parks 3 National Monuments 2 National Recreation Areas 1 National Historic Site 1 Ghost town And Jackson :-) And we stayed in 6 States (Including 4 new ones for our family) Favorites for the trip: Jeff - Yellowstone by far. It impressed beyond my wildest expectations.  Lisa - Arches NP - Delicate Arch hike and the less-crowded parts of Yellowstone. Sydney - Las Vegas, Bryce Canyon and and Crystal Cave Caitlin - Sequoia, Yellowstone, and the SLC "Space Museum" (planetarium...aka the most recent thing 😆) Now it's a couple of weeks of downtime and we're off again - 3 nights in Ft. Bragg at the end of the month #sabbaticalsummer. Thanks for following along!

Today we drove to Winnemucca, NV.                       On the way, we stopped at a rest stop near the Bonneville Salt Flats Speedway...       And...umm...yeam that's pretty much it. Not the most exciting day, for sure. Home tomorrow. Everyone is pretty excited (for home, pets, and the last 2 hours of Harry Potter #4 on Audible!) (Except maybe for Lisa, who became the first one to come down with something on the trip 🤒#almostmadeit #couldbeworse #ThirdRowBed)

We explored Salt Lake City today. Began with the Mormon Temple...which was hosting a wedding on Friday Morning...          And, learning that "6 blocks" in SLC actually means "1.3 Miles", we hopped on the light rail...   To go visit the (recommended) SLC library. And it did not dissapoint.         We walked down the curving exterior roof of the building after visiting the rooftop beehive exhibit (Utah is the Beehive State) and checked out a fabulous children's area...     Afterwards, we rode the light rail again to visi the Planetarium/Science Museum, which, aside from the movie, was actually (amazingly) free and very well done...         And headed back to the RV park...   For one last round of s'mores around the Coleman stove (no fire ring here)      We retire tonight for the second-to-last night of the trip. One night tomorrow in Winnemucca, NV and we're home July 1.  Feels weird to all of us....but more on that l...

Short post. Today was a travel day. Idaho Falls to North Salt Lake City. With one stop to see the Golden Spike Monument in Prometory, UT (The pioneers were a big part of the 3rd grade curriculum this year, so Sydney was excited about this)   They had a replica of the spike (real one is in a Museum at Stanford, and apparently there is an identical one at the Cal. Railroad Museum in Sacramento? Never noticed it if so...)   The original tracks from 1869 stopped being used in 1904 when a bridge (later a causeway) was built across the lake, and they were all torn up and used for the war effort in 1942, soneverythingbhere are replicas, but there's a nice original (restored) monument at least...     And a little visitor center showing (among much else) the hand-hewn lumber used by the Union Pacific (from the east, where there were fewer trees, versus the identical mill-hewn ties from the Sierra Nevadas used by the Central Pacific)       The difference of which can also be se...

Today was the big one. The Biggest Attraction n our trip to "Idaho". Perhaps the biggest attraction in "Idaho". The Famous Idaho Potato Museum!   We learned about the origins...   About why "Idaho"?...   And that Potato Fruits are poisonous!     We saw the World's Largest Potato Chip...   Various potato farming machines and several displays of potato paraphernalia (peelers, spikes, Mr. Potato Heads, and Mashers)   As well as some....other stuff...   (The projected faces moved...easily the oddest thing in there...) After touring the (rather small) museum, we enjoyed lunch at their Potato Cafe : potato bread sandwiches, 2 baked potatos, potato soup, and french fries..   Easily the Best Potato Day EVER. 😂 Afterwards, we slipped back to reality (in the center of the sound field)   Incredibles 2 gets 4 thumbs up. Worth your time. Tomorrow we say goodbye to whatever state we're really in and move on to ...

Today we explored downtown Idaho Falls, "Idaho" and the Museum of "Idaho". Downtown has a Riverwalk along the Snake River overlooking a "diversion dam" and its waterfall (fitting for Idaho Falls). Luckily it was just a perfect day to be outside and we took advantage of it. They even had a little Japanese Friendship Garden on an island in the river. We had some pretty decent Mexican Food for lunch and the museum ended up being much better than expected. It was divided into two sections - one on the local history of Idaho. Apparently there is a major early nuclear power research center nearby, a lot on Lewis and Clark, Animals of the region, etc... But the big attraction was a (presumably temporary) Steampunk exhibit, which while sounding cheasy was actually very well done. They had hands on exhibits with everything from the works of various authors (HG Wells, Jules Verne, etc..) explained on tablets in front of artwork sculptures pictured above, to Jacobs l...