Princess @I liked the swings because I got to play when I first got there. After that I ate some lunch and I played with my cousins. It was really fun.@
Superstar ~At the beginning I was just walking around, not really doing anything. I ended up playing a little bit with JT on the playground set and then pushing Princess on the tire swing. There were other small kids that joined the tire swing, but all of them left dizzy.~
Takes after his old man.
S: ~It was sad when we had to say goodbye to all the rest of our family. I also got to dip my toes in the really cold water on the really hot day.~
John-Thomas #During the park, I did this amazing thing. I didn't know how to get down. I was stuck. But then I found a cool way to get down: I could jump! The first time I jumped, hoping I would land on my feet. When my feet slammed into the ground, it was so hard that I had to use my hands. I tried over and over and I finally made the point where I jumped off and I didn't have to use anything to get down. So I showed Superstar and I think I showed Princess, and then I did it a couple more times. And then we left.#
Joy: "We sat by Dustin and Christine. It was nice to spend some time with them."
Friday after dinner at the park we drove 5 hours into Colorado and stopped at a hotel in Grand Junction. I brought in the luggage and carried my sleeping children to the room. When Princess woke up, she felt very grateful, because she knew I must have carried her into the soft bed.
S: ~In the hotel, they s a i d they served breakfast.~
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| My future football players, tired after a hard game |
One of the biggest impacts of Covid to our trip was the devastation of the hotel breakfast bar. Our Grand Junction hotel at least made an attempt. There were empty bowls for fruit, and some pomegranate juice, but there was also a nice lady who would drop a premade omelets and some bacon into a paper box for you to take with you. Princess and I got a couple. That was something at least.
S: ~When we [S, JT, J] came to her, she had run out of omelette, so we only got a little bacon and I'm a vegetarian! At our second hotel, they had a bag with an apple - just an apple, not cut up and stuff - and a granola bar and a bottle of water. I was expecting, like, a waffle bar or something, but it was all closed because they didn't want anyone touching their stuff. I don't know why they couldn't have cooked the waffles for us. It was really frustrating.~
JT: #Why? They gave us food.#
We stopped by my Uncle Sherm for brunch and a game of Uno. His kids were in town, but most had left again before we got there. We all needed to sleep in after the week we'd had.
S: ~At Uncle Sherm's we got to have Eggo Waffles for the first time. They go in the toaster and come out as nice little cooked waffles. We played Uno three times: I won one; Princess won one; and Sherm won one.~
Then we drove up the road a piece to visit my Aunt Virginia near Aspen. We met each other halfway and had lunch. You may remember the post about things my kids said and the episode with the elk burger. That was here. That was fun. John-Thomas ate a lot of chips.
JT: #Yeah :)#
S: ~I got to show Aunt Virginia some magic tricks, like she picks a number on a clock face and I guessed what number she ended up on. I got to have noodles with Parmesan cheese and french fries.~
It was very nice to spend time with Virginia again. We're hoping to drive out and see her a couple more times this summer.
J: "I love Aunt Virginia. I'm so glad she felt well enough to come see us. And I was overwhelmed by her gratitude and how much she loved us being there."
We drove the rest of the day and night, finally stopping just inside the Texas border on Sunday. This part of our journey was really hit by Covid. We had discovered just before the funeral that my white shirt was missing. I had borrowed one from Fran's husband, Casey, for the funeral, but I didn't have one for Sunday. So we tried to stop at a WalMart in Colorado. There were police officers at each one, waving people along because they were closed. The website claimed they were open until 8:30 and we had plenty of time before then! We asked one of the police at the second WalMart what was going on, and CO had declared WalMart needed to close at 5. Here it was 5:15 and 5:30, so we just missed it. :(
Then we needed gas and potties along the road, and the gas stations and restaurants were a lot less willing than usual to let people use the facilities. We had to stop several times just to find a bathroom - for paying customers only. We were good and had worn our masks most anywhere we got out along the way, but that road is no longer traveler-friendly. Plan on shorter driving days or else leave a lot earlier in the morning. We were fortunate to have a little kids' potty in the car.
Sunday we decided the bishop had given us permission to have sacrament in our home, and our home that day was the hotel. So we took the sacrament, trusting that God will accept the good intentions and drove the rest of the way home. We almost made it on just the one tank of gas, but not quite. I had forgotten about the time zone change, and if I had remembered we would have stopped a little closer to home so we could make it in one tank. We listened to scriptures and conference talks and played the Ungame and gospel trivia as we drove. The last day's drive didn't take very long and we made it home around dinner time.
J: "It was nice to stay in hotels on the way back even if they didn't have a breakfast. I appreciated a comfy place to sleep, and happy children during the day."
JT: #I really like driving. I get to play DS! I don't like squishy beds. I'm glad I'm home and get to have my normal bed because I'm six years old.#
S: ~Driving on Sunday was pretty hard because we don't get to do the things we normally do on drives. And there was only one movie we got to watch: Fantasia 2000. And at the end of every song, we had to stop and talk about what it meant. A lot of looking out the window took place then. And my iPad managed to stay at 1% the entire drive because I forgot to charge it that night and it stayed on that line between alive and dead without crossing over the entire drive. That was a nice miracle.
All the kids are really good travelers. They are much better behaved as a rule on the road than I was as a kid, or than they are at home even, so we enjoy these long trips. And the next few days, everyone is so thankful to have more space again that we have greater peace than normal.
J: "It was really nice, driving out to visit my mom because I feel more in control when I'm driving than flying. It was nice after my mom died to feel like I was in control. I appreciate, Derrill, that you would just let us drive through. I was sorry for the kids' discomfort, but it was nice for me to be able to just drive through until we got there."
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