Summer Travel 2017: To Utah, then Canada, then back to Utah

We went on a trip!

Our travels began on Monday, June 12th. We left to drive to the airport in Orlando just after lunch. When we stopped to get gas 15 minutes away from our house, Jared discovered that his driver's license was still in the suit coat pocket he was wearing the day before (and thus still at home). We hurried home to get it and got back on the road. Thankfully traffic was smooth and so was parking our van offsite. We made it through security and arrived at our gate just as they started to board. We had a direct flight (4.5 hours) to Salt Lake City. The children all did well on the flight--it helped that each seat had its own screen with movies, etc, plus each child had an electronic device to pass the time. Adam bounced around some but did much better than I expected. After about 1.5 hours I felt quite ill and nauseous for the remainder of the flight (I decided to never fly again! Ha ha!) We landed in SLC at 7:45 pm (which felt like 9:45pm to us). After gathering our luggage and securing our rental van, we stayed the night with the Bybee family in West Jordan.

 Tuesday morning we got going early and were on the road just after 8 a.m. for our drive to Canada. It rained pretty steadily the entire day, and temperatures were pretty cool. There was snow on the ground when we reached the high elevation point at Monida pass in Montana, so we stopped briefly to touch it and make a few snowballs.

Snow in Montana!

We drove through Utah, Idaho, and Montana. When we reached the international border at Sweet Grass we were the only car in line (that was a first ever!) and were able to gain admittance quickly. The last hour of the drive in Canada was fun, with a number of wildlife sightings (mule deer, birds, pronghorn antelope, etc). We arrived at the Nelson's home in Barnwell just before 9 p.m. 

Throughout our trip we listened to the audio book of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, which kept us all entertained and passed the time.

Wednesday we had a nice time visiting with family. We mostly stayed around the Nelson's home in Barnwell. Rachel had come from Edmonton with Joel and Grace, and the kids all had a good time playing. We pulled some weeds at Mom's house while the kids played at the Barnwell school park. I went with Dad to pick up some groceries and we did a little drive by tour of his apartment and the south side of Taber. In the evening we swam at the indoor Taber pool--the kids especially loved the water slide.

 Popsicles from Grandpa!

The tallest Taber cornstalk! 

 Thursday, Deanna put together a little treasure map/scavenger hunt to send the kids on to explore Barnwell (Jared: we ended up walking by the home of one of my BYU freshman year roommates - Donald Porter - who went to high school with Kristi. He was killed in an accident about 15 years ago) -- we ended up at a park where we flew a kite and pet the neighbor horses. We all went to the MD Park--the bugs were bad by the river, but the kids played on the playground for awhile.

After gathering up weeds from Grandma's house.

Friday we all drove to Lethbridge to visit the Helen Schuler Nature Preserve. We went on a nice prairie hike up a hill, near the highest and longest trestle bridge in the world. We had a picnic lunch and the kids spent awhile climbing the various rock walls on the playground. There were a ton of ground squirrels popping up all over, which were fun to see.

Tanner Family in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.

A prairie hike with cousins.

Adam and Grandpa Grant.

Silly Lily.

Zach like the Statue of Liberty.

Adam climbed this distance by himself!

Lily scouting for ground squirrels.

Climbing Jared.

Grandpa with some of the Tanner, Johnson, and Nelson grandchildren.

Grace and Lily stalking ground squirrels.

Adam and Macy in a tree.

Anwyn was a rock-star climber, diligently tackling every wall.

In the afternoon we stopped at the store to pick up a few Canadian souvenirs. In the evening we drove to Stirling to see Jenna sing in a talent show. She did a great job--the competition was pretty tough!

 It was so nice to be able to spend some time in Canada with family!!!!

Saturday morning we were back on the road, driving to Utah.

We stopped at my favorite scenic view, as the mountain passes begin on the I-15 just past Great Falls, Montana.

Adam was happy to be out of the car, but not happy to pose for a picture.

We reached Idaho Falls just after 4pm and stopped at Grandma's house. Craig and Brad and Kaleen (Kristi's uncles and aunt) were all there, and they had prepared dinner for us (which was so nice!). We had a nice visit and got caught up on the Larsen family news. It was especially nice to visit with Grandma. At 88 years of age her memory is definitely not what it used to be, but we were still able to talk and it was nice to be together. She (and I) were sad for a few minutes wishing that Grandpa could have been there (he passed away just a few months ago).

After our brief visit we headed back on the road to finish the drive to the Bybee's home for the night, arriving around 9 pm (a 13 hour travel day). Katie was so gracious to host us as we kept popping in at late hours.