What a trip!

What a trip! We had a fantastic time! We have so many memories that we'll remember forever, and lots of ideas for future trips too!

Our highlights and favorites:

Evan- Great Sand Dunes and Arches

Ella- Bryce Canyon and Great Sand Dunes

Blake- Great Sand Dunes and Mesa Verde

Jason- Bryce Canyon and Mesa Verde

Brooke- Bryce Canyon and Arches

Fun facts:

We visited 22 National Parks and 4 National Monuments.

We visited 20 states in all.  We've now visited all but 10 of the 50 states: Hawaii, Alaska, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Washington, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. (The kids also have never been to Rhode Island and Evan has never been to Delaware or New Jersey either.)

We saved $555 with the 4th grade America the Beautiful pass, thanks to Blake!

Our cheapest gas was $4.25/gallon in Iowa and our most expensive gas was $7.99/gallon in Death Valley!

We traveled 28 days. We drove 9,800 miles.

Below are pictures of our daily plan and spreadsheet of campgrounds with addresses, the maps we collected from each National Park, my National Park book with the USA map of states I've visited on the front, our passport books (I've had mine since I was in 5th grade), and Evan's token books (he needed to get a second book on this trip). 

Today the kids got to spend time with Milo, our cat, Mimi and Pa, and Blake got his milk! I picked up our load of mail from the post office too! We got the car and camper both cleaned and the house too since Milo was shedding like crazy! Tomorrow we plan to start a new adventure hiking the 52 With A View mountains. We don't know how long it'll take us, but we're excited to have some more fun family time together and another adventure.

Day 28: The Home Stretch!

Today we woke up early one last time. We have driven 13-14 hours the past two days and have another 12-13 hours again today, but we're determined to make it home. I'm looking forward to: my bed, not being in the car, and drinking cold spring water!  Jason's looking forward to not driving! The kids are looking forward to their own beds, our own showers, seeing Mimi and Pa, and Blake is also looking forward to "our milk" since he has hated all of the brands out west. They're also looking forward to not doing schoolwork every day. We usually have them do a little bit of schoolwork and reading on weekdays over the summer, but since we've been in the car so much, we've just had them do it every day. It made it easier to just know that was the expectation, and they had plenty of computer and TV time so they really couldn't complain (too much).

A weird thing happened while we were in Ohio this morning. We had a pickup truck pull up next to us on the passenger side. He beeped to us and wanted me to roll down my window. I was worried that something was wrong with the camper, so I did. He yelled to me on the highway asking if our camper had a shower in it (it does not because we have bunkbeds and needed the space for 4 beds) and told us he loved the camper and it's the perfect size. haha Then he said thanks and took off. So weird, funny, and scary at first too.

We were so excited to see each of the state welcome signs as we got closer and closer to home! In northern New York, we saw some Amish buggies. We saw a deer on the side of the road, and a young girl almost caused an accident with us when we were about an hour and a half from home, but didn't luckily, and then a big black bear ran out in front of us about 30 minutes from home, but we dodged it! We also got a photo from my dad of our cat, Milo, waiting for us and looking out the door. :)  It was a long day, but we made it home by 8pm! Earlier than we thought, yay! We got lots of treats along the way to keep the kids (and who's kidding, us) going. What a great trip! I'll post some final notes tomorrow. 

Day 27: Heading back home

Last night we got to the campground late, but boy was the moon beautiful! It was a full super moon and it was glowing!  When we pulled into our campsite it was right in front of us and Blake said, "Look Mom, we have the best view of the moon right from our site!"

We woke up early to get on the road and hopefully be home by tomorrow night. The moon was still visible but not glowing like last night, however, the sun came up in oranges and reds. We could also see heat lightning in the distance continually! We even found gas cheaper than we've had it the entire trip for $4.44! The last time we were near that was when we were in Iowa on the way out west, at $4.54!

Later in the day, gas kept getting cheaper. We got it for $4.25 in Brooklyn, Iowa.  And...Ella finally found the hat she's been searching for throughout the whole trip! She has wanted a cowboy hat with an American flag design. She found it at the TA store/gas station! Her trip is complete. Despite this, that Celtics hat has gotten so much attention and started so many conversations on our trip! It's funny because when people see the Celtics hat, they get all excited.

In other news, we've been following or being followed by an onion truck. Yup, a truck FULL of bags of onions. I've never seen this before, but we saw this truck late last night, first thing this morning, and then later in the afternoon today. That's a lot of onions!

We booked another campground in Ohio for tonight so we have a target to aim for. We're now in Central time again and will be back in Eastern time again tonight. Losing the hour adds to the driving time, but also means we're getting closer to home. :)

Day 26: Rocky Mountain National Park

We left the campground early so we could get to Rocky Mountain National Park by 10am for our timed entry reservation. We entered through the Estes entrance on the east side and had access to the Bear Lake Corridor too. After going to the visitor's center, we went down Bear Lake Road. Since we're heading home after this, but still wanted to see some of the Rockies, we decided to just do this area. We took the shuttle from the park and rode to Bear Lake. We walked around it and it was beautiful. From there, we walked over to the trailhead for Alberta Falls and hiked up to see the falls which were also beautiful. From there, we went back to the shuttle and our car to start heading east and home. We've so enjoyed this trip and I feel thankful that we are JUST feeling like it's time to go home. We're ready and we've seen so much and had so many great experiences. Onward to Nebraska for the night, but first a long drive ahead.

Day 25: Great Sand Dunes National Park

Today we continued through Colorado. We went through Pagosa Springs, which was beautiful. We saw a bunch of hot air balloons and also did a short hike to Treasure Falls. The waterfall was gorgeous and it was a quick on/off the highway stop. We've also been looking for a UPS store to return Ella's broken sunglasses and found one here. Yesterday we tried to return them in Cortez, CO and they said they couldn't scan a QR code for the return, and no one in town could! I thought that was crazy, but we found a great shop here so we're all set now.

Then we drove to Great Sand Dunes National Park. We stopped at the Oasis Store on our way in to rent a sand board. Blake has been looking forward to this from the beginning of our trip! We went to the dunes, crossed the little creek, and went in search of the perfect dune. The first one was a little too small and not steep enough so we went over to another that was great. The weather was perfect at 75 degrees with wind so we hung out for over an hour and a half boarding down the dunes. We all got better the more we did it, but the kids were, by far, better than Jason and I! It was fun!

Then we drove to our campground in Woodland Park, CO. We had the first real rainstorm of our trip, and boy, was it a storm! It was down pouring with small hail, thunder, and lightning! We were glad to make it to the other side of it. I was able to get a timed entry reservation for Rocky Mountain National Park for tomorrow. We have one for Thursday, but we are a day ahead due to not getting a tour at Mesa Verde so we were hoping to still be able to go in tomorrow. The reservations opened up again at 5pm and I got one so we'll head there for our last national park of this trip!