And we are off! This was our first big van trip - and part of a bigger vacation. In all, we travelled 1400 miles over 5 days and saw some really interesting sights - and learned some new tricks for longer van trips & van trips in hot weather. I’m going to write this trip up in 3 blog posts - this one covers the road trip there and the other two will cover the backpacking trip we went on and touring around Yellowstone national park.
Our trip started off uneventfully - we had a ~4 hour 30 min drive to Lewis and Clark Trail state park. The park was fun - great campsite and a fun trail called the “Fur Fins and Feathers” trail - named because it went by a river, through a forest canopy full of birds, and had virually no furry animals to speak of :). Still it was a blast and Sara had a great time.
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We were off to a great start on the trip reports, but we failed on every other day of the roadtrip.
The second day/night was more eventful. There was a bit longer drive (~6 hours) but some fun stops along the way - including blueberry picking at a roadside farm. We arrived at Bruneau sand dunes state park around 2 pm and it was hot. We dedided to walk around a bit and soon realized that Mosquitoes really owned this park. Sara and I did ok, but Angela was attacked and we had to retreat to the van. It was a hot night and none of us got a ton of sleep - still, we remained in good spirits and proceeded on to Yellowstone the next day.
Sara also made some new friends and walked over to introduce herself all on her own (the draw of a inflatable pool and pool toys was too great).
Then we went on our walk down to the observatory and apitheater…
And had to run away from the Mosquitoes!
Despite the heat, it was an amazing place to walk around and play. And a beautiful sunset…
The trip back was very different from the trip there. Temperatures across Washington and Idaho become unbearable - 108 degrees in some places - so we decided to do some longer days and get home more quickly as Seattle was back down into the 70s at that point. This made for long days, but we still managed to stop and have a bit of fun. Our one night was in Baker city - a historic town with a fun vibe. The down had a great playground and Sara had a blast making new friends and doing all the activities (including a game where you had to find symbols hidden all over the playground).
We also saw some deer.
Sara had been asking to ride the Sinclair dino the whole trip - we finally let her on the last day.
One of the mor fun stops was at a winery called Gilbert Cellars. They had a great space and we probably spend 2 hours there (all inside since it was about 107 degrees there!). They had a great space though and we all wanted to come back someday.
