As some of you may know, our family has taken to driving to Arizona and back. Our drive down takes us along I5 until Los Angeles, the across. While the return trip we go to Grand Canyon, Utah and Yellowstone before cutting through Montana for the trip home. Total we will have gone around 3000 miles and about 75 hours in the car.
For tonight we have made the first of our stops in Vancouver, Wa. Tomorrow, after a pit stop in Portland to see a friend, we will make our way through Oregon to California. Our next stop will be the McAurthar-Burney campground. Photos to come once and awhile via my phone until we get home and I can load them to my laptop.

Aug 30

McArther-Burney falls is a very beautiful place. Both the drive there and out weren’t to bad, the roads are very well kept and the scenery is also nice. If it weren’t for the smoke we would have been really disappointed to not spend more time there. They offer many different things to do that are both guided and not. As well as rentals on paddle boats and kayaks. Their general store is well stocked should you even forget something like a sleeping bag. It is a location on the list for us to return to at some point. Quince really liked looking at the falls themselves. He also enjoyed the timer on the camera and would giggle when ever we used it. Making for some really fun pictures. The ground is rather dusty and we were very glad we brought a small floor rug to put down in the
doorway of the tent.

Overnight drive
I will freely admit, this is not my favorite thing to do and I get rather grumpy. While I am well versed at sleeping in the car, that doesn’t mean I want to spend the night in the car. However, once we left the falls and our friend wasn’t available to meet us near LA area, we looked up how long it would take to get to Sierra Vista. Since it was only like 12 hours, we decided “let’s do it!” Plus it meant that we could spend more time there with them. While I’m glad we did it, at about 5 am, I wasn’t too happy.
We stopped at a rest area not far into the Arizona border and tried to get some sleep. It wasn’t easy. Surprisingly, it was a rather busy stop. Cars kept coming and going, there were lights all over so it was hard to find a spot without direct light. To add to things Quince woke up and wasn’t happy just relaxing in the car. Richard ended up walking around with him while I tried to sleep so I could drive. After about 45 mins, I woke up slightly panicked. I didn’t have a good reason at the time, nor do I one now. Nevertheless after that we left and tried to drive again.

Labor Day Weekend

The above photo is actually about 2 hours away at a rest stop. Finally daylight again and after we all had a couple hours of sleep. I drove from there the rest of the way to Sierra Vista. We arrived at Katie and Gerry’s house Friday morning.

Grand Canyon

WOW!

Yellowstone

A geologists version of Disneyland.