Almost there!

Well, Day 3 was a pretty good day; a boring drive, but a good day. We crossed from Kansas into Colorado and just after crossing the border, no joke, tumbleweed rolled across the highway in front of us - kind of an indication of the kind of drive we faced on the eastern side of the state. We pulled into J&L’s place in Aurora and enjoyed a nice family dinner with L’s extended family that had gotten together for his brother’s birthday (Happy Birthday, Chad!).

J&L opened their home to us and let us join their family for dinner, then their beautiful daughter continued to play with the kids and they had a fantastic time, the three of them. H & K taught that poor girl all kinds of bad habits (running like banshees in the restaurant, jumping in her bed, etc.), but she is such a well behaved little sweetheart that I’m sure she’ll be able to “unlearn” many of them in quick order.

The following morning, when it was time to leave, the kids wanted to stay, or take Miss B with them or in some fashion extend our time together and I can’t say that I blame them, we all had so much fun. The drive that followed was the hardest day thus far – through the Rockies and down through all of the ski towns and into Utah. The ski towns are all in out-of-season repair and disarray, and I had a heck of a time finding a place for H to use the restroom, and he ended up having to use the side of the road again for lack of better options, poor monkey.

Since I had mis-remembered or simply goofed up where our next stop was, and M&T lived in a different part of the greater Salt Lake City area, I had to kind of “wing it” and drive off of my carefully outlined and Trip-tik’d route. It ended up being much smaller highways which were very pretty, but a little scary thinking of the “what-ifs” of breakdowns, flat tires or animals running in front of the vehicle and wiping out the car. Entering Utah was interesting, it got very rainy, hard, blowing rain and it was pretty ugly. Then, heading into Salt Lake, the weather was poopy or more specifically, it was wicked hazy and just ugh!

But, when all was said and done, we arrived safely, and it was a nice visit, if again too short. I haven’t had a chance to catch up with them in forever, since we all left NH, but as with many things, life just gets in the way and you do what you can to keep in touch.

We left M&T's place bright and early, and headed toward Mountain Home AFB in Idaho, but since we arrived nearby super early, we kept going and ended up making it nearly to central OR. We holed up in a hotel that has an indoor pool and once I'm done updating here, we're heading to swim and wear ourselves out there.

We should be to my mom's early tomorrow afternoon (just 200+change miles to go), and this portion of our road trip over. It was a rough few days, and I probably should have broken it up more and seen the sights, but to be honest, the kids were traveling so well that I hated the thought of stopping for much of anything!