The Great Journey Home

We ended up not taking the "short" way back to Iowa, but did a very similar route on the way home... Tuesday night we drove to Mesa and stayed with Phil and Sophie in their cool new house. It was fun to hang out with them, if ridiculously hot in Mesa. We left Mesa at 5:45 Wednesday morning at it was already (still?) 95º... The day was rather LONG. We did have Cafe Rio for dinner in Provo while the kids played at a random elementary school. We drove from 5:45 to about 7 that night, and met some of our friends in Oakley, Utah (between Provo and Park City, basically? feel free to correct me if I'm wrong!) at their family's cabin. It was really cool, and we really enjoyed staying Wednesday night through Friday morning there! Somehow we have no pictures. I guess I just had the video camera out but never the "click" camera (as we call it...) Here are some pictures from that first big day of driving. (I know you're all excited...)
This is when we had switched the kids in their carseats so they got a slightly different view of the car at least. They seemed to enjoy it.
Here is the view of the lake/reservoir? when we were almost to the cabin.
And yeah. That's about it. Except for several more car seat shots. :)
The next day we didn't get on the road until almost NOON. Sigh. Up too late playing cards and stargazing, I guess... We drove from Oakley, UT to North Platte, Nebraska. We almost just kept driving because there did not seem to be a hotel room ANYWHERE in that silly town at 10 at night... Finally, with help from a friend (Thanks, Brent!) we found that out of like 25 hotels, there were two rooms available: one jacuzzi suite for $173 and a random, local hotel room for $43 (with no crib). Guess which one we picked. The kids were actually asleep by the time we pulled in, and we successfully transferred both of them onto little "comforter beds" on the floor. The second time in her post-infant life that Jaina slept not-in-a-crib. Thankfully she was tired enough that she slept all night and never knew the difference. :) We were too chicken to take a picture though.
Being cute and reading a book.
Reilly, at the Husker Inn Saturday morning. (watching Veggie Tales in Spanish while Daddy showered, actually)
There it is!
The outside. It was actually a little cute, and very well cared-for. We were rather grateful for its existance.
Saturday we got on the road around 9 and drove ALL day (okay, only till like 5 or 6) to get home. Towards the end I was having an even harder time than the kids. Reilly finally passed out, and Jaina (refreshed from a previous nap) was entering the crazy-zone. We were so glad to get home!
The napper:
The crazy: