Author: Bronwyn Brestle

Zion

By Bronwyn

All of the driving the last couple of days was well-rewarded with a day at Zion National Park.  The girls have so much to say about it and I don’t want to steal their stories, so I’ll let them add their thoughts tomorrow.  Everyone crashed early tonight after walking over 7 miles in temps over 100 degrees.  What a day!

 

150 feet underground…

By Addie

Today we drove for 5 hours through Eastern Nevada (middle of nothing).  We finally made it to Great Basin National Park and headed to the visitor’s center for a tour.  We weren’t just doing a tour of the park, we were headed into a cave!  The cave was discovered by Absalom Lehman over a hundred years ago.  Even though it was 100 degrees outside, the cave was 50 degrees inside.  We were led by an amazing ranger named Hannah.  She lead us through many different “rooms” while teaching us about the cave.  We learned about the formations including stalagmites, stalactites, and even other cave formations known as cave bacon and popcorn!  It was an amazing experience that I will never forget.

The Road Less Traveled

By Emily

Today has been a day of driving in the middle of nowhere. Every single road has been straight, with not a car in sight. At one point we drove about a hundred miles without a sign of civilization. The single lane roads have had a speed limit of 70, just because there is literally nothing around! We saw about 400 cows and probably 10 people. There were miles and miles of just grass, and cows, and more grass. It is a huge victory when we find a little town, even if the population is like 50 people. (See photo below to see where we gassed up the car today) It has been a great trip so far, with many new adventures!

Day One Highlights

Nearly 600 miles traveled today.  Only 1 lost pen in the seat, a handful of snacks on the car floor, and one crabby moment at a rest stop in 100 degree heat.  I call that a big win.  Chris drove most of the time today with me jumping in for a mere 100 miles.  The kids were completely entertained with movies, writing in their travel journals, games, and trying to find a license plate from every state.  One of the highlights was our lunch in Pendleton, Oregon.  We pulled off the freeway into Hal’s Hamburgers.  Yelp told us it was a decent place to stop and we were all happy with the old fashioned burgers, fries, and milkshakes.  From there, it was a straight shot into Twin Falls and everyone has crashed.  Me too!  Good night!

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We’re off!

Our plan was to be on the road to start our adventure by 6am. We left at 7:30 and decided this was just the beginning of how our patience will be stretched and our flexibility tested. Today’s drive is scheduled for just over 600 miles as we make our way through Washington, across the northeast corner of Oregon, and into Twin Falls, Idaho.

Prepping

Knowing we’ll be living out of the car and various hotels for about two weeks before arriving at the Jersey shore, I felt like I needed to better prepare the family for the long days on the road.  Today’s accomplishments included:

  1.  A trip to Trader Joes for non-meltable foods such as dried fruit, nuts, puffs (I mean FMakpzpWSnKy44eWUrGoIAreally!), popcorn, and crackers.  Upon arriving home, all food was divided up and packaged into smaller ziplock bags.  All snacks are in their own bin ready for distribution.  We are prepared for, “Mom, I’m hungry.”
  2. A fully stocked (and not expired) medical kit.  This includes a small drugstore and lots of bandaids.  I even ordered a large roll of moleskin and included little scissors to make application easier.
  3. A fully stocked shower caddy that includes soap, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, razors, lotion, and more.  Instead of each person carrying their own soaps, having it all in one place should make hotel showers easier.  Plus, no need to be filling up the little travel bottles every couple of days.
  4. A clean up kit.  For all sorts of clean up.  Wipes, paper towels, barf bags, sanitizer, ekmjukrkrjamueya6ny2wa.jpg
    baggies of all sizes, and Kleenex.  Did you know you can order the hospital-like barf bags on Amazon.  Super cheap, easy to open, and won’t collapse.  I’m hoping we don’t need them, but I’d rather have them just in case!
  5. A kitchen-on-the-go kit.  We’re hoping to just have one meal out per day.  For all other meals, we’re planning to find markets and use a cooler.  For our mini car kitchen, we have a cutting board, knife, plates, sporks, towels, salt/pepper, and dish soap.
  6. Fans!!!  We have read up on the places we’ll be staying and there are a few spots with no air conditioning.  Chris found some tiny, but powerful fans that fold down and are easy to pack.  They’re definitely cute and I love the colors.  I’m hoping they keep us from melting! 4ahjtlqjqu2cyuohf08cba.jpg

Two days to go

We’ve read the guidebooks.  We’ve created the spreadsheets.  We’ve had the car tuned, purchased necessary items, and created an organized system for what to pack.  We’ve studied maps and secured hotels.  I think we’re ready.  The 27-day journey that will take us from Seattle to the Jersey shore and back home through 27 states and 13 national parks is quickly approaching.  We’ve created this blog with hopes of sharing our experiences with family and friends.  We’ll tell it how it is- the good, the bad, and the ugly of traveling almost 8,000 miles in a Ford Expedition.  We hope you enjoy the ride.

Written By: Bronwyn