Number of Miles Driven: 578 (to Twin Falls on 7/20); 399 (to Vernal on 7/21)

Drive Time: 8:00 - 5:30 (7/20; lost an hour); 11 - 5:30 (7/21)

States Driven through: OR, ID, UT (3)

Tuesday, July 20


It happened again - we were ahead of schedule! Our departure time on the itinerary was 8 am and we left at 7:56. It was a sad goodbye and we left the same time as my dad, so there were lots of hugs going around. And so began Phase 3, the final phase, of the trip.

Beginning Phase 3: I think we look a lot more tired...


We had our first pit-stop at 8:26 a.m. - we stopped at Multnomah Falls - recognized as one of the best falls in America and right off I-84 on our way out of town. Today was the first day they were requiring reservations, so we had made a quick reservation the night before at 11 pm (when we found out we needed reservations) but there were still over 200 reservations available for the 9 am slot so we felt confident we would be good to go. We weren’t sure if we’d be able to “enter” before 9 since it officially opened at 9, but there was no one checking reservations and it was easily accessible. The falls were magnificent (although probably even more so when no in a drought) - with a total drop of 600 feet. It was truly a “pit stop” as we hopped out of the car, saw the falls, took a few pics and then got going again. 




As we were walking back to our car, we got stopped by a news crew who was interested to know whether the reservation system was easy. Somehow Michael passed that task off to me, so I was interviewed by the news to discuss the process for getting a reservation. I think they were disappointed because all I said was “I clicked on the time we wanted and that was it.” 


15 seconds of fame, but I'm pretty sure I didn't make the final cut for that story

We got back on the road and began our long journey to Twin Falls, ID - it was one of our longer driving days. We were warned there was not much to see on our drive to Idaho, and that was mostly accurate. Immediately upon leaving Multnomah Falls, we traveled I-84 along the Columbia River Gorge - which separates Oregon from Washington State. It was absolutely beautiful - especially in the morning when the fog was still hanging along the top of the gorge. The walls of the cliffs on either side were lined with evergreens, and the large river was bluish in color and looked so refreshing with all of its whitecaps from the little rapids. I tried so hard to capture the scene with a picture but I just couldn’t get the right angle. I even tried to take a picture through the sunroof - but the high median wall in the interstate kept blocking me out! 


Columbia River Gorge

View of the gorge from the sunroof


After the beautiful gorge, which actually lasted for many miles, the scenery was largely the same between Oregon and Idaho - gently rolling yellowish green hills that was dominated by agriculture and farming irrigation systems. We had no idea there was so much farming in eastern Oregon. Andrew also commented that Idaho didn’t look how he expected - he thought the landscape would be mostly brown rocky mountains or rock formations. I really didn’t know what to expect, but I wouldn’t have pegged it as yellowish rolling hills. I wondered how many of the farms we saw were potato farms.


A view of Eastern Oregon and Southern Idaho - gently rolling yellow hills




The drive was fairly nondescript and it seemed to go by fairly quickly considering it was 8 hours of driving (we only made 1 bathroom stop!). We arrived in Twin Falls around 5 pm (after we lost an hour crossing into the Mountain Time Zone -ughh…losing time has begun!). We reserved a cabin at a campsite. The campsite wasn’t anything to go on about, but it had a (somewhat rundown) mini-golf course and a large waterslide. The kids wanted to do mini-golf so we did that right when we got there. Matthew had the best score of the kids (he got a couple in 2 shots). Michael and I tied - I started strong and even had a hole-in-one, but I didn’t end strong…




After golf we decided to eat Chick-fil-A instead of the hot dogs and easy mac we had planned to eat (wasn’t a hard decision). It was only our second time eating CFA on the whole trip - the first time was our first day of the trip in South Carolina. The dining room was open and we even got to enjoy a 6-pack of cookies that my friend Ryan Guthrie gifted us for the trip. Matthew said the fries were better in Idaho - haha. We just told him he appreciated them more since it had been awhile since he’d had them. 


After dinner we went to the Perrine Bridge - a notable bridge that crosses the Snake River in Twin Falls. It was very scenic and the bridge crossed a gorge that was breathtaking - especially at sunset which is when we were seeing it. The walls of the gorge picked up so many colors of the sunset and there was a resort-style golf course within the gorge that added to the picturesque nature of the scene. 






While taking in the sights, we saw a couple of base jumpers jumping from the bridge - it was incredible to watch. My stomach was taken away just going to the edge of the overlook - I can’t imagine purposefully jumping from that bridge. 


By the time we got back to the cabin it was after 9:30 so we got the kids to bed. There were two sets of bunk beds and a queen bed so everyone had a bed. Andrew, Carolyn, and Matthew each wanted a top bunk so they agreed to pick a number 1-10 and the closest ones to the number (automatically and randomly generated by an app, of course) got to be on top - Andrew and Matthew won. Carolyn was quite upset but eventually calmed down about her loss. She insisted she wanted a top bunk because she wanted to sleep on the same bunk as Dani - which was probably at least somewhat true. They wanted to tell ghost stories after getting settled into bed and we let them do that for about 15 minutes. Michael was tempted to sneak behind the cabin and make spooky noises right outside their window, but he resisted because he didn’t want them having nightmares and waking us up - ha! 



