Road Trip!

We were very blessed this year to get to take a family vacation with Scott's family to California!! I'll post about the actual vacation separately, this post is just about our travel to and from. Scott's family left I believe Sunday afternoon, and arrived in California Monday morning. Scott had to work Monday, so we planned on leaving Tuesday morning and driving all day with Scott's brother Nathan. That all day drive was the hardest part of our journey. We had plenty of stops, and stayed cool with the AC, but we left at 6:45 in the morning Utah time, and didn't arrive at our hotel until 9:30 California time. That is one long day!! Scott and Nathan were troopers, stopping so Rivers could eat and play. Here are some photos of our trek...

 Our first stop was in Fillmore.  Here we had some breakfast, and diaper change and got to play for a bit.  Fillmore had a nice little rest stop/visitors center with a park.  It was a nice place to rest, but only for a few minutes, then back on the road!

 Our next stop was in Beaver, to stop in the Cheese factory.  I'd never been there, and Nathan really wanted to stop, and it's a good thing we did!  They were having customer appreciation day, and it was a real treat! We got entered into a raffle, got a free lunch (including a sandwich, chips, drink, cheese, and free ice cream) and bought some cheese curds.  Took a bit more time out of our journey than we planned, but was so worth it!!

 Here we are at the state line of Nevada and California.  We stopped many more times before this, in St. George, Mesquite, Baker, Barstow, and finally Anaheim.  We stayed there for a few days, then spent some time in San Diego.  We left there Sunday afternoon, then headed to St. George were we spend the night with Scott's Aunt and Uncle who live there.

 Also in St. George we stopped and visited Scott's Grandma and Grandpa who also live there.  This was the first time Rivers got to meet his Great Grand parents.  They're great friends now :)

 If you know me at all I love Palm trees. The whole trip I wanted a picture by a palm tree, St. George was our last shot to get one, this tree is in front of Scott's Grandpa's house.

Here is Rivers doing his part to get us home safely from St. George.  When he'd get really fussy and whiny, I really wished I could just put him on my lap drive with him.  He was a real trooper!!

On our trip back we also stopped and visited Scott's other Grandma in Spanish fork. 

If you decide to make this journey yourself with an 8 month old I recommend leaving early and spending the night in St. George.  The trip back was so much better than the trip there, we weren't pressed for time and could pull over and let the baby play when ever he needed.  Plus we got to see Scott's family which is always fun :)

Stay tuned for the rest of our journey.