Our trip

So there really is no way to just blog about a 7 week trip. Gary kept our travel journal...which I will then use to scrapbook our adventure. But, I thought I would go ahead and post some more pics of our favorite areas. You can also see pics of the kids in front of the state signs on F/B. Some of our faves were Carlsbad Caverns in NM, Niagara Falls, NYC, Crater Lake, OR, Memphis, TN, Buildings and Monuments in DC, Portland, Maine, Charleston, SC, The Biltmore Estate, Wildlife along the way, including bald eagles, a bear cub (right on the side of the road in Shenendoah), foxes, deer, moose, elk, dolphins, osprey...and more. We did some great scenic drives through Zions, Smokey Mtns, West Virginia, Santa Fe Forest, Gulf Coast and Great River Rd in Illinois and Missouri. We are planning on putting together a slideshow pps...so when we can narrow down the 4000+ pics to more reasonable number, we'll have a party! And even now, I'm trying to upload pics and it's not letting me...UGH

Back 2 School

After missing the first day and being extremely tired, we sent the kids to school. Jake was excited that his friend, Daniel, is in the same class again this year. He has a teacher from Bridgeport, so that was also nice to hear. Hopefully he'll have a good year this year. Jessica was a little upset at first, but after seeing about 6 friends from her K class, it helped her get more excited. I don't know her teacher, but she has been with Emblem for a while and from what I hear, she is good.

We made it home!

After 48 states and Canada, 13500 plus miles, and 7 weeks of travel, we made it home late Wed. night. 1 day after school started. I know that I was not good at all in updating my blog, but I'm going to organize a photo album and post it on facebook. Really- there are 4000 plus pics, so if you want to come over and help, you are welcome. I could not handle the internet connections at the hotels, they were too slow and really I was just too tired to do too much. We had a great time and I can't wait to do my scrapbook, which is really what I love to do anyway.
We are also going to try to put together a slideshow...so maybe we'll just have to throw a party! Anyway, we are looking forward to catching up with everyone now that we are back! We are also thankful to our friend in our new ward, who came out ASAP to spray away all the black widows that moved into the garage while were were away!

Pics

pics from The BIltmore, The Smokey Mtns, Kentucky Horse Farm, and The Homestead Resort.

more pics

From Savannah, Hilton Head, Air Craft Carrier in Charleston, Middleton Plantation and Downtown Charleston.

24 states down, 24 to go...

HEre is the post. I will try and post pics after this...wish me luck.So after Louisiana, we drove along the gulf coast thru Mississippi and Alabama. We visited a battleship in Mobile. We continued along the coast to spend the night in Pensacola. After spending a nice morning on the beach, we drove to Atlanta. We were able to go up to Stone Mountain that night. It was nice, they do a fun laser light show that we were able to see before heading to the hotel that night. THe next morning, we walked around the Centennial Olympic Park and toured World of Coke- where we tried many different flavors of soda- Gary's fave was pine nut candy and mine (other than the Mr. Pibb) would have to be Barqs red creme. After getting our fill of coke, we headed to Savannah. SO- I'm sure that we will offend some, but I was not at all impressed with this city. I am also upset that in order to get into Paula Deen's restaurant, you have to show up and line up to put your name on a list of reservations...you cannot call to hold reservations. You are welcome to sit on the sidewalk and continue pestering the people to see if they have a table, but pretty much they have a terrible system to seat people. Gary did happen to coax them into some peach cobbler to go, since one of the hardest things to find in Georgia-Nicknamed: The peach state is Peach desserts! After Georgia, we visited Hilton Head to take in a beach/golf day and then spent the night in Charleston. Charleston was pretty cool. We didn't have enough time to really explore, but we loved the city with its historical homes and churches lining the streets. After Charleston, we went to North Carolina- Asheville to visit The Biltmore Estate, which was awesome. We drove through the Smokey Mtns' the next morning and after nearly freezing to death on the first hike of the day the kids and I were finished with getting out of the car. (I think that it was only 50, but the wind was pushing us over....it was miserable) Anyway, we moved along to Kentucky for the night. On the way, we found the roadside tourist trap city of the US--can't remember its name, but gokart tracks, arcades, mini golf, ripleys, wonderworks,as seen on tv stores lined the main street of this town. The ONE thing we stopped for was the ZORBING track. Gary and Jake tried it and it's all Jake talks about now (which is pretty annoying since it wasn't on the itinerary, certaining there is something that we PLANNED that impressed him too?) Anyway we made it to Kentucky and took in a showing of Harry Potter, since I needed to see it- it was pretty good. The next am, we went to the Kentucky Horse Farm and checked it out. Jessie rode a pony and I think that was her highlight for the day. We then drove through WEst Virginia and ended up at The HOmestead Resort in Hot Springs, VA. Beautiful. We stayed there for 2 nights and loved the relaxing/no driving for a day. The kids and I did a nice hike where we saw waterfalls and thankfully no snakes (which normally are a extremely common sight on this hike), Gary did a round at the famous Cascades Course and I took in a spa treatment. The HOmestead is a famous resort that Thomas Jefferson frequented. After a little rest, we drove to Our Nations Capital.

Arkansas, Memphis and New Orleans

We drove the Crowley Ridge scenic byway in Arkansas- it was beautiful, we took a small hike through the park to a suspension bridge. Then we moved on to Memphis, TN. We did Mud Island (Mostly I know if from Tom Cruise's movie- The Firm), but it was very nice. It had some great exhibits from the south/Mississippi River, including a scale model "fountain" that you walked up and down and waded in if you wanted to of the entire Mississippi River. We went to Rendevous for some BBQ. The next am we headed to where else, but Graceland! Wow, talk about your floor to ceiling, wait and ceiling, carpet. Definitely not my taste in decorating, but fun to see the house, the cars and the airplanes as well as many of the outfits and awards that Elvis received. (One of my mom's dreams come true!) Then we had to part ways with my parents- they went back to Oklahoma and we went down south where we drove over the Lake Ponchatrain Bridge (over 20 miles long) and into New Orleans. We walked along the riverwalk, ate great french food, walked through the French quarter (stayed clear of Bourbon st...we had the kids w/ us), walked through a cemetary, ate Beignets at Cafe Du Monde, walked through Jackson Square and ate Pralines. I took the kids swimming for a little bit, while Gary actually had to work!