Best Trip EVER

Last week, we went on a family road trip.  It was so awesome.  Pretty much everything about the trip I loved.  I did experience a minor emotional setback early in the trip when we had driven an hour and stopped at a Walmart where I bought ice for our cooler that I then realized we had left at home...in our kitchen...packed with good food that was all going to go bad...but overall, our adventure was absolutely wonderful.  Here's just a strange, cool sight we passed.

The boys were pretty phenomenal in the car.  Sometimes when Brig was on the verge of  having a breakdown, though, I pulled out the bubbles, and that seemed to calm him pretty well.

Our first stop was Lava Beds National Monument in California.  For a park fee of $10, you could explore to your hearts content about 30 caves that are the result of volcanic activity.  We only got to seven of them, but it was well worth the money.  Israel loved them and loved having his very own flashlight.  We got to enjoy most of the caves completely alone.  We really liked that.

But running into people has its perks.  I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to do my self-timer feature, so we got a kind woman in one of the caves to take this picture for us.

Brigham walking with his Dad...with only a little bit of help.

We camped at the lava beds our first night.  Look how well Brigham is standing on his own.  Here he is having himself a can of pork and beans.

Our first night was definitely our coldest.  Israel and Brigham and I were all wearing two shirts, two pairs of pants, two pairs of socks, and jackets.  Hiram, who packed himself, did not come so prepared.  Here he is wearing my pink jacket (which will never be quite the same, I'm afraid) and looking very pretty.=)  The funny/sad thing was that in the night, we had an RV park right next to our tent and intermittently we could hear their space heater blaze on while we lay freezing in our bags. 

It rained much of our first night (fortunately we stayed pretty dry).  In the morning the air was so crisp and clean and smelled wonderfully of Sage.

Lava Beds

On our way to destination #2:  Crater Lake in Oregon.

SO beautiful.

We almost didn't get into the park.  It had snowed the previous night and some cars had already slid off the road, but after an hour maybe, they ended up letting us in.  Much of the road around the lake was closed, and visibility of the lake was pretty dang poor, but we weren't really disappointed.  We think snow-covered trees are gorgeous, and it was fun to play in the snow in June.  Israel sure had a good time.

Just a cute sleeping shot of Brigham.  He is the sweetest.

Everywhere we drove was so picturesque and lovely.  I had to steal a few cat naps, but mostly I tried to stay awake during our travels.  I didn't want to miss a thing.

I love trains and railroad tracks, and I love barns.  What I'd really like is a beautiful coffee table book just full of cool barns, and one filled with trains--they've got to exist right?  Anyway, we passed a LOT of way neat barns in all sizes and colors and stages of decay.  This isn't even one of the better ones, but it was hard to get pictures of a lot of them as we were on winding, two-lane highways without places to pull off.

We had all decided that we wanted pizza.  We hadn't eaten out at all the previous day, so we were craving some grease. After forever of driving and not seeing any place at all to eat, we spotted a play place attached to a pizza place (not often you see that!), so we got off.  The boys had a wonderful time out of the car, getting to climb around.  The temperature down off the mountain was divine.  And, oh, our food was delicious.

Hiram and I splurged a little.  We started with 10 wings a piece (his were hot, mine were barbeque) before starting on an amazing super pepperoni pizza.  Sometimes you have just the perfect eating out experience, where everything tastes wonderful and hits the spot and you don't have to wait too long and you really feel the money was well spent.  This was one of those times.

From Crater Lake, we made our way to the coast.  We wanted to see the California Red Woods.

Yes, we drove our car through a tree, a still-living tree.  Pretty incredible when you think about it.

We had spotted a nice, emptyish beach, and Israel was begging for water, so we stopped here before setting up camp.

This is where we spent our second night.  Beautiful, right?  We liked being the only campers, and we liked the warm showers. 

Here's Israel sitting on Paul Bunyan's foot.  We went to the Trees of Mystery and Sky Ride.  WELL worth the price.  For $30, we got to see some pretty incredible redwoods and then take a gondola ride up through the trees to a beautiful ridge, and we could ride as many times as we wanted.  Brigham seemed bored, but Israel was impressed.

On our third day, we just drove up the 101, stopping at beaches whenever we felt like it.  I really loved the varied weather we had.  We got rain, snow, mist, and bright clear sunshine all in just a few days.

There were so many beautiful wild flowers along the road as we drove.  I wish I could have gotten pictures of all of them.

Israel and Brigham entertained themselves and us by having a yelling match in the back.  Brigham's faces were priceless. 

We took an elevator ride 120 feet down to this sea cave (they claim its the biggest in the world) and got to see these sea lions.  Boy do they stink!

Can you see the snake?  Israel did, and it was a lot cooler to him than a bunch of stinking sea lions.

We were 120 feet above them, and still the smell!

I love this.=)

Some of the Oregon dunes near where we spent our third night.

We enjoyed our first visit to Crater Lake, but we found that we both really wanted to go back and get a better look, so we did.  Why not?

Yes, much better view.  Crater Lake, we learned, is the deepest lake in North America at 1900 feet.  It is considered the cleanest lake in the world, and it gets on average 44 feet of snow every year.  Just some fun facts.  We were impressed.

There's one place that you can walk down to the water.  We promised Israel a ride on the boat, but sadly they weren't running that day.  At least this kind guy let Israel board the boat and play captain for a minute.

This is the jumping rock.

And this is me jumping...into the water. Mind, it had snowed only a couple of days before.  The water was freezing and totally shocking.  I had to remind myself to swim.  But how many opportunities am I going to have to swim in Crater Lake?  It was worth it, and the water was SO cold that hiking back to the car soaking wet in the cold and the wind felt warm.

Look at the color of that water.

Next stop was Idaho.  We stayed the night and Hiram's Aunt's house and then visited with his grandmother the next day before going to Boise to visit Roaring Springs Water Park.  I didn't want to take my camera in, but I got this lovely picture off the web for a visual representation of the fun we had.  There were actually several big slides that Israel was able to go on (this one pictured) as well as a couple big tube slides.  I thought he was pretty darn brave.  The slides, he thought, were alright, but what he really loved was the wave pool, and he thought the lazy river was fun too.

Withing five minutes of leaving the park, both boys were zonked.  Then I zonked, and Hiram took a picture of me, but it is not flattering.  Anyway, the next day was Hiram's family reunion, which we attended, and then we came home.  I tell you, it was nice to sleep in my own bed...and to have Brigham in his.  Camping was fun, though, and I'm really glad we did it.  I loved this trip, being with my family and enjoying the great beauty of our country.  I will remember it forever as one of the best of my life, I am sure.