vacation...

I'm not exactly sure where July has gone, but the tuckfam can say that it has been a memorable one. We were blessed to be able to take a 2 week camping vacation to Southern Idaho and Yellowstone. In the middle of it we dropped Braden off for a week long Teen Adventure Aviation camp with MAF. In a word he said it was, "AWESOME!"  I haven't gotten to the pictures and organizing it all, but here are the quick statistics...

• 2 weeks, 4 campgrounds from the Oregon/Idaho border to Yellowstone along I-84.
• Traveling from sea level here in Vancouver to a pass in Yellowstone at 8400 ft.
• Round trip: 2500 miles
• highest temp: high 90's, lowest temp: high 30's
• We crossed the continental divide, the 45 parallel, into another time zone, and 4 states.
• one re-supply stop in Nampa, Idaho at a Winco and Costco arranged exactly as the ones in Vancouver...weird
• one trip back to Nampa to buy a new tent when the wind storm blew a hole in the kids tent.
• A victory for Braden in the family 2 week 'slug bug' game...not fair...one cannot look for 'bugs' when one is knitting!!
• Some facts about Idaho...when you live there I think it is required to own a RV, they are everywhere! And, the state animal has to be the mosquito! For most of the trip, some of us looked like we were recovering from measles.
• The joy was great when we realized that Idaho doesn't charge for showers at their state parks! Yes, we can be clean!!
• We can now identify wagon ruts! The Oregon Trail history is amazing through the Boise Plateau.
• Yellowstone is an amazing place and its REALLY crowded in the summer. Sometimes watching the other tourists was just as entertaining as the animals and geology.

I'll send more when the house is finally clean and the camping gear has been cleaned and put away.

It's good to be home...with my own bed...and a refrigerator...and a washer and dryer!