The drive home, day 2

Today took FOR.EV.ER. The drive from Reno home is not as entertaining or beautiful as I thought and hoped it would be... although I was really impressed with Reno & Carson City-- who knew?!? Seriously beautiful there. (Note to self... if we ever move to Nevada, we're heading north... NOT to Vegas.)

However, we did stop for lunch in one of my most favorite places... the Silver Lake Resort in the June Lake Loop. My family has been fishing there since my dad was a little boy (and my grandpa probably went there before that!). The family that owns the resort have allowed it to grow without it feeling like its overgrown. Its a quaint little fishing resort and I love going there.

 After lunch in the cafe we walked around for a little bit, I showed the kids Papa & Grandma Cheri's cabin #3, the duck pond, Papa's fishing spot, and the little stream. It was fun to walk around and see all the sites. Jacob was really sad Papa wasn't there, he wanted to go fishing. (Hopefully he can do that soon.) Before long it was time to get back in the car and move on down the road.

We made another pit stop in Bishop at Schat's Bakery for treats... because you can't drive through Bishop without stopping.

Then began the long, torturous drive through the Mojave desert... and it took so dang long to get home. I guess because you know you're "close" to home you expect it to go quickly but Bishop home is still 5 (or so) hours and those hours... oh.my.goodness. could not have passed any slower.

Now, we're home. Everyone's happy to be out of the car. Naomi & Alice have both stopped crying, which is good since they pretty much have been crying since Bishop.

We had a wonderful 12 days. We loved our trip, but its good to be home.

Now we look forward to playing as much as possible in the next 2 weeks because school starts on August 16th.

The drive home, day 1

Today we started the long and winedy road home... literally. There is no direct route from Boise to LA and so we took some very scenic and not so scenic back roads to to get from Boise to Reno today. Tomorrow we'll finish the drive along the Eastern Sierra's and then into the desert and onto home.

But the road today... talk about the middle of nowhere! As we left Boise we really had no idea where we were going to stop for the night because we didn't really know how long it would take us to get to the "major" cities along the way and we really weren't sure how the kids would do.

When we stopped in Winnemucca (disgusting!) for lunch we talked about pressing past Reno because it seemed like if we stopped there we'd be in for the longer haul tomorrow. We checked out hotels in South Lake Tahoe and Mammoth and then just decided to wait and see what the afternoon brought.

By the time we got to Reno everyone was hungry and had to go potty. Everyone of us was D.O.N.E. being in the car. We planned to stop at Costco in Reno for gas and pulled into town just 10 minutes before the gas station was supposed to close... only to discover Costco in Reno doesn't have a gas station (even though its listed on the website) so we drove around for a while trying to find a gas station in a city we knew nothing about and was totally under road construction. By the time we got gas and found somewhere to eat John & I both decided we were calling it a night and staying in Reno.

I used hotwire and hotels.com to find something while John helped the kids get their shoes on. I found a 4.5 star hotel for $104 (lower stars were close to the same price... but I don't stay in anything lower than a 3 and even those are pushing it. We've had some 3 star doosies before).

Much to our surprise we were staying in the Atlantis Hotel on the Concierge Level! We were all very excited when we road the glass elevator all the way up to floor 24! The view of the city was amazing... as was the room!

Of course the kids went nuts-o-craze-o as soon as we got out of the car and they had a little room to move. I turned on the Olympics and started baths while John went back and forth to the car for forgotten items like "Aaah guys" and pillows. (He's a really good, kind Dad. I wasn't as understanding.)

Finally we called it a night.
Who knows what adventures tomorrow will bring.

Meldrum Family Reunion

The whole reason why we even ended up in Utah this past week so because today was the Meldrum Family Reunion in Boise. We got to see lots of family and learn a little more about our heritage. (well John & the kids...)

 {Virginia, Grant, Don, George*, Grandma Ruth, Caroline, & Grandma Kenneth}

*George is John's dad

 Melissa & Krista were so very helpful all day with the kids, thanks girls!

 {Mike, Michelle, Caroline, Ken, Carri, Julie, Joel, and Marilyn}

 {Krista, Melissa, John, Julie, & Paul}

 {Tom, Virginia, and some of their granddaughters}

 {and what's a Meldrum Reunion, hosted by Don in Boise, without a little Bigfoot information... presented by Jeff himself?!?!}

Once the reunion was over we took a little adventure over to Boise State University to see if we could take a picture of their "Smurf Turf" as my brother calls it. Unfortunately the stadium was closed, but we found a place where we could see a small glimpse of the field anyway.

Then we did something probably even more random... we went with Julie, Joel, & Kaden to Cabela's to see the giant fish aquarium. The kids loved it. I thought all the catfish were disgusting.

 We also let the kids drive some off-road vehicles for a little while. (I think we ended up being there for a couple of hours.)

 After that we had Cafe Rio for dinner, said our goodbyes to the extended family, and went back to the hotel to get ready to start our drive home tomorrow.