Traveling home doesn't have to be boring

We left Yellowstone through the south entrance and spent the night in Grand Teton National Park. It's kind of a 2-for-1 if you're visiting Yellowstone as they butt up against each other.

We stayed in a cute little cabin with rocking chairs. I would have spent more time on the rocking chairs but the mosquitos were fierce that evening.

The next morning we did a lakeside hike to see more of the Tetons. On our walk, we found a beach and some skipping stones. Sean was actually really good at skipping rocks.

The kids, Jackson Lake, and the Grand Tetons

We drove back to Rexburg, Idaho, where Tom's brother David and his family live. We had found out before our trip that we would coincidentally be in the area the weekend of his daughter Brittany's baptism.

Kelly, Brittany, and Sean after the baptism

We spent time with the family (including Tom's parents, who were just starting their summer RV trip) Friday night and Saturday before heading south to Utah.

My older sister Julie lives in northern Utah and offered to make us a yummy Mexican dinner. It was awesome to have a home-cooked meal after a week on the road and eating out of the car and restaurants. Her two sons were there too but I didn't get a picture of them.

But we did get a picture of Sean with my sister's enormous cat, Beaux. He weighs about 30 lbs!

After dinner we had to get some more miles closer to home so we drove late and crashed for the night in Beaver, UT. We got up the next morning drove through rural southern Utah on our way to Antelope Canyon in northern Arizona.

You may have never been here but you'd recognize photos of Antelope Canyon. It's been on the cover of National Geographic and is a Windows screensaver. I took about 100 photos and none really do it justice.

One final family photo in the canyon

Final tally for the trip:

10 days

2630 miles

6 states

7 lodgings

3 sblings visited

2 college kids visited

1 baptism

3 bear cubs

2 bison burgers consumed (and 1 bison meatloaf)

2 teens who didn't kill each other

29.4 miles walked

Your reward for reading all the way to the end: "How far is it to somewhere?"

This is my recollection of my father's story: He was a younger hiker and coming down from a multi-day, off-trail backpacking trip that would end at a popular trailhead inside a national park. He was about a quarter mile from the trailhead when he met a woman just starting up the trail. She looked unprepared and already winded from her minor exertion. She looked at my dad and asked him, "How far is it to somewhere?" And thus a family story was born.

What's more American than Yellowstone?

We left my brother's house on Tuesday morning and headed north through the only real rain of our whole trip. We traveled through the east side of Idaho (don't worry, we'll be back) and ended up at the west edge of Yellowstone National Park.

As I have zero desire to meet grizzlies in the wild, we opted instead to visit an animal sanctuary set up for grizzlies and wolves that are orphaned or nuisance animals. These are some impressive carnivores!

Since Arizona doesn't observe Daylight Savings Time, our sun goes to bed very early, like before 8:00 the beginning of July. Combine Daylight Savings with northern latitudes, and we were confused the whole trip about how long it stayed light at night. Here we are at 9 p.m, after hiking down a steep trail to the top edge of Yellowstone's Lower Falls. It was crisp -- the only night I wore my jacket -- but not at all dark.

We woke up of the Fourth of July to go horseback riding through Yellowstone. It was a beautiful day and a perfect way to celebrate America's birthday. We saw more bison and elk to complement the ones we'd seen the night before. We saw a mama bear and three cubs later that morning but they look like little black dots in the photos across the meadow!

On our way through the north side of the park we stopped to see Mammoth Hot Springs. I think one of the most impressive things about Yellowstone is how varied the different areas are within a short distance.

Our afternoon was spent whitewater rafting, a first for me and the kids. No pictures because we opted out of the expensive photo package, but it was great! Class II and III rapids down the Yellowstone River north of the park just into Montana.

We stayed overnight in Gardiner, MT, and had to take a picture with the Yellowstone sign before re-entering the park the next morning.

We drove down the west side of the park and had a picnic along the Firehole River

Thermal activity was the theme of the afternoon, as we hit the various geyser basins. Grand Prismatic Spring lived up to its name and was gorgeously rainbowed.

