Florida 4/5 - 4/9

We had a great time in Florida the last 4 days. We got to meet our new nephew Lincoln, who was born in march. He is such a cutie. While we were there, chris's dad and step mom were also out visiting from California. It was a lot of fun! It was mostly down time but we really enjoyed it. We all went out miniature golfing one night. Florida has some amazing golf courses to play at. Noah had a blast having his uncle Chris around. They had sword fights and played video games for a day. Chris and I gave mark and Keri the night off last night (Monday) and took care of the baby for the night. We had a fun time with that :) We work well as a team, and Chris does a good job at changing diapers, just gotta work on his swaddling skills :) we still aren't sure if we are really to have sleepless night though. It was really hard to leave them all today. Wish we didn't have to.

Monday we got some bad news after taking the bus in for a valve adjustment. Long story short, they mechanic said we are driving a ticking time bomb. He didn't know what really was wrong with it but she isn't running at 100%. We had to make a hard decision and take out the trip to key west,fl. :( we were both really upset but couldn't risk putting an extra 900 miles on the bus. So we decided to to start heading back north and starting our trip home. We are still keeping the same route home and going up to Canada but we just aren't pushing her and doing long drives. Say a little pray for us that she finishes the trip as planed and she gets us back to Idaho.

We are heading to Birmingham, AL for the night. We made a stop in wildwood, FL and did an airboat tour. We had so much fun!!!! We got to see some pretty birds, turtles, and alligators too. We were on one of there smaller boats which was was louder and faster and came with the warning of "you might get wet". It was pretty cool to see the gators. Once we get into Birmingham we will be exploring the civil rights museums and MLK memorial site. After that we have a short drive into Nashville where we will have 2 days to explore :)

Hopefully the post from here on out will about the places we see and not about how we have to find a way to tow the bus home

Memphis, 3/4/13

Graceland ...... What a fun place to explore for the day. We explored Elvis Presley's mansion, his cars, his planes and even his clothes. What a life he had. We both didn't realize that he and his parents and grandmother are buried on the property. His father got permission from the city to move his body for security reasons. His house was displayed how it was when he died, shaggy carpets and everything. What were people thinking back then. His cars were even cooler. After Graceland we drove into downtown Memphis where we took a tour of the Memphis Fire museum. We got to be kids for an hour. They had pretty much every toy fire truck possible on display.

We finally got on the road and ran into windshield wiper problems. Wouldn't had been an issue but it was raining. Every time we tied to use high speed we blew a fuse. We fixed the problem temperarly and got on our way to Florida to see family and finally get a shower (it's been 5 days) .... It's time to do laundry too :)

Dodge city, ks 4/3/13

We had a fun time in dodge city learning about Wyatt Earp. We had a great dinner at an original hotel/restaurant in Dodge City. We found ourselves sleeping at the Casino in Dodge. The next morning we did the boot hill museum which was pretty informational about living in Dodge City and the life of a cowboy. They had a replica of the town with real stores and had items to purchase from the era.
We left Dodge City and headed to Memphis, Tn. What a long drive we had in front of us. Chris started the drive in snow, I took over in Oklahoma city to a bad rain storm and Arkansas was a big blur. The bus did great in both and we pulled into Memphis Thursday early morning.

Breckenridge - US Olympic training center

It's been a fun 3 days - we haven't had a lot of down time besides sleeping, and Internet is spotty. I was able to download an app to make blogging easier from my phone. Where was this 3 years ago :)

Right now we are on our way to Memphis, TN with a stop in Oklahoma City, OK for dinner. It's gonna be a long day/night.

After vail we checked into our hotel for the which had a spa and was so needed after a day of skiing.

Breckenridge ski resort was amazing - we had a blast skiing the mountain from one side to the other .... I stopped during the day to take breaks while Chris played on the black diamond run's. Driving thru the Colorado Rocky Mountains are amazing the views are so pretty and I can't believe we were so high in elevation. We drove through the Eisenhower/Johnson tunnel which took us about 1 1/2 minutes to drive it.
We stopped in Denver for dinner and continued our way to Colorado Springs. Sleeping in the bus this trip has been different - it's been COLD ..... Driving the middle states in April, I didn't realize how much colder it would be than the boarder states 3 years ago.

Walmart parking lot was our home for the night in Colorado Springs. I didn't realize how big the city was. The US Olympic training center was fun to see where hopeful and current Olympians train. After the training center we went to the IAFF firefighter memorial. Last fall, Chris lost a friend from butte county and in September his name will be honored on the wall and we wanted to see where his name would go. It's a pretty emotional site to see so many firefighter names up on the wall.

During the drive to dodge city, ks we realized we lost another hour and are now in central time zone. We just got into Memphis and am calling it a night ... Hopefully tomorrow il get to write about dodge city :)

Vail, co - Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone!!! Chris and I had a great day on the mountain in vail, co. We skied the whole mountain (well the front side). It's huge !!! We checked into our hotel for the night and went straight to the hot tub... It was needed. Was able to do some laundry during dinner and now were enjoying the rest of the night ... Making it an early night because we are skiing Breckenridge in the morning ... It's gonna be a very long day with sore muscles and dealing with our sunburns, but it's all worth it ....

Arches 3/30/13

What a great day we had in Arches National park. We did the Double O arch hike, which was about a 4 mile hike up and down rocks. It was a really nice hot day which lead to getting a really bad horrible sunburn. We didn't want to put on sunscreen on because we just had shower... Lesson learned....

Bryce Canyon to Moab, UT

We had an amazing sunrise today in Bryce... The colors were amazing. It was a little chilly last night and this morning in the bus. We booth slept with sweatshirts and double layered socks and added extra blankets.

We took the advice of the ranger and drove the scenic route 12 to Moab, what a pretty drive it was. Chris drove most of it while I was able to do some studying for my OTA test when we get back to Cali. We hit 9,600 feet in elevation and 6 grades, 8%, 10%, 8%, 8%, 6% and 8% (I'm so happy he was driving and not me)... On the drive we made a stop at the petrified forest, we did the trail hike and almost finished the hike without realizing what we were supposed to be looking at ... Gotta say for being a state park there wasn't a whole lot of petrified wood.

We got in to Moab and the plans were to wing it for the night and find a campground in the area, but once we got into town we were welcomed to the jeep jamboree festive with 10,000 jeeps. We were so lucky to finally find a RV campground with room. We are right on the Colorado river with huge rock mountains around us, which made for an amazing sunset. Dinner was great and the shower was even better .... It's off to bed so we can get an early start in Arches and a drive to vail, co ...