For Spring Break this year we relocated an RV once again. Instead of taking one of the new factory vehicles from Indiana or Iowa, we found a shorter relocation from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City. That meant the perfect route to see Utah's Big Five National Parks. As much as I like picking up new vehicles I thought it would be nice to have a shorter drive so we didn't feel as rushed.  Day 1 - Las Vegas We started off our spring break trip in Las Vegas. When looking at hotels, I thought the kids would be blown away by Caesars Palace. It was somehow less than $200 a night, so why not? Scott wasn't sure about going out onto the strip at night with kids. Being that its spring break season there were other families out. And scantily clad women with their boobs hanging out. That's all hours of the day here.  We'd only briefly stopped by here during the day a couple years back. It was a short stop on our way from the Grand Canyon to Death Valley.  Brooke came back and raved a...

After many failed attempts, we finally made plans for Brooke and the kids to meet me after a job. I couldn't wait to see killer bee and my little runts out in Washington State. I'd been on the road working for over a week at this point. My parents stayed an extra day just to take us to the airport.  Ready to go.  Meanwhile I made it back up to Spokane after a day of shooting 360s down in Pullman. Guess we'll never forget which car is ours.  I laughed when I first saw it. Couldn't wait for Brooke and the kiddos reaction. We stayed the night at the Steam Plant Hotel. I'd stayed here when I shot 360s at Gonzaga University back in the spring. Seemed like a good, cheap option. The rooms are simple and do the job. I liked that this place provided ear plugs but only because the walls are paper thin. I could hear everything our neighbors were saying. I wanted to stay on Minnesota time and made us get up at 6am. I'm sure our neighbors loved that.  I'm sure we loved t...

  I've been working with a Canadian company that specializes in marketing for the boat industry. They needed someone to shoot 5 Edgewater boats down in Alabama. Since I'm fully vaccinated, I took them up on the gig.     There are no direct flights into the gulf coast except New Orleans.   After landing in New Orleans, I drove the two hours over to Mobile, Alabama in the pickup truck that the rental company gave me. My airbnb was on the right.

  Meadow had been counting down for St Nick for weeks.  Sparkly play dough. I too love pre-gaming it mini-Christmas.

Day 1  Back in May I stumbled upon Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I had no idea there was a National Park in North Dakota and that it was the northern end of the Badlands. Usually our summer vacations coincide with Scott's work trips. Since he didn't have any this summer I thought we should take advantage of actually taking a vacation. What, my workcations are always classics? I suppose a second real vacation this year wouldn't hurt. We definitely have more time than normal. As long as we took Covid-19  precautions and avoided people. We finally settled on a time to go. Blake joined us so we borrowed our dad's van so we could ride together. Scott had just driven from Michigan the day before. Blake had met my parents in Wisconsin to get the van and then drove from Duluth to pick us up. I offered to drive since I literally only drive twice a month.  I was still pretty tired from a long drive home. Since we were near Fergus Falls we had to stop by the abandoned state ho...

 Before heading out on our trip we let the kids open their Christmas gifts from us. A knitted sweater for Theo and a kitty dress for Meadow (I fixed the straps for her) both made by me. I wanna a sweater. Scott got them new compact sleeping bags. We all got smaller sleeping bags this year and we'll now have a lot more room in our car. This year we had talked about hosting my family at the cottage. Then meeting up in Milwaukee, then meeting in Chicago. But in the end we made stops in Chicago and Lowell this Christmas. We left on a Sunday which was nice to have a few days to prepare. On the way down to Chicago we stopped at our favorite roadside restaurant, Foster Cheese Haus. We had plans to break up our drives so we didn't have to rush like we normally do. We had made it just before the cheese haus was set to close for the winter. Just not enough folks stop here in winter and snowmobile season is becoming shorter and shorter this far so...