playing catch up

Ok, so no updates for 3 days because we have been dry camping or been without WiFi. And so much has happened! I will try to recount what I remember.

Monday
We left Flagstaff at around noon and headed north! We saw the Little Colorado River, and the actual Colorado River! Then I finally started my vacation, because it didn't seem real until we crossed a state line. We got into Southern Utah and noticed all the church steeples in every town! Ward after ward of LDS, so we were surprised and happy to see Big Rock Candy Mountain! Although not the original mountain, it was still a very nice restaurant and RV park as the only patrons of the restaurant and the RV park we definitely saw that 3 was a crowd for them! hahaha, we never saw anyone but the staff the whole time we were there.

This was also the day we experimented with me sitting in the passenger seat and mom sitting in the back seat of the truck. We had mentioned trying that out since this trip was originally a father/daughter road trip and mom's presence meant I no longer got the passenger seat! (I have never ridden in the front of a car on a road trip with my family). If you know me at all, you know that as a passenger I am very easy going - you can listen to whatever music you want, have the AC at the temp you want, and I will sit quietly in the back reading a book, or listening to my ipod.

Well, we put mom in the backseat and it was nonstop "turn the AC down" "change the balance on the speakers" "Turn the AC vent off of me" "Turn up/down the volume" "let me see the ipod" "can you hand me this" "will you take this and put it there?" It was funny but we all realized that mom was not a backseat passenger and after a couple hours we put her back in front. She claims she was content back there and liked all the room, but you would never know it because she never stayed quiet. It was really funny, and the next morning mom offered to sit in the back again but dad decided she would be a better hood ornament than backseat rider.

Tuesday
We left Big Rock Candy Mountain (we didn't have any candy but the cinnamon rolls were yummy)and headed north! again! This time we got through Provo, Salt Lake, and Ogden - it definitely felt like a megalopolis and it was the only time we stayed on interstate. We got out of Utah and entered Idaho - this was also the day we saw our first deer, and maybe elk, so it started to feel like vacation. We saw lots of snow capped peaks and even started driving in some very snow covered areas! we saw vast open meadows of snow that were covered in snowmobile tracks and it definitely got cold! I think we even saw it dip into the 40s in the afternoon. We were laughing all day long and were glad to have a bathroom attached to the truck.

We left Idaho and got into Wyoming, spending the night in a podunk town named Alpine. Dad looked at the map and called the Yellowstone road hotline to see which roads were open. Turns out we were planning to enter from the south entrance (which would let us go through the Grand Tetons too!) but it was closed. So Wednesday started with a detour back into Idaho to come into Yellowstone from the west entrance.