Days 15 & 16: Headed Home

The past 2 days have been spent primarily in the car. Of the last 48 hours more than half of them have been spent in the car. That means a lot of sleep and a lot of movies. There were a few funny and interesting things that happened along the way though. Yesterday we drove out of Arizona and through New Mexico to end up in Lubbock, Texas. We stopped a few times, but nothing major. The only stop that was a little interesting yesterday was one of the places we stopped for gas was in a little town called Happy, Texas, and in happy when you pull up to their gas station the meet you at the driver door and pump your gas for you. It was a different experience than we Florida girls were use to. The place was loaded with real cowboys and apparently gentlemen. that was about all that happened yesterday that was very interesting.

Today, however, we had a few more memorable stops. When we stopped at out first rest stop today Mom and Dad got out, but since we had been sleeping the rest of us moved a little slower. After sitting a while Austin and I decided to get out while we were there. When we came out of the bathrooms and were walking towards the car we realized Dad was driving away. About that same time Britt asked Dad if he realized Austin and I were not in the car. Apparently he didn't and slammed on brakes. It was a close call. Austin and I almost got left at a rest stop in west Texas. That's a long way from home!

Our next stop was a little farther down the road. We stopped at a place called Buc-ee's. Apparently it is the pride of Texas. When we went in we didn't know what to expect. It had home-goods section, a souvenir section, a deli, and a section that looked like an over sized gas station, but not quite big enough to be a grocery store. They had everything. We just used the restrooms, looked around and bought a few cookies. But now we have been to Buc-ee's.

The last "stop" we made was to turn around and take a picture of a sign outside a business. Keep in mind that we are in TEXAS and we saw a sign that read "Get away with murder, Kill them in Florida." That is horrible that the rest of nations feels so strongly about Florida now. Such a disgrace to our state.

Tomorrow we are stopping in New Orleans then Sunday we will be home! Now that we are on the home stretch we can't wait to be home! Only 2 more days, this vacation flew by!

Day 14: Grand Canyon

Today we saw the Grand Canyon. To sum it up, it was place you have to see once, but once you’ve seen it, it all kind of looks the same. The good views of the canyon are only accessible by riding the shuttle buses or hiking the trails, so naturally we hiked… psych… we took the shuttle buses. The buses dropped you off at various look out points and then the next bus would be by to pick you up in about 10-15 minutes. Some of the stops that were kind of close together we hiked to. I expected most all of the rim to have guardrails, but the truth was very few portions had rails. Most places you could walk right out to the edge if you wanted and a lot of people did. However, like I said earlier, once you saw it… you saw it so we didn’t stay there as long as I thought we would.

After we finished the shuttle route we drove our car around the other side of the canyon, but we only stopped once. We stopped at the tower on the southeast rim of the canyon, but once we got to it, it began to storm. At first it was just a light rain, but as we were headed back towards the car lightening struck in the canyon and we began to move a little faster. We safely made it to our car and began our drive to our next nights stop.

On the way we came across a little stand with Native American goods so we stopped to look, but while we were there the rain caught up to us and it was much harder now. A lot of the goods and jewelry were set up outside so we helped the woman working the stand get all of her things inside. While we were collecting the jewelry the rain was coming down sideways so we were getting soaked! The Indian lady gave us a bag of Buffalo Jerky for helping her. We really wanted to try it, but not for 12 dollars so we were excited when she gave it to us! We finished shopping then headed on to our hotel for the night, but before we called it a night we stopped at Cracker barrel and ate some yummy food. It made up for the lunch we didn’t eat. Once we got to the hotel we settled down and watched some TV. then caught up on the bachelorette. It was a relaxing evening since I am sure we will be up and on the road very early in the morning.

Funny Comments:

Austin- 8 am: I am not talking the rest of the day!

Day 13: Hoover Dam

Today was a pretty short day. We got up and checked out of the hotel around 8:30. Even at that time there were still a few people up gambling. They looked so very tired. We were pretty tired ourselves being that we went to bed later than normal.

When we left the hotel we drove up the strip. Pawn Stars pawn shop was at the north end of the strip. They didn’t open until 9 and when we drove by at 8:55 there was a line down the building. Mom was trying to take pictures, but they didn’t turn out the first time so we went around the block. When we came by the second time they were letting people in so we stopped to go inside. It was much smaller than it looks on the show. They also had a section devoted to souvenirs whish was the busiest section. They t.v. show people weren’t out in the shop, they stay in the back unless something good comes in. It was still cool to see the place where the show is filmed.

Once we left there we only had a few hours to go to get to the Hoover Dam. Hoover Dam was huge and pretty scary to look over. We didn’t go down in the dam, but we walked over it then drove over it. We didn’t stay there long because it was extremely hot! Once we got back in the car our phones started going off and the madness began. This is when we all found out about the Casey Anthony trial. I don’t think I will forget where I was when I first heard the news.

