We’re finally getting settled back into reality after returning from our vacation last week.
It was so great to see my grandpa for the first time in 13 years; he looks awesome for 87-years old and everything he has been through. We also got to see some aunts that it has been even longer since I’ve seen them.
The best part was that my mom’s side of the family finally got to meet my wife, Marisa and my kids, minus baby girl, because she could not make the two trip with us.
Day one of the trip got off to a late start, but we made really good time once we finally got on the road.
Before I go any further I need to preface all of the stops we made and the fact that we drove 13 hours on day one, without Ace having a single accident, we were so proud of him. He’s been on two or three hour trips to games and even to Austin, which was a six hour trip, but he had never been in the car as long as he was on this trip.
Our first stop came in Dalhart, before we were even out of Texas, but after that we were able to catch some open roads and didn’t have to stop again until Colorado Springs, CO. We stopped and ate lunch there at Five Guys burgers, gassed up and got back on the road. Colorado is also the most we paid for gas on the way up there, which was $4.95.
We were really worried about gas prices going up that way, but to our surprise, Colorado and Idaho were the most expensive places, Wyoming and Montana had similar prices to what we were used to in Texas.
We hit a little bit of Traffic in Denver, but I got to see the Broncos Football Stadium, which sits right off of the highway...it is huge! We made it through Colorado and into Wyoming, where the speed limit jumped up to 80 mph and there was only another car every five or 10 miles, so we really made up some time there. We stopped in Buffalo, WY, for the night and was able to get a room at the Alamo Inn.
I’m not sure what was going on, but all of the hotels we called were completely full. We ordered some Dominos and took it back to the hotel room where we kicked back and relaxed for the night and watched whatever was on TV, which happened to be “The Avengers”. The kids were all over the place, they were just happy to be out of the car, and truth be told, as much as I didn’t want to spend money on a room, I was happy to be able to sleep in a bed that night too.
We got up bright and early the next morning and got back on the road after gassing up and making sure everyone used the restroom. Gas wasn’t terrible where we were in Buffalo, but it was still more than we were used to paying. We got into Montana, Marisa and my mom, had been trying to get pictures of each sign as we entered each state, and I think they got just about all of them.
We made it to Belgrade, MT., where we stopped to eat lunch with some of my aunts and uncle and a cousin I hadn’t seen in a really long time. We ate and laughed and took lots of pictures before loading back up into the car for the home stretch, which was about five hours to Ozborn, ID, where my Grandpa lives.
At this point I had driven 13 hours the first day and another 4.5 hours on day two and my eyes just could not take it anymore, so my mom took over on the last stretch, and saying I was exhausted was an understatement, as soon as I got in the middle seat and we took off I was holding on to the above handle and had my head laying on my arm and I crashed out...hard!
Marisa moved into the copilot seat and did a great job of keeping my mom awake during the last part of the drive.
We were expecting to see so much wildlife, but y’all, all we saw were sooooo many cows, I was shocked to see so many cows outside of Texas.
We listened to a lot of Disney music because it keeps the kids chill in the car, and I can’t lie, we like singing along with them too. I can’t remember exactly when, but at some point on the first day of the trip, we were listing to “You’re Welcome” from the movie Moana and Ace popped off after the song was over, saying, “Dad, you look like Maui.”
We all busted out laughing, and I was like, “Well thank you son, I’ll take that as a compliment.”
We finally made it to Idaho around 7 p.m. Pacific time and were greeted by my Grandpa and Aunt Judy, who made us a delicious homemade dinner. We had porkchops with mashed potatoes, it was delicious.
We sat around and visited for a little bit before we crashed for the night...it had been a long two days.
I’ll share our adventures of during our trip in my next edition of the D.L.