Spring Break - the L.O.N.G. drive

the plan for weeks has been that I was going to UT for Spring Break.  We were going to do it in 2 days, staying in Boise to break it up.  Then some friends from Kennewick told me that they were going and that they were caravanning and were doing it in one day.  I debated back and forth, then decided to just do it.  It would give us more time with the college kids home for conference and it would be fine.  So, Friday, April 1st, we met at 7am and got ready for the drive.  By 7:23 we were on the road, and I was so excited to think that we would be there in just 10 short hours.  April Fools!

The first stop was in Pendleton, less than an hour from home.  Someone had thrown up, luckily not in my car.  The next stop was La Grande, same kid had to potty.  Then we were off.  We were making great time and would be in Boise by lunchtime....until we saw the billows of smoke in the distance. I thought it must be a brush fire, until all the traffic stopped in front of us and we sat on the Freeway for 1 1/2 hours. 

After playing in red-ant hills, running up and down the freeway, and cleaning up trash along the road, we were finally redirected by a cop through an "authorized vehicle only" road back about 10 miles to Weiser and on through there.

We stopped for lunch at McDonald's in Ontario, then buzzed right through Boise.  We stopped in Mountain Home for a quick potty break, and then got ready to leave when one of the vehicles in our carvan started her car to find the most ear piercing screach.  Luckily there was a good samaritan "wrencher" in the gas station who made some phone calls for us, found us the part to fix the "froze up pulley" and then had us follow him to town to the Napa to pay for the part then he ran to his shop to grab his tools and then fixed the issue at hand.  He was headed to Jackpot for the weekend, and we wished him great luck on his gambling for the weekend.  There was another couple at the gas station that came over to help too, and after visiting we found that they are in the Union ward here in Kennewick and were headed to Pocatello.  They ended up donating their gifts to the grandkids to our wild tribe and the kids had a great time on the side of the gas station playing with fisherprice cars and people.  We all teared up to think of the kindness of strangers.

Then again, on the road and we flew right along, until Burley where we spent 40 ridiculous minutes at Wendy's waiting for our food.  And, the sad thing was, we were the only ones in the restaurant.  I contemplated staying with family in the area, but they didn't answer the phone, and Tanner really wanted to get to Grandma's in PG.  So, despite it being 8pm, we buzzed on. 

FINALLY at 11:30pm - only 15 hours later we arrived at our destination.  Exhausted.  But home.  Ahhh, the joys of caravanning....