After Hoover Dam it was about 3 hours to our KOA at the Grand Canyon. We didn’t feel like driving the extra hour up to the canyon since it was already late afternoon and the rain was coming so instead we went to the rec room and did laundry and homework. Then we ate dinner at the Koa and went to bed early. This day was short, but it was a very well needed rest. Tomorrow is our last major stop at the Grand Canyon then we are headed home.

Funny comments:

Britt- Is that Elvis? Yep, it’s an impostinator! (Impersonator + Imposter = Impostinator)

Britt- Hoover dam, is that a human made dam or beaver dam?

Day 12: VEGAS BABY!

Vegas… Need I say more? We left Salt Lake City around 9. Dad let us sleep in then he and Austin went down and got us breakfast and brought it back up to us. That was very sweet of them. We ate then got on the road to Vegas.

We got to Vegas around 3 and went straight to our hotel. We stayed at the Imperial Palace which is part of Caesars palace chain. When we walk in we knew we were in a very different place. The lobby was a large Casino with impersonators on a stage. We had to wait in line about an hour just to check in. Once we check in we went up to our room in the 11th floor which had an amazing view of the strip. We changed then headed out for dinner. We had not had lunch so an early dinner was called for. We ended up at Jimmy Buffets Margaritaville Restaurant. It was an awesome place; the inside was decorated like the islands. They even had a dinner show. 3 men on stilts and an island girl in a bikini came out and put on a little show. The best place we could have picked for dinner!

After dinner we went back up to our room to let our food settle before going shopping. Shopping in Vegas was great! Austin bought me the cutest purse ever and Britt and I bought souvenirs. Britt took a little longer finding her souvenirs so Austin and I walked down the strip a little ways taking pictures. However, we were a little pressed for time because our limo was going to be at our hotel at 9 to pick us up. SO after getting all our souvenirs we rushed back to the hotel.

The limo ride was great. He took us to all the places we wanted to see and took our picture once we got there. Our first stop was the Pawn Stars shop. The lobby was closed, but we took a picture outside. Then after riding down the strip we stopped at the welcome to Vegas sign to take another picture. We then got back in the limo and rushed to the Bellagio to see the 10 o’clock water show. While the water was going off we drove around the fountain in the limo. After the water show we went back to the hotel and he dropped us off. We then decided to walk over to Caesar’s Palace so we could go inside. That place was huge! The lobby that you see on the Hangover is just 1/3 of the bottom floor that we walked through. Pars of it looked just like the Hangover, but other parts didn’t even look like the same place. After we walked over there a few hours had passed and they were ready to hit the sack. I wanted to stay out longer being that we were only there one night, but there was no way I would ever walk that street alone. It was a scary place for a young girl but when I was walking with Austin and felt protected it was a great city to see. Well that was Vegas and I don’t know if I’ll ever get a chance to go back but I can now say I have been to Vegas!

Funny comments:

Britt- Dad, do you even know how to play poker? Dad- I aight even played go swim!!

Day 11: Hello Whitewater!

This has been an extremely long day! We started very early this morning leaving camp around six. We headed down to the Grand Tetons and Jackson Hole. The first few hours me Britt and Austin slept! We woke up to beautiful mountains surrounding us. These were the Teton Mountains. The difference about these mountain and was they seemed to be independent mountains, instead of being a chain that looked like they met about half way up these didn't seem to meet until the ground. They were like one single mountain beside another single mountain, but they were still capped in snow and beautiful!

South of Grand Tetons we stopped in Jackson Hole. It was a beautiful town and full of people on vacation. We ate lunch at a hole in the wall burrito shop called D.O.G. Momo's shack. There were tons of college age students eating there who looked like they just woke up from a long night. The food was good though and fairly cheap.

After letting our food settle we headed down to the boat house for out white water rafting trip down the snake river. The water definitely was cold, but it felt great in the 90 degree weather. Sitting on those rubber boats was like sitting on a frying pan so going through the rapids and getting soaked was nice. Austin was picked along with another young guy to be the head rowers. He sat at the front of the boat and got the worst of the crashing water, but he never fell out! The other guy did get thrown out during the worst rapids and went into shock from the cold water, but we got him back in the boat. Only Dad Britt Austin and I went, but Mom traveled down the road taking pictures! It was a ton of fun!

