After celebrating Finley’s 6th birthday from morning to night on the 30th of May, we were ready to set off on our road trip through the USA at about 10 pm!
Don and Chris took turns driving all through the night through the states of Oregon, Nevada and into Utah while Finley and I did lots of napping! We experienced a little excitement in the city of Lakeview where we had planned to fill up on gas for the first time after 3 hours, only to find out that the gas station was already closed and wouldn’t open up again until 6 am the next morning… Well we really didn’t want to hang around there for ~5 hours! So we took our chances, Don saving gas by driving only going 50 mph, and carried on through the night for another 4 hours! We reached the city of Winnemucca at 5 AM which was our first gas stop after 200 miles and all let out a breath of relief!
Our first stop was in Brigham City to visit our friends AJ, Alison, with their four boys Arlo, Cache, Cam, and Boone! Finley of course was in heaven meeting up with his buddies again and happy to play all day long! We had a few great days recovering from our night trip, meeting the in-laws, nice dinners, playing frisbee golf and visiting a water park! And when it was time to say our goodbyes we didn’t even have to be sad as we knew the Andersens were going to join us in Southern Utah at the end of the week!
We spent most of Monday, June 2nd, on the road heading to Zion National Park in Southern Utah. The first night we found a nice little spot just outside the national park to set up our camp! Only when we got out of the car did we realize how hot it was!!
The next few days we explored the trails and beautiful area of Zion.
As we love camping, we all had a great time on the gorgeously situated campsites of the national parks…
One of the highlights for Finley was to take part in the Junior Ranger Program! And after working quite hard on an activity booklet and joining a dinosaur discovery program, he took the oath to become a Junior Ranger of the Zion National Park!
After three nights we headed out of this gorgeous park on the beautiful Zion-Mount Carmel Highway passing many scenic overlooks and not being able to get enough photos of the area!
And before we knew it, we found ourselves in a place unlike any other area we had ever been in: Bryce Canyon!
Weathering and erosion shape the statuesque rock features in this unique park which they call Hoodoos and wandering in between these strange looking rocks made us feel like we were wandering on another planet!
And after the success of the Junior Ranger Program in Zion, we were glad to learn that Bryce Canyon had a similar program and Finley worked hard to earn his badge again!
Soon it was time to move on again… We were meeting up with AJ’s family in the Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument.
Without them we would have never found the greatest slot canyons we’ve ever been in and would have probably just driven through this land of rock, desert, canyons and washes!
On the first day we explored the epic Peek-A-Boo Slot Canyon and the Spooky Slot Canyon! Well, the names say it all already!
After the fun exploring during the day, we had nice meals in the evening and of course lots of space for the kids to play around the campground…
The next day we had a special day at the Calf Creek Falls.
On our last day together we set off for another grand adventure in the desert – the Zebra Slot Canyon!
After three days of fun, we had to leave our friends behind who still had to wait a couple of days to get their car fixed…
The last National Park we visited in Utah was Arches!
And although we didn’t get a spot in the camping ground inside the park, we were really happy with the site we found not far outside of Moab right next to the famous Colorado River.
On June 11th, we knew we had quite a few miles to go… So after stopping at the Dead Horse Point which they call the Grand Canyon of Utah, we were on our way to Colorado!
Once again we became witnesses of how special our world can be… It was just crazy to see the change in the scenery around us in such a short time! After only four hours we found ourselves in a place that looked much more than home and didn’t have a lot in common with the desert-like area we had just been in!
Just a two hour drive later we met up with another one of Chris’ dear friends, Jen who lives in a cute house in the middle of the woods with a lot of Norwegian influence…
Unfortunately we couldn’t stay too long as we still had a long way ahead of us! Chris and Finley were signed up for a race in Iowa and we still had many miles to go! Once again the scenery began to change and the world around us got flatter and flatter. Mountains were exchanged for corn fields…. We stopped for a night next to a reservoir in Nebraska and slept in the car (well most of did, Chris opted to sleep out in the wind ;-), before we arrived in Des Moines, Iowa the following day in the late afternoon! Yes, that was a lot of driving we did… And unbelievable to see how huge this country is with so much open space and so many miles and miles of no cities or any population at all! We also realized once again that you really have to plan your stops ahead as there aren’t gas stations and rest areas around every corner like in Europe.
The next few days we spent with Aunt Sandy and Uncle Al in Des Moines.
After another three hour drive yesterday, we reached our next destination Minnesota where we are going to spend the next ~ 12 days walking in the footsteps of Chris’ ancestors, meeting up with relatives and exploring the area…
As I am writing this, we are also realizing it’s exactly one month until we fly home to Austria on July 15th! And it does feel a little like … the final countdown!
May 30 – June 15, 2014
three lykes on the road again 