On the road with the Pemberton's: Summer 2009

So we after at least 10 years of talking about how fun it would be to own a travel trailer, we finally bought a 5th wheel last year in California. With the price of gas last year we decided to park it at Greg's mom's and save up our money and Greg's vacation time and planned a month long adventure for this summer to go pick it up and bring it home to Texas where we could actually use it! Below is a glimpse into our month of...fun, adventure, family, history, and wonderful memories.

WEEK 1:

Saturday, June 27th-Dylan, Chad and I left Friendswood headed West making it as far as Fort Stockton, Tx 8 hours later. Glad we were driving mostly in the dark through the boring part of Texas.

Sunday-June 28thth-stopped in El Paso to pick Ty up at the airport since we left before he got home from Boy Scout camp. Gregs mom's maiden name is McNary and we had some time to waste before picking Ty up so we stopped for a fun photo op.

From El Paso we continued on to Phoenix for a nice restful nights sleep.

Monday-June 29th-Greg was supposed to fly in to LAX on Tuesday but couldn't stand being back home without us for the next 24 hrs so he took and extra vacation day and flew in to Phoenix and we picked him up a day early and headed to his mom's in Reedley to get the trailer ready which took the next two days.

Thursday-July 2nd-4th -to McCloud, California/Mt Shasta to camp and spend the holiday with Greg's family and hunting friends. We were all there except for Brian's wife Alma, and their two kids, Melissa and little Brian...we missed you! Thanks to Greg's friends Mark and his son Bart who live in McCloud and kept up with us and showed us an awesome time!

WEEK 2:

Sunday-July 5th-spent 10 long hours on the road. We stopped for the night at my brother's in Boise. Grandpa and aunt Jan were there also. It's never dull at aunt Joy and uncle Brett's. From the minute we showed up it at 8pm it was eat some good dutch oven chicken, awesome chocolate cake, do 4 loads of laundry while launching water balloons off the porch into the park, and watch a great fireworks show compliments of my nephew Trevor.

Monday, July 6th-eat breakfast and time to get on the road to Yellowstone for the week with my mom, aunt Donna and uncle Gary. Arrived at Yellowstone after dark.

Tuesday, July 7th-Friday, July 10th: Spent the days at Mammoth, Old Faithful, saw a baby bear cub...bison...cow elk, deer, bald eagles, had a picnic and ice cream, camp fires, smores, floating the river, driving up to Sawtel. Wonder where the pictures are? Me too! Actually, I thought I'd free up space on the camera and copy the photos from this part of the trip to the laptop...problem is I got side tracked and deleted them off the camera before making sure they copied properly...so I'm waiting for my wonderful mother, mother in law and Aunt Donna to send me copies of the photo's they took!

Saturday, July 11th-Sunday, July 12th: Hang out in Pocatello at Aunt Donna and Uncle Gary's 4 wheeling, bbq at my cousins, catch up on laundry and watch recordings of the past 2 weeks of the Bachelorette! And yes, those photo's were also part of my oops!

WEEK 3:

Monday, July 13th-highlights, low lights and a hair cut before heading to Salt Lake to drop of Greg's mom at the airport before we headed Mout Rushmore. We had overnight stays at Flaming Gorge, Utah and Sidney, Nebraska on the way. Nothing in Sidney except a Cabella's (heaven for the men...hunting, fishing, camping and camo stuff)

Wednesday, July 15th-Friday, July 17th: amazing time at Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Hill City, Deadwood, Sturgis, Rapid City, Custer State Park in South Dakota. We loved all the hills and history of the area. We panned for gold, toured a gold mine, met one of the original men that worked on Mt Rushmore and had him sign a book.

WEEK 4:

Saturday, July 18th-Monday, July 20th : heading east to Atalissa, Iowa to visit Greg's cousin Kristi and her family. They live on a farm in the country. Our family LOVED it! They had chickens, horse coral, trampoline, and the stars at night were AMAZING! No city lights. Bon fires to cook smores and bananna boats...the BEST corn I have ever had and if you ask the Dylan and Chad the most awesome dirt track around and over and through the oats to ride 4 wheelers and motorbikes. If you ask Ty...not enough soft ground to keep the remote control airplane from shattering when he crashed it!

Chad: Can we move to the country and live on farm?

Mom and Dad: That would be so much fun. We would love to. But what would dad do for a job?

Chad: We could grow plants and food and sell them to make money.

(Anyone who knows me knows I haved killed more than one cactus! I don't think we'd make a very good living growing plants and food)

Tuesday, July 21st - Thursday, July 23rd: on to Nauvoo, Illinois for a wonderful last few days of our vacation where we met up with my grandpa, Aunt Jan, Aunt Beverly, Aunt Donna and my mom. Saw several shows and took a carriage ride and wagon ride and learned alot more church history.

Saturday, July 25th we arrived back at our home sweet hot and humid Houston home! After unloading the trailer, throwing in a few loads of laundry and taking a well deserved (REAL) shower, I got a much needed pedicure!

We were gone for 28 days, traveled 7416 miles, spent 165 1/2 hrs in the truck, saw 50 relatives, 2 friends, and created priceless memories to last a lifetime! I would do it all over again given the chance!