Movin' Right Along

On July 29th, about 18 hours after finding out we were moving, we packed up the mini-van and began our journey to Boulder. I've driven cross country several times before and I've always loved the feeling of hitting the open road, seeing places I've never seen before. However, I've never had three wiggly kids strapped down in the back of the car on my prior road trips and suddenly had visions of myself having a complete mental breakdown on a desert road somewhere. Fortunately, my mom agreed on very short notice - as in "can you meet us there in twelve hours?" - to book a flight to Vegas and meet us for the drive. (I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have made it without her and am eternally grateful for her flexibility and willingness to help out.)

Our journey began in record heat through the Mojave National Preserve, where we stepped out of the car for a minute and could barely breathe. Noni accurately announced that she was "burning hot" and we got back into the car until we arrived in Vegas. In case you're wondering if Vegas offers the same sort of over-the-top decadence for children as it does for adults, the answer is absolutely. The girls ate dinner to the sound of gorillas pounding their chests at the Rainforest Cafe, explored all four stories of the M&M store (which sells everything from M&M underwear to M&M racecars to just plain old M&Ms), and splashed in one of the many pools at the MGM Grande. They had fun but, as is always the way with Vegas, by morning we were all ready to get out of there.

The second day of our trip was mostly spent in Utah. To break up the monotony of driving, we stopped at the Rosenbruch Wildlife Museum after our Cracker Barrel lunch, where you could "experience over 300 species!" in a "real looking setting!" Given Evie's passion for both science and animals, this seems like it would've been a perfect place for her, right? We walked into the room with those 300 taxidermied animals staring at us, and Evie burst into hysterics. My mom, Lucy and I spent the half hour walk through the musuem trying to console a screaming Evie and Noni and occasionally allowing ourselves a second to marvel at the animals.

That evening, we ate dinner at a quaint diner in Sevier county in Utah (County motto: "What happens in Sevier County, you can tell your friends about"). After all five of us had eaten our three course dinners (and I paid the whopping $34 bill - fortunately with a generous tip since our waitress later had to send me my lost cell phone....), we hit the road again, determined to make it to Green River.

By day three, the girls were over the excitement about a car trip and started going crazy in the back of the car. It was around this time that I began regretting not buying a dvd player to keep them entertained. By the time we finally arrived in Boulder, Evie and Lucy were covered in markers and Noni had screamed herself hoarse. But, we had made it! We hopped out of the car at the first hotel, only to find that the town had been taken over by both Phish Fans and Promise Keepers (an interesting mix). Four hotels later, we finally found a place to spend the night.

Mission accomplished: We made it to Boulder with our sanity reasonably intact. It was a crazy whirlwind of a trip, but when we found a house two days later, we knew it was all worth it. Tomorrow we head back to Boulder. The girls will start school on time on Thursday after waking up in their new home. (A home, by the way, with plenty of room for visitors...)