The Drive

To celebrate Christmas with our families and attend Matthew's wedding, we drove to Utah.  From Texas.  We DROVE from Texas to Utah.  And back.  23 hours each way.  Once a family gets so big, airplane trips become a limited experience.

The Car: 

Thank goodness for Barbara-- our recently acquired minivan.  (I always swore I would never drive a minivan.  There's a whole story behind this purchase).  She was a trooper-- great gas mileage and comfortable.  The dvd player and XM radio proved crucial to the success of the trip. 
Poor Barbara is a southern automobile, though.  After a few days in the driveway in freezing Utah temperatures, she refused to run until we made room for her in my parents' garage.  I can totally relate.

The Kids:

I was terrified of this drive.  My fears were unwarranted.  The kids were fantastic.  They quietly watched movies the WHOLE time and never asked for unscheduled bathroom breaks (although the boys did make a few "side of the road" stops).  One surprising fact:  the kids did not sleep.  We had to finally force them to close their eyes and nap.

The Route:
Funny story.  I was so careful about avoiding winter storms and snowy weather that I had mapped out the trip using the southern route.  Somewhere around Trinidad, Colorado I realized that we were, in fact, not following the route I had intended.  Lance blames me for this, although all blame is clearly to be heaped upon my gps.

Hard to tell, but the road was completely iced over

The second day of the trip was driven almost entirely on ice-laden cliffs.  This may be a slight exaggeration-- but not much.  Since I wasn't driving, it was kind of amazing.  We got a very early start and saw the sunrise over the canyons.  We saw elk, deer, and wild horses.  We wound our way around a (practically) uninhabited highway through the Rocky Mountains, passing weird little towns.  Looking back, it was not the ideal route-- but it was a pretty cool day.

Wild elk in Colorado

We drove through Arches National Park on the way home

On the way home, we carefully avoided icy cliffs.  We drove through New Mexico (which is a very creepy place.  Yes, I realize that I have made a generalization about an entire state.  I stand by it).  The snow that frequented Utah chased us all the way to Dallas-- where it turned into torrential rain.  Needless to say, Lance did almost all of the driving on the way home.

In Summary:
The drive was surprisingly great.  I would definitely do it again.