I’m Home! – Stampin Queen

Whew…..13 days….15 states….9 hotels and 5333 miles….and the Brechbill Family is home! Many of you know, we decided to do the Griswold Family Vacation this summer. We packed up the kids and the van and headed out west. We had a marvelous time! Perfect traveling (some construction, but the ol van held together!), perfect weather (you just can’t beat Colorado in the summers) and perfect kids (they hardly fought and considering many days in the car were spent doing their AP summer assignments…they did great).

I don’t want to bore you to tears with the details, so I’ll just highlight some of the sights. Thank you all for following along on facebook and for being so patient as I shut down the stamp studio for 2 weeks! I did take Paper Pumpkin along with me. I was afraid I’d start to detox if I didn’t stamp in 2 weeks! That kit is just perfect for on the go…..

First stop: St Louis and the Gateway Arch. It was “toasty.” Our bus driver said…”it’s not hot here, it’s just a little “toasty.” Her definition made is sound tolerable. I’m here to tell you….it was flippin’ HOT! Sweat was dripping and there was a 2 hour wait to go up in the arch. We had no tolerance for that…so we said, “wow, look at that.” And were on our way!

Onward to Colorado! We made a pit stop at Great Sand Dunes National Park…weird seeing a giant sand dune in the midst of the Rockies!

Our destination was Durango, Colorado…a little more south and west of where we usually vacation. We took a day trip to Mesa Verde to see the cliff dwellings.

The next day was gorgeous and we took a family hike. You just can’t beat the weather in Colorado! So much better than the hot and humid we have here!

Our final day in Durango, we took the Durango-Silverton Railroad. It’s a 3 1/2 ride both ways on an old coal powered railroad. Poodle and I drove up to Silverton and met the boys, who rode the train. We then switched riders and Poodle and I rode the train home. A great way to see some awesome country….but super dirty!

We left Durango in the evening and made our way to Utah! You see…..I had this convention to attend! We spent the night and visited Arches National Park in Moab on our way to Salt Lake City.

We planned our trip perfectly….up and on the go at 5am…..to the park at 7:30am to watch the sunrise…explore a bit and on the road at 10am to SLC…..I was a presenter at convention this year, what an honor! I had rehearsal at 2:10. And….it all come to a screeching halt as we sat in traffic due to an accident….for over 1 and 1/2 hours! The view was nice….

We did finally make it and the kids dropped me off for a few days to hang out with 3000 other demos! I was most happy to stay at the Radisson…which was so luxurious compared to the Motel 6 and Super 8’s we’d be in! Some were a bit questionable!

While I conducted “business,” the others went to Park City, Utah. The boys hiked and mountain biked while Poodle enjoyed some down time and some wifi to work on her summer school assignments. They did take a trip to Olympic Park and rode the bobsled and watched the free style skiers. They picked me up and we were back on the road again….to Idaho Falls!

We spent the night in another Motel 6……which wasn’t very clean and the sheets were questionable. Poodle bundled up to prevent bed bugs and Jr camped on the floor.

Yellowstone….here we come! Three of our friends were here recently on their Griswold family vacations and said how wonderful Yellowstone was…tons of wildlife! We planned to be at the park for 2 days. Two days….1 buffalo. We were so disappointed. But….just bad timing I guess. We still saw some of the gorgeous park and some of the very stinky geysers. In Jr’s words…..geysers smell like fart.

The Dairy Farmer found Yellowstone under Canvas and decided with HAD to stay there! I am certainly NOT a tent camper, so I wasn’t too sure…..I quickly changed my mind!