On the Road Again

Man, I REALLY need to get caught up!

So here's the trip out to St Louis :-)

One thing I LOVE about Idaho is the sky.

It is so big and beautiful!

And that makes the sunsets ever brighter, bigger and more colorful!

Goodbye beautiful big sky!

I was so excited to start the drive! We ended up leaving FIVE HOURS later than we thought we would :-( But I had a hard time rushing myself to say goodbye.

Because we left so late, I was unable to stop in Idaho Falls and see my friend Miriam again :-(

It was a bummer, but at least I got to see her once, and I am SO grateful for the internet so that even though we DON'T see each other very often, we still remain very close!

So we headed straight down to Salt Lake for our dinner date with two old high school friends!

Years ago, on my FIRST drive away from home,

When I was first done with college and heading down to Florida,

I stopped and stayed the night with Kandis,

It was really neat that I got to do it again on this drive. Yet really sad that I haven't seen her SINCE the last time I drove down to Florida! :-P

Also our friend Katie brought her two boys out to Kandis' apartment so we had 3 kids running around like crazy, late at night! And I hadn't seen Katie since HIGH SCHOOL!

(Oh, we are all getting so OLD! It's crazy!)

It was great catching up and seeing how much we have all grown and changed, and how much we have stayed the same since high school!

BUT

We were really dumb and forgot to take ANY pictures!

What is up with that?

After leaving Kandis' house the next morning we headed off toward Wyoming.

Our first stop was a Ghost Town called Fort Steele.

It was really neat because it was in the process of being somewhat renovated. So there were markers everywhere letting you know what things were, or what happened in certain places, but there was still a LOT of things you could find all on your own!

So while SOME buildings were there, most of it was just the foundations!

And everything that was still around it from fires, age and old destructions.

And some parts of it were just big fields.

I'm sure if we had a metal detector we would have come home with some neat things!

This picture was just so "Laura Ingles Wilder" I couldn't help myself!

In the background is one of the buildings under rennovation.

Fort Steele started as a military base in the 1800's

But after the Indian threat had been reduced it turned into a mining town, and sheep town with a railroad going right next to it. In the early 1900's it had a bit of a resurgence when a highway was built through it, but the highway was rerouted and the city died out.

The last original building is the armory about a mile away from the actual town.

The last original building INSIDE the town was burned down in the 70's by vandals.

Our goal that night was Cheyenne,

little did we know that there was a HUGE wester festival,

Irish music festival (well, I knew that one, I was hoping to make that one)

And a fair going on!

There were NO hotels within 6 hours of Cheyenne in either direction! :-P

And we know this because we stopped at EVERY exit around cheyenne until 4 in the morning trying to find a hotel! Finally we gave up and spent the next 3 hours at a rest stop!

That's when I woke up to the sound of Makayla throwing up in the back seat :-(

After cleaning everything up (2 more times!) we found out we were really close to the "Home of Koolaid"! So we HAD to go! There was a county fair going on with rides and animals, but it wasn't open yet (seeing as it was only about 8am!) So we stopped in a nearby park for some outside time.

Then on to the home of Koolaid!

Too bad the Visitor's Center was closed,

And that we missed the Annual Koolaid Festival by one week :-P

But we did get to see the big guys feet prints!

We decided since Makayla still looked a little green,

and my Mom and I were still getting over our "deathly ill" sickness from a week ago,

it might be a better idea to avoid all the fun rides.

So we opted for a picnic lunch at Mormon Island instead!

When we pulled in, we saw a beautiful lake that was just BEGGING to be swam in.

So we obliged ;-)

It was GREAT! And just what we needed to re-energize ourselves after a miserable night looking for Hotels. (shake angry fist at Cheyenne!)

We had planned on spending one more night and only driving 6-7 hours each day.

But I got a little anxious to get to Jordan. He has been traveling with the office so they aren't even home from monday-saturday. And it was sunday, so if we didn't get there that night we would see him until saturday NIGHT! :-(

So after a brief stop to try and wake up, we got the car washed, played at McDonalds, and headed off to make it to St Louis!

It was SO wonderful to have my mom on the drive!

She helped out with the kids SO much, and I KNOW I would not have made it through the "Cheyenne Disaster" without her!

She kept me sane, awake and helped keep me and the kids entertained!

It was GREAT!

AND when we got to St Louis, she helped me unpack (because after living there a month, Jordan still hadn't unpacked, silly boys!) and she even CLEANED MY KITCHEN!

I have decided that every time I move, my Mom is coming with me!

And this is just a cool picture from Idaho.

Why? Cuz my daughter is a rock star.

Stay Tuned for St Louis with my Mom

and Finally a HUGE "catch you up" post that will bring us FINALLY up to date on blogging!

Until then!

XOXO