The cabin was warm and there was no breeze coming through the windows - which was a bummer because the outside temp was so refreshing. The “mattresses” might as well not have even existed - it was like we were sleeping on wood platforms. It was not the most comfortable sleeping arrangements, but this was our night of “roughing” it. Even the kids woke up the next morning complaining of how hard the beds were. We’ve gotten spoiled with all the amazing accommodations we’ve had so far. 


Wednesday, July 21


We started the morning with breakfast (just cereal) on the picnic table on the “porch” of our cabin. The weather was great - probably low 70’s and the sun was shining. 


After getting everything packed up and lunches made, we headed to Shoshone Falls - nicknamed the “Niagara Falls of the West.” The Falls were beautiful - but, again, we were told that the falls aren’t nearly as impressive in the summer as they are in the spring when its at its highest flow. I still thought they were very impressive - there was even a rainbow in front of them to add to the beauty. 







We hit the road for Utah by 11 am. The landscape continued to be the rolling yellowish-green hills. There were several cattle farms and the cows were HUGE  - even bigger than in Texas. As we got closer to the Utah border, the mountains got bigger and were a more predominant part of driving scene.



Driving into Salt Lake City was very pretty. The city was surrounded by mountains and they looked like the ones in Indian Wells - perhaps with a bit more green covering but not much. We contemplated stopping at a hot springs north of Salt Lake City (Crystal Hot Springs) but the entry was cost-prohibitive, and the other surrounding hot springs would have been more than a quick stop off the interstate. There’s a hot tub at our hotel tonight, so we just planned to do that…haha. 


As we got closer to Vernal the landscape of Utah changed to red rock formations and red rock mountains. Not the rock formations you’d find in southern Utah but similar to the topography you’d see in Southwestern U.S. 




She wasn't impressed with the scenery

We arrived in Vernal around 5:30. The town was very pretty and had large overflowing flower baskets lining the streets through their main downtown. There were also dinosaurs scattered throughout the town - statues, paintings, businesses with a dinosaur name, etc. We stayed at the Microtel and it was a nice hotel room and had good wifi (yay! I caught up on blog posts!). We made hot dogs and easy mac in the hotel room. After our gourmet dinner we went to the pool - the kids had a LOT of energy after being in the car most of the day and they needed to expend that somehow. They liked the in-door pool and enjoyed the hot tub just like we thought they would. Michael and I even hopped in the hot tub and it was mostly relaxing - still had to keep our eyes on the kids in the pool. We were limited to one hour so we wrapped up around 7 and headed back to the room for showers and an “early” bedtime. 



Maybe if I turn my back to them they'll stop saying "Daddy...watch this!"


The room had a unique set-up, with a window-seat that was long enough for the kids to lay one. Matthew and Carolyn each wanted to sleep on that and Dani wanted to sleep on the small couch - only Andrew wanted the comfy queen bed. The window seat was pretty thin so we didn’t let anyone sleep on that and put both Matthew and Dani on the couch. We pulled the cushions off the couch and Dani slept on the cushions on the floor while Matthew slept on the couch itself. 


Most desired sleeping arrangement


Carolyn was upset she had to share a bed with Andrew and insisted “we just don’t get along!” She complained that he sprawls everywhere - you too, girl, you too! They put a pillow between them to serve as a buffer. I stayed up late to catch up on blog posts - I write them while we drive but then I have to upload them with photos and that’s the part that requires good wifi, and even then it still takes a long time - especially if I’m trying to integrate photos that others have taken. I also had to spend time deleting photos out of my google photos because I’m running out of storage and my photos from my phone are no longer automatically uploading to google - so it’s just been a process…


July 22


Carolyn tried to wake me up at 7 am and apparently I just said “No,” so Michael assumed that meant I didn’t want to wake up. I didn’t WANT to wake up but I also wasn’t fully processing what time we needed to get going to see everything before we left Vernal. We moved a little slowly this morning, but this hotel finally had decent breakfast options (waffles!) and by the time we ate the hotel breakfast and got loaded up it was 9:45 (eeek!). We were hoping to leave Vernal by 11:00 so that didn’t give us much time to see Dinosaur National Monument, but, luckily for us, it was a really hot morning (89 - but felt hotter) so that made not doing the hikes MUCH easier. We saw the Quarry - a really cool display of 1500 dinosaur fossils that were left in the rock. 




In the Quarry with the wall of fossils behind us.


In the Quarry





Dinosaur National Monument is actually a very big park that spans across both Utah and Colorado and there are LOTS of hiking trails and an area with petroglyphs but we just didn’t have time to see them. We were disappointed that we were going to miss the fossil hike where you can supposedly see fossils along the hike; however, one of the families that stayed at the same hotel as us said they did the 1-mile hike and the kids complained about the heat and they didn’t really see any fossils - everything just looked like rocks. So it turns out we didn’t miss much after all! After doing the Quarry it was already 10:45, so we called it a day and let the kids check out the souvenir shop. They all got plastic dinosaurs. Dani actually didn’t get one at first but then was really upset that everyone else had one so we grabbed one for her too. 


Andrew completed the junior ranger program for the park and was excited to earn his next badge. 



We got on the road by 11:30 and are excited to head to Estes Park, CO. Carolyn has been waiting for this part of the trip for a LONG time because she’ll get to go horseback riding. I’ll check back in with another blog post about our time at Estes Park!