After rafting we had to get back on the road and get down to Salt Lake City. Getting there was a little rough cause we had to take some crazy curvy mountain roads to get to the interstate and it felt like we would never make it but we did and the fun didn't stop there. It was our first night to get to stay in a Holiday Inn Express, we were so excited to get there, but once we got there we discovered we were at the wrong one. We had booked a hotel further south, but I thought it was this one. So we took our bags back out and got back in the car again. It was 9:30 and that lunch from noon was long gone! So once we got close to our actual hotel, we ran into Olive Garden and got Soup, Salad, and Bread sticks to go. When we got to the correct hotel we found out we had booked a suit. It was so nice, kitchen, 2 bedrooms and a bathroom in the room (Mom specially liked the 2 separate flat screen tv's). That was a huge improvement from the Koa's. There we sat down and ate dinner which made it all worth it. The best food so far on the trip and a fluffy bed to sleep in. It was fantastic. I can't wait to go to sleep and sleep in tomorrow! This is going to be great!

Day 10: Last Day in Yellowstone.

Today was our last day in Yellowstone so we made sure to see everything we hadn't seen yet. It was pretty much the day we rode the entire loop! We didn't have to stop at Old Faithful or any of the other geysers we had already seen but the large loop of Yellowstone takes an entire day to see! We drove over the Continental Divide a few times and took some pictures naturally. We had 2 ultimate destinations today: West Thumb Geyser Basin on Yellowstone Lake and Mammoth Hot Springs. If you know anything about Yellowstone you know these two places are on th eopposite corners of the park and Yellowstone is a lot bigger than I thought once we started driving it! Fortunately, West Thumb Geyser Basin was right on the shore of Yellowstone Lake so we were able to see both things at one time.There were a few geysers in the shallow water of the lake, they looked like mini volcanos under water!

The next major stop was Mammoth Hot Springs in North Yellowstone. It took a couple hours to get there with a few minor stops. One stop was lunch. We went to a picnic area on the Yellowstone river, but the water was so high some of the tables were under water. Across the river a Buffalo was layin in the sun. I never thought I would sit and eat lunch so close to a wild animal! After lunch we finally made it to Mammoth. There we shopped at the gift shop longer than we saw the springs. We were about geysered out!

Along the route we also stopped at the Mud Volcano and Dragon's Mouth Spring. Originally we stopped for the Mud Volcano but Dragon's Mouth was much cooler. It really sounded like a dragon blowing smoke. These were just a few extra stops we took. On our way back to the camp 3 wolves ran across the road in front of us! This was the only wild animal we hadn't seen, but we were told we wouldn't see them! After seeing them we went in a store and told some of the locals what we saw and they had a fit. The girl said she had lived there 24 years and never saw a single wolf. She was very upset and said she was going to have to search out that area. Apparently, it isn't normal to see a wolf, much less up close and during the day, and we saw 3 really up close! It was an awesome end to Yellowstone. We leave in the morning headed south towards Las Vegas!!

Funny Comments:

Austin- (after spotting a mule deer)"Deer, Duck, Beer, Bo.. HORNS! Worth turning around for!"

Dad- "Sheepeater Cliff!" Mom, Britt, Austin-"She peed her cliff?"

Day 9: Horseback and Old Faithful

Today was probably Brittany's favorite day. We finally want horseback riding. Brittany;s main request was that we went horseback riding at Yellowstone. It was extremely fun and something we really enjoyed. Mom couldn't go because of her back, but Dad, Austin, Britt, and I had a great time. The best part of the rise was definitely when Dad got thrown off the horse! Britt dropped her sweatshirt off the horse and it spooked Dad;s horse so the horse reared up and turned and threw Dad off. He was okay but it sure was funny! The ride was about 2 and a half hours and so peaceful. We all really enjoyed it even though we are sore now!

After horseback riding we were so hungry we just went and got McDonald's for lunch. After that quick stop we headed back through the park. Our first stop was at the grand prismatic geyser. We were told this is one of the best things in Yellowstone. That man that gave us the map told us about a little hidden trail that once you get up gives you a breath taking view, he was right! From the ground you could only see colored steam, but after taking a pretty difficult hike up the side of the hill the view was indescribable! I truly believe that may be the most beautiful piece of nature in all of America. It was insane how that geyser had so many distinct neon colors! Absolutely jaw droppingly gorgeous!

Next we made our way down to Old Faithful. The man told us the best view was from the second floor balcony of the Old Faithful Inn. We got to the Inn at 4:10 but he next eruption wasn't supposed to be until 5:05 so we just went on up to the balcony and waited. It was worth the wait to get such great seats so that I could take a lot of good pictures. Old Faithful really is the central icon of Yellowstone and it is for a reason. It's strength, power, and beauty! Tomorrow is our last day in Yellowstone and I cant wait to see what else the park has to show!

Funny Comments:

Dad- What's my horses name? Hey dog go?!? Suzanne- No, Hildalgo!

Suzanne on the phone with Grandma Maggie- We saw old faithful today! Gma-You saw old people??