Utah Spring Break 2022 Part 1: Getting There

SOooo It’s been years since my last post but I’ve regained some motivation to get back into keeping track of our adventures Not thinking I’ll do daily updates but just when we do something I want to remember. The start of our extended spring break did not result in many pictures so lets start with a nice wall of text.

Heath and I both worked from home on Wednesday and we were actually pretty well packed and prepared ahead of time. Once the girls got out of school we all got in the van and headed to the Blind Tiger in Topeka (our favorite way to kick off a trip). I drove us to Topeka and Heath did a bit more working. We ended up sitting outside to avoid waiting on a table and delt with really slow service and a table next to us of cigar smokers but we still really enjoyed our drinks and food and left pretty enthusiastic.

I got some pretty solid sleep while Heath drove. She woke me up and we gassed up and got my coffee swapped places. It was 33F and a light rain was coming down, then a hard rain and then the temp dropped a bit more and we alternated fat snowflakes and sleet. There was not a lot of accumulation going through Denver but just as we passed through Denver and into the suburbs the DOT closed down 70 (about 2:30am). There was a few closed shops and one packed open gas station. I parked at a closed Harley dealership and checked the CO DOT website a bunch. Fat snow was falling like crazy but I expected a plow to run through and they would open the road back up. By like 8am the road was still closed but the family was up and hungry and needing a bathroom. We were headed to the desert and pretty unprepared for tons of snow but luckily a little coffee shop opened up and we made our way in. It was nice to get out of the car a bit and the food and coffee was great.

. After breakfast we got word the highway was open and quickly got back on the highway and then got stuck in a wild mess of cars and trucks.

It was actually worse then this looks. Often times lanes were blocked by vehicles unable to get up a hill or people stopped on the highway putting on snow chains. I had snow chains in the van but never put them on. It’s hilly area and we stopped or crawled up the hills but then went too fast for chains down the hills so nothing was great but we did make it through and surprisingly it went from crazy to fine nearly all at once.

We were in a little panic because our Airbnb for the night said you had to check in between 11am and 5pm or no one would be there and our GPS was guessing 4:30 plus stops for gas and food. We had wasted 7 plus hours on the snowstorm. We were all craving McDonalds for some odd reason and stopped at one at Vail with crazy high prices for lunch. Otherwise we just crushed miles for hours upon hours with some really great, music, podcasts, audio books and most of all the views.

We got to the airbnb like right at 5 and to our home sweet home for the next 15 or so hours.

The teepee was a super sweet place to stay. The kids immediately started scrambling up the rocks behind.

The parents immediately opened a drink, started dinner and then started scrambling up the rocks.

We had an easy but great dinner that eveyone chipped in on.

We got cleaned up and ready for bed and hung out a bit but I for one was exhausted from being in the driver seat for 20 something hours. Pumpkin setup an air mattress for her sleeping bag in the middle of the teepee and the rest of us setup our sleeping bags on cots in the teepee that were really more like hammocks. They were pretty cold and rough sleeping. Julia even rolled off hers in the middle of the night but I’d totally go back.