Rain, Railroads, & Relatives

After having breakfast at the hotel (any place that has a "make your own waffle" station gets a big thumbs up from the boys), we spent most of the morning driving north on I-15 in the rain. My husband's sense of humor was evident from the playlist he queued up on the iPhone:

• Have You Ever Seen the Rain - Creedence Clearwater Revival
• Can You Stand the Rain - New Edition
• Who'll Stop the Rain - Creedence Clearwater Revival
• Over Me - Whiteheart
• Let It Rain - Newsboys

Random Awesomeness

Ever seen the world's largest ball of twine? Or visited the Mystery Spot, where the rules of physics are turned upside down? Carhenge? Roadside America catalogs all of this random awesomeness that is just waiting to be seen! 

They even have an app for that, which I happily and unashamedly paid money to download. Based on your location, it will give you a list of nearby attractions and oddities. How great is that?! That's how we found out about Beaver's native son, Philo T. Farnsworth, the father of television. Can't wait to see what else we will run across on this trip!

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?!

Traveling Buddies

Many of our adventures have been shared with another family. We first met 6 years ago when our older boys were just in kindergarten and they were placed on the same U6 soccer team. We came to find out that our families had many things in common, including enjoying visiting our national parks. The kids earned their first Jr. Ranger badges together at the Santa Monica Mountains NRA and have been hooked ever since. The moms love getting their passport stamps. And the dads... well, they're great about humoring the rest of us in our obsessions!

I calculated how far we've traveled in our trips together and the number I came up with was....

Alphabet Soup

In case anyone is curious, the designations for the 394 units within the national park system are listed below. National parks can only be established by an act of Congress. However, the president may designate and protect areas as national monuments by executive order under the Antiquities Act of 1906.

The Objects of Our Affection

As you can see from the sidebar and my blog moniker, I'm a *big* fan of our national park system -- the spectacular scenery, the wildlife, the historical significance. If you haven't seen it, I would highly recommend Ken Burns' excellent documentary, "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" for an in-depth look at the history of the national parks and the stories of the people involved, not to mention the gorgeous images of the parks themselves.

In the documentary, they describe how, early on, park visitors would receive a stamp showing that their entry fee had been paid. People starting collecting the cancellations as a means to show which parks they had visited and when. The "Passport to Your National Parks" program has been around since 1986, but I caught the bug in 2005 when we took our first real road trip to Seattle and back. Our family tradition began when we bought our first passport at Crater Lake NP in Oregon, stamping it there and at Lava Beds NM in Northern CA, too.