I had been seeing huckleberry-flavored items for the previous few days and finally got my huckleberry fudge ice cream in the Old Faithful area. The stop was worth it even if it did take circling the parking lot for 25 minutes to find a spot.

But we weren't there just for ice cream. You can't go to Yellowstone and miss seeing Old Faithful erupt. Right on schedule, America's most famous geyser gave us a show to cap our time in Yellowstone.

Stay tuned for the final three days of our vacation -- we're not nearly done with fun!

A brief visit to Utah County

Heading north, we reached Utah County in about four hours. Part of the reason we did this trip during the summer was to catch my brother and his family, who live overseas most of the year and spend part of the summer in Utah. I didn't get any pictures of Eric and Amy, but several of their cute kids.

Matthew (almost 7) and Sean enjoyed playing in the community pool

The area around their neighborhood is still developing, so they weren't as surprised as we were to see antelope across the road.

My nieces ate their snack looking out the back window at the antelope. Lovely crown, Eva (turning 5)

Mia (nearly 3) at the pool. What a little diva!

We saw Ryan for dinner Sunday night and then met up with him on the BYU campus. Of course there was a mandatory stop at the Creamery for ice cream. 

We got dinner at Sean's current favorite, MOD Pizza

Stay tuned, because we've still got a ways north to cover.

"How far is it to somewhere?" part 1

The title comes from an old family story. Maybe I'll tell it at the end of my road-trip postings if I remember. We recently loaded up both of the kids who we can still coerce into coming with us, on a vacation to visit the other two kids, assorted family, and Yellowstone. Here's what we did the first weekend:

We keep driving by Hoover Dam on our way to St. George and I finally convinced Tom to stop and really see it (as opposed to craning our necks from the bypass bridge). It was a busy summer day but not as crowded as I had feared, which became a repeating theme on our trip.

We took a took that took us down into the power plant. I remember doing this as a kid and being amazed by the size of the turbines and the dam.

We met up with Brooke in St. George in time for dinner, Jurassic World, and Dairy Queen that night.

The next morning we got up fairly early and drove about 45 minutes north to do a river/waterfall hike.

The hike is through a slot canyon. By necessity, much of it is through ankle-deep water, which was refreshingly cold. 

At various points we scrambled up rocks, small inclines, and even a ladder (above)

The canyon was beautiful and a perfect day -- warm sun, cool water

After our hike we got lunch on the way home and swam in our hotel's pool for awhile with Brooke. After getting everyone showered, we picked up Brooke and her boyfriend Andrew for dinner and a show.

We saw the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical of Cinderella, which I had somehow never seen before. It was produced in a beautiful red rock amphitheater outside of St. George called Tuacahn.

Theater selfie!

It was A Lovely Night and a great visit to St. George. Now north we go!

This year's dance photos

The dance recital has come and gone, but I just uncovered the DVD with the posed photo from picture day. Many fewer this year, as I only have one daughter still dancing!

Kelly's solo was the Irish princess

Kelly with her longtime dance buddy Bekah, who was the Russian princess

All of the princesses tried to impress the prince

Kelly's class were also the ladies of the court during the ballroom scene

My friends and I were peasant women in the village scene

Gotta catch up somehow!

I have many, many photos on my phone (261 to be exact) documenting the past six weeks. In order to clean up, I'm gonna have to do this rapid-fire. Here's most of May and June up til now:

Tom and I went to St. George to see Brooke walk through graduation for her associate's degree. She now enters her medical radiography program in August.

Sean earned his Golden Scholar award and finished seventh grade

Tom and I went to the Phoenix Comicon. Why? Why not!

Kelly played a lady of the court and had a solo as the Irish princess in the ballet studio's production of Cinderella.

The source of many of my phone's photos was this week's girls camp. Since the girls weren't allowed to have their phones, I tried to take tons of photos on their behalf.

We went horseback riding the first day (note to self: horses take terrible selfies because their faces are long and my arms aren't!)

