In our family, we love road trips. Give us two to three days to go somewhere, and we’ll make the best of it. This school year, we’re trying to take advantage of some of the days off school and go places. In the past few years, our road trips have slowed… because life… but we’re trying to go a little more, if/when we can. Of course, we want to do this responsibly and not bring ourselves into financial ruin or neglect our commitments. The past couple of months have given us some opportunities to get out a bit, so we have! We went to Yellowstone in September. I followed Daisy to Cedar City/Saint George for the Shakespeare competition a couple of weekends ago. Then last week we headed to Saint George as a family for fall break. It was a quick trip. We left Wednesday afternoon and came home Friday (due to some of those aforementioned “commitments”), but even though it was short and sweet, it was plenty of time to get out of town and have a good time.
Some trips are long and some are short. Some are close and some are far. Some are very scheduled and some are unplanned.
This one was unplanned (save for booking a hotel a few weeks ahead of time). We went with no agenda or set objectives. We just showed up and decided what to do as we went, and it was great!
We also didn’t take any of our own food. On some trips, I have a meal plan and a trunk full of groceries (or a Walmart + order scheduled for delivery wherever we are staying). On others, we eat out a little more.
When Daisy found out I wasn’t packing a cooler full of food for Saint George, she said, “Really? Are we that rich? We’re not even taking our own food?”
That made me laugh. And my response was, “Yes, Daisy! We are that rich!”
In truth, the reason I didn’t pack food was because it was such a short trip, and there’s such good eating in Saint George. Yes, I often pack a lot of our own food when we go on trips, but we still eat out. For one meal we’ll eat ham out of a bag, and the next we’ll hit up a burger spot. We have balance! But for this trip, we just ate out. And in the wildest of ways. Like, a breakfast crawl with cini minis from Burger King, drinks from McDonald’s, and breakfast burritos from Alfredo’s.
We did more than just eat, though, I promise!
On a whim, we…
Walked from our hotel to the temple (Daisy had to stop and take a peek at the football players).
Popped into the Family Search Center and played around.
Went to Thunder Junction and played around.
Went to Three Falls and played around.
Swam at the hotel despite it only being 63 degrees outside.
Checked out the local DI. Bought a stuffed pickle.
Went back to the temple to hit the visitor’s center.
Went back to Thunder Junction after dark to see the Halloween lights.
Hiked around Pioneer Park.
Walked through the Red Hills Desert Garden, which happened to be having a scarecrow festival.
It feels really weird to do stuff like this without Nicky, but that’s part of letting your kids grow up.
Some trips have all your kids, and some trips don’t.
We missed having him there and spent a lot of time commenting on what he would be doing if he were with us. At the scarecrow festival they had a Shaun the Sheep scarecrow, of all things, and I immediately had to get a photo and send it to Nicky because he used to bawl his eyes out about the Shaun the Sheep movie when he was a kid. I don’t even know why, because I never watched it! His grandma took him to see it. And there was a country song on the radio at the time that he wouldn’t let us listen to because it made him cry (it was not from the Shaun the Sheep movie, but it sounded like the song from the Shaun the Sheep movie, and therefore, Nicky banned it from our listening).
I admit, I thought the scarecrow was supposed to be Beaker from the Muppets, and Daisy was the one who said, “No, mom! It’s the farmer from Shaun the Sheep!” I thought she was crazy, and then I saw Shaun! She was right!
1 comment:
Roadtrip here! I'll feed you ice cream :)
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