Are We There Yet?

And away we go...

Not much to report for our first day on the road. We got off to a later start than I had hoped, but we needed to figure out how to fit all of our clothes, snacks, and the "just in case we might need this" stuff into the back of our minivan. I'm not sure why we (i.e. my dear husband) brought so much food along with us -- after all, people do live in the places we're going to and they have to buy their food from somewhere, right?!

Anyway, we hit a traffic jam right before Barstow -- there were no accidents or police around, but everything was at a complete stand-still on I-15. Weird.

We stopped in Baker to fill up the tank and for a hot lunch... 95 degrees hot! Unfortunately, the world's tallest thermometer was broken. (What a bummer, K.N.!)

Baker, CA - 95 degrees!

One of my favorite parts of this leg of the trip was driving through the Virgin River Gorge in the northwest corner of AZ, between Mesquite, NV and St. George, UT. I wish there had been a scenic turnout, but this is the best photo I could get through the car window...

Virgin River Gorge, AZ

540 miles and 8.5 hours later we finally reached Beaver, UT. For the most part, the boys were pretty good about not asking the dreaded question that is the title of this post. It helped that the speed limit in parts of southern Utah is 80 mph, so we covered a lot of ground pretty fast. They're also keeping themselves amused playing the license plate game (found Alaska already) and tallying road kill (1 dog & 1 deer).

We had a nice dinner at the Timberline Inn Restaurant in town. R had a ribeye steak sandwich and I ordered the French dip. Yummy! The picky eaters enjoyed what they ordered, too -- so I'd call that an all-around win. This is one of the things I'm really looking forward to on this trip -- finding great local places to eat at! The hunt for the best biscuits 'n gravy is on!

We're staying at the Best Western Butch Cassidy Inn, so named because he (aka Robert Leroy Parker) was born here in Beaver, UT in 1866. The other famous resident of Beaver was Philo T. Farnsworth, hero to couch potatoes everywhere as the "father of television".

Philo T. Farnsworth, father of TV

It should be no surprise that this display immediately caught the boys' attention as we walked around town...

What is it with the fascination of boys, guns, & war?

We're off to Promontory tomorrow to visit Golden Spike NHS, the site where the transcontinental railroad was completed. They're forecasting a "record cold and wet" Father's Day for tomorrow. Yippee.