What do you do on a 7 hour Sunday Drive?
If you're Elliot, you draw pictures of waterfalls on your graphing calculator.
You admire the view.
"Pratt's Healing Ointment- We Both Use It!"
We also listened to quite a bit of Harry Potter audiobook.
We spent the night in an Airbnb in Hedley, British Columbia. We picked it purely because it was in the right location to break up our long drive but was a surprisingly good stay! Our host baked us some beet bread that was far more delicious than it had any right to be. They also encouraged us to check out the local mining museum, which ended up being a great tip.
Elliot and Alice playing a couple rounds of battleship before we took off to the museum
Some of the displays outside the museum
This is a real mining cabin that they relocated to be by the museum
For some reason, there were three decorated outhouses mounted on lawnmowers. They seem to have won some parade prize and were given a place of honor at the museum.
I don't think she would have been a very good child miner. She likes sunshine too much.
They had a telescope pointing at the mining base camp up on the mountain. There were employees that gave us lots of great information about the old mining days. It was a fun stop that we appreciated even more because we hadn't planned doing anything in the area.
4 hours and a border crossing later, we found ourselves at Colonial Creek North Campground in Cascades National Park. The kids got right to exploring.
Row, row, row you boat
I have an adorable and brave little boy.
We could walk to this beautiful lake from our campsite. It was chilly, but the kids didn't care.
Just another gorgeous glacial lake
Daddy shoulder jousting
Lakin deserves an award for this picture.
It ended up dumping rain overnight. That was ok because we had hot chocolate and got to see Isaac in his cute raincoat.
Isaac with his other mama. Their relationship was so sweet.
My rock stacking abilities were greatly improved on this trip
We stumbled upon a couple cool sites on our way to the visitor's center. The first was Diablo Dam. It was an architectural wonder. When it was built in 1930, it was the tallest dam in the world.
Elliot's comment: "Those would be fun waterslides if it wasn't for the death at the end"
I don't even remember the name of this little hike! It was short. The cool part was a bridge with grated flooring so you could see the canyon floor beneath our feet.
Apparently Isaac and Aaron have the same "smile while the sun is in your eyes" face
One last Alice-Isaac shot
Some sweet old cars parked outside the visitor's center! They were small enough that the two shared a parking spot.
Annie did a better job with my "look scared of the bear" instructions
Who doesn't love a good topographical map? This one had buttons to light up different features, and drawers filled with informational material.
A cedar stump house! Humans are wonderful.
The visitor's center was one of the best I have been to! They even had a banana slug for the littles to climb on.
After we were done at the visitor's center, we piled back into the cars and drove 6 hours back to the Hay's house.
The next morning they made us pancakes with huckleberries picked from their backyard. Because they are awesome.
This trip was everything we hoped it would be. We saw so many beautiful sites, built some character in our kids (hopefully), and spent lots of time out in nature exploring. The Hays truly are amazing adventure buddies, both for their planning skills and because of how easy it is to be around them. I'm so grateful that we have been able to keep in contact despite living so far apart.
From the Hays house, we flew to SLC, got a rental car, and spent a night at the Allsops house before heading to the second leg of this vacation- Alpine!
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