Road trip Out West

We just got home last night from our road trip out west to Panguitch Lake, UT, Las Vegas and Phoenix. We try to go visit my family every summer and until last year, we would fly out. Then we had Nate and it is SOOOO expensive to fly everyone out and rent a minivan to drive around in for 3 weeks. So, we drive. My mom was nice enough to fly in and drive out there with me. On the way back, my mom was staying with my sister (who had a baby while I was out there) so I did the drive myself. Total miles put on the car during this trip: 3630!


On the way out, we went through Dallas and northern New Mexico and the Navajo Nation in order to end up in southern Utah at my parents cabin near Panguitch Lake. On the way back, we went from Las Vegas to Phoenix, spent about 4 hours in Phoenix visiting Grandpa Frost and Aunt Tammy, then we came home through El Paso and San Antonio- all in two days.
The kids were wonderful on the trip. We jimmey-rigged our little portable DVD player to hang between the front seats so all the kids could watch it, and they watched videos almost the entire time. (My car is not nice enough to have a built in one). We even were able to use a tape converter to run the sound through the stereo so the kids could hear (and I could put the sound to the back and NOT hear). If Nate got restless, we would put a Baby Einstein video on and he would watch. Periodically I would give the kids a "present" that I had wrapped up (usually a new DVD) and they would get the thrill of opening it. The boys love videos and watch like zombies, which makes them great passengers. Ellie does fine most of the time, but then she'll get bored and start asking for things...."I'm hungry can I have a snack..", "I'm thirsty, can I have a drink...", when do we open presents again...", "I need to pee really bad and I can't hold it." She found she got the most mileage out of the last one, so she said that whenever she was bored. One time she asked and Nate had just fallen asleep so I didn't want to stop. I was able to put her off. Two hours later we stopped, and she peed then!
Anyway, the drive is long, full of desert and boring. El Paso is about half way. Between El Paso and San Antonio, the speed limit is 80, and no one speeds. When you get to San Antonio, the speed limit is 70, but everyone goes 80...go figure.

Anyway, its nice to be home...although I am pretty sure it was cooler in Vegas, if it had been this hot when Joe interned here, I'm not sure we would have come back. I will be posting all the exciting things we did in the next few days.