What We Did This Weekend:Road Trip

This weekend was such a big deal that we spent most of the week preparing for it. We have been planning our trip out to Utah for a while, and we finally left on Friday. The alarm went off at 5:00am and we showered, loaded up the car, filled 'er up with gas, and headed out. And, as exciting as a 1,000+ mile road trip sounds, there isn't too much to report -- but I'll give it a try.

On Friday we drove to a state park just past Cheyenne and spent the night in a tent. There were two things that made the drive an easy one. First, we traded off every two hours. I don't usually have Brooke take too many turns, but doing kept us both fresh for the whole trip. And second, we listened to Harry Potter audio books. We never got caught up in the Harry-hype back in the day, so neither of us had ever read any of the books. We started the first book last year, and made it about nine chapters in before we got out of the habit of nightly readings. So, with our long trip coming, we checked out each audio book from the library to take with us. We finished the first and half of the second before we left. On our way we finished up the second and third books.

Our camping experience was, well, an experience. We're not really accomplished outdoorsmen. Brooke had a much better attitude than I did though. We showed up and our first spot was by a reservoir and a bunch of camper trailers, so we tried to find another spot. We did, but the ground was really hard, which made for a tough night, but at least we were not surrounded by other drunk campers and their dogs.

We scrounged up just enough wood for a fire that lasted just long enough for us to cook our polish dogs and hobo-dinner-style carrots and potatoes. So that, with some juice boxes and chips, made for a pretty good dinner.

The sun was going down as we finished eating and we hopped into our tents with a laptop to watch a movie before going to bed. We decided to get an early start on the last leg of our trip, so we set the alarm for 4:00am. This might sound early, but from experience, I knew that I wasn't going to sleep too well. And, as it turns out, I was ready to go at 2:00, and was relieved when the alarm finally did go off. We "de-tented" in 20 minutes and were back on the road.

We made it to Salt Lake by about 11:30am. We showered and went to my brother Marc's baseball game. We washed our new car and picked up some Cafe Rio (of course) on our way to the field. The games ran a little long, but at least we got to see our brother play.

After the game we had just enough time to let Marc shower before Dad took us all to the new Five Guys Burgers and Fries in Midvale for dinner. And, when I say he took us all, I mean everyone... Weston and Missy and Ellie (who we were finally introduced to -- she's totally my favorite niece!), Cameron and his girlfriend Michelle, Brooke and me, Marc, Mom, and Dad. Weston had been there before, and Brooke and I had been to the one in Missouri, so we knew what we were getting into. Their burgers are seriously good. All nine of us found some seats together, which was difficult because everyone in the valley was there too. We stuffed ourselves, but hey, it was really good, and, after all, we're on vacation.

And that's what we did this weekend.