Our road trip this summer was one for the books! We were able to see so many things, see a lot of family, and create loads of wonderful memories. I am going to recap our trip here!
We drove from our home in south Denver to Yellowstone, making one stop to catch some Zzz's. We stayed at Hampden Inn at Rock Springs and then drove through Jackson Hole on our way to Yellowstone to grab some lunch. We've never been to Jackson Hole and we all loved that mountain town! Adorable little spot where we grabbed lunch at Hatch and ice cream from Moo's before hitting the road again.
We stayed at Under Canvas in Yellowstone for two nights. This place was cuuuuute! We all loved this place so much. Under Canvas has many locations and I haven't heard anything but wonderful reviews about all locations. They have the cutest tent set up as their lobby where families can play games, have hot chocolate, listen to live music, have a drink, and eat s'mores by the fire pit. Magical!
Each room has a shower and toilet. The shower only turns on if you're pulling down the lever. So that was interesting. Haha. But the water was warm! Our tent had a couch that pulled out to a bed for the kids. And they thought it was so cool lighting the fire and sleeping with it burning all night. Blakely was genuinely terrified a bear was going to eat us. Haha! I could write an entire blog just about the glamping experience! It was wonderful and we will definitely go again.
Day one of Yellowstone we drove to Virginia City, the cutest ghost town a local recommended. We had so much fun shopping, reading old town stories, and eating lunch at their local pizza shoppe. Adorable town! On our way back to the glamping site, we drove by Cliff Lake and wow is that lake gorgeous. People were there with speakers, lawn chairs, canoes, umbrellas, lunch, etc... something I recommend if you can plan for it! Truly the most beautiful lake I've ever seen. We hiked around a little and spent the afternoon playing in the lake.
Under Canvas has one restaurant on site that you can walk to. We ate dinner there both nights. Excellent meals! We also ate breakfast there on our final morning in Yellowstone.
We left Yellowstone and hit the road for Boise to see Grandpa Hubble. But before we could say goodbye to Yellowstone we went to the Sand Dunes. This was a major highlight of the trip! It was a beautiful day and so adventurous. Blakely was very nervous and we had a few scary moments that really freaked her out. Let's just say there were a few times we thought we were gonna roll down the steep hills - yikes!
It was a great day and something we all really enjoyed! I highly recommend this activity. We were there over three hours and had a ball. I recommend wearing sunglasses because the sand flies up! Also not a bad idea to have long sleeves because of the sand flying up at you - it can hurt.
Each stretch of driving was about 5-6 hours. This amount of time was perfect and the kids did great! We were only able to see Grandpa and Grandma Janis for one night because they were still recovering from covid, dang it. But we're so, so glad we got to see them! Grandpa surprised Ryder with three* new pocket knives and it made his life complete. Haha! Grandma Janis gave Blakely a cute tea kettle and we're just so glad we were able to see them.
Before we left the Boise area, we spent an afternoon at Roaring Springs Water Park. The kids love water parks and we always try to hit one when we do these summer road trips (our first big road trip was in 2020 when we renting an RV). We swam out faces off and then... back in the car!
We drove to Salt Lake City and stayed at the Salt Lake Marriott Downtown at City Creek for three nights. Our kids *live* for room service and movie nights in hotels. Haha! It's the little things. My mom (and a lot of her side of the family) live around Salt Lake. We happened to be in town while a couple of my cousins were also visiting! So grateful we got to see them and spend a couple days together. We ate dinner in the canyon. Hotdogs and s'mores with family and a gorgeous view. Just beautiful!
The next day was full of fun! We were able to visit This is the Place. It was so stinking cute! We were there for hours and still didn't get to experience the entire place. So adorable, I highly recommend a visit there! The kids loved seeing how people lived in late 1800's. Seeing how they did laundry, how they stored and prepared food, what school was like, etc. All the little shops and stores were so fun to walk through.
We went from there to Park City to grab a late lunch. After we strolled around the Main Street for a bit, we were on our way to Heber to catch the train. My kids haven't been on a train before and that was so fun for them. They played music we all sang along to and the views were just stunning. Getting together with my cousins and all of our kids together was so fun.
The next morning we were headed for our final stop: Glenwood Springs. A favorite of mine because I grew up going to this hotel and hot springs. The highlight of this part was that Blakely was so brave. She was really brave on this trip! She went down waterslides! And had a blast. She even went off the diving board! Guys, this is a big deal! Haha. I didn't think she would do it, but she walked right up and did it. So proud of our girl. We all had a blast going off the diving board for hours.
By this point we were exhausted and ready to be back home. It felt like we had been gone a month, haha. We packed a *lot of fun into an 8-day trip. Our final drive home was pretty rough because we ran out of kids dramamine and the kids were both sick driving home on those switchbacks. Yikes. I will be linking a few things we used while on this trip below. I will link some new "glasses" we got to try out. I hear they really help, so we'll see! Getting carsick is the worst.
If you guys hit any of these fun spots, let me know! :) I hope you have a blast if you do. To scroll through linked items, click the arrows on either side to see all items below.