We were staying up in the mountains and went to the Snowflake LDS Temple to do baptisms. The gray skies eventually opened up into much-needed rain last night.

Now it's a couple weeks of playing catch-up at home (and getting all those photos to the girls) before heading out on anther adventure as a family.

In memoriam of Shadow (2002-2016)

(Note: this was written right after Shadow died two years ago, but I couldn't bring myself to publish it, instead opting for a pictorial tribute. I think I'm finally ready to give her the eulogy she deserved.)

Confession time: I never wanted a dog.

I was raised with cats and still would consider myself more of a "cat person" than a "dog person." A dog attacked and killed my first cat, a horrible memory. But I married a guy who is definitely a dog person. When we were engaged, I recall discussions of his desire to own eight German Shepherds. I swallowed hard and married him anyways.

Ryan, our oldest, was dog-phobic, when he was very young. We never knew what caused it, but he used to start crying when he even heard a dog at a house we were going to visit. So I thought we'd never own a dog, certainly not while I had small children.

In 2002, some friends of ours found a half-grown Labrador puppy wandering around the junior high nearby. No one could find her owners and they asked if we were interested in taking her. It was definitely not the right time to get a dog -- Kelly was 4 months old, and Ryan was still not keen on canines. We went to look at her to be polite but I was so sure we weren't coming home with a dog.

You can probably guess by now how this story goes. Family meets dog. Boy plays with dog instead of cowering in fear. Dog puts on Oscar-winning performance as Good Dog. Father gives mother big puppy-dog eyes. And the next day, despite some very serious misgivings on mother's part, Shadow joins our little family.

She had been called Shadow by her rescuers, and we didn't ever change it. If we had, my top candidate would have been "Hoover," for the way she sucked all the crumbs off the floor and snuck food off the counters when you weren't looking. Cupcakes -- wrappers and all. That gentle retriever mouth swiping a hot dog right out of a toddler's hand without them even noticing.

Despite her eating habits, she never bit the kids, or chewed on the furniture. She rarely barked and didn't see the need to bark or bolt every time the front door opened. She let the little ones climb all over her. Baby Sean used to give her eye, ear, and teeth exams, which she allowed without complaint.

As she grew, she grew on me. I publicly groaned at having to let her in and out all day, but it was nice to have someone who didn't talk back and who was always happy to greet me. Shadow was definitely a "people dog," wanting to park herself where the action was. Usually that meant the inconvenient spot in the high-traffic hallway.

When the kids were all finally in school, she became my workmate, happiest to lay three feet behind in my home office. When she wanted out, she came and put her head in my lap. It was a great reminder to take a break and stretch along with her. Shadow definitely preferred the kids and their energy to my sedentary spot.

Then she started slowing down. She would pant heavily if we walked her too far. She slept more and bounced less. We started to notice her back legs stiffening up, and she started taking arthritis medication. On the charts at the vet, she had crossed from "old" to "elderly." So the discussions about end of life started.

It's hard to judge a dog's pain level because they are programmed to not show discomfort. Even until the end she appeared happy, wagging her tail. But the frequency of her meeting me at the door diminished. There was more sleeping, more accidents. So the conversations with the vet started. How do you let a beloved pet go gracefully? What is quality of life? We didn't want to wait too long, but we had trouble deciding when the time would be right. We talked to the kids about it and no one liked the options. I know it caused Tom some sleepless nights. Who wants to have power of life and death?

Yesterday (May 7, 2016), the decision was thrust upon us. Shadow got violently ill and Tom rushed her to the vet. She was not herself and all of the conversations about timing and choice went out the window. To keep her with us in misery would have been cruel to a dog who brought us so much joy.

So she passed, with her beloved alpha human beside her. The kids are gutted and we all cried without embarrassment. Her presence is missed in every corner of this home. She was the best family dog ever, no contenders accepted.

Whatever we know of heaven and eternity, I know Shadow is in the great dog run in the sky, free of pain and watching over us. We were her family and she was part of ours.