Heading Home

The kids hijack the camera

At last the dreaded time arrived. We all woke up early, loaded ourselves and our belongings into the van and started the arduous trek home. Leaving the beauty of the Grand Tetons was tough, but we experienced several wonderful days, and our hearts weren't completely saddened by the prospect of returning to the comforts of home. Everything went pretty well the first day of travel. When we got to the hotel, we took the kids on some walks to burn off pent up energy, ate dinner, and headed for bed.

Day 2 started off on the wrong foot as communication problems led to the realization that Justin's newly acquired stuffed bison was forgotten in the hotel room. (Thankfully Grandma arranged for postage back to Dallas where later Justin happily greeted him.) The long return trip was particularly hard on the kids and they became restless. They were still very well behaved, with the only misbehavior coming in the form of a frustrating game of fetch perpetuated by Justin intentionally throwing his toy dinosaur in the floor, then wailing when it wasn't retrieved quickly enough.

After entering Texas again we made a stop at Dairy Queen for lunch, mostly because they had an outdoor playground. The kids devoured their food as their eyes stared longingly at the playground, which was promised as a reward for their good behavior. We congratulated them for finishing their lunch and made our way to the door only to find it locked with a very small sign stating, "Playground Closed for Remodeling." We felt like criminals when we saw their disappointment, but amazingly they took it in stride, understanding there was nothing we could do.

Our next stop found a fully operational McDonald's playground where the kids ran wild. Of course Norah refused to climb inside the playground and happily orbited around on the ground level as usual. With minimal coaxing Justin climbed inside the structure and climbed nearly to the top. He passed the slide somewhere along the way and became lost in the oversized hamster maze and shouted for rescue. None of us were small enough to navigate the maze, so we apologized, paid the manager $20 to mail Justin to us if/when he found his way out, and continued to Dallas. Okay, so that part didn't really happen, we didn't pay the manager a dime.

The drive continued on and on, and every effort was made to entertain and distract the kids. When we were 4 hours outside Dallas, Justin had a complete meltdown of crying, screaming, kicking, whining and thrashing. Both kids behaved so well for the entirety of the lengthy driving vacation that nobody could blame him for reaching his threshold. Needless to say, upon arrival we were all very relieved to be home.

Everyone returned safely despite vacationing inside a volcano, being alternately surrounded by quietly boiling and randomly erupting thermal features and frigid rapids, hiking along perilously steep cliffs and canyons and in the presence of giant grazers in the meadows, and driving amongst the hazards of distracted, car-wielding tourists. The trip bore all the hallmarks of a successful vacation. It was peaceful and relaxing, yet exciting and fantastic. It was long enough to be satisfying, but not long enough to be tiresome.