Three Weeks in UT

Utah!  We spent our time hanging out with family, doing our annual doctor's visits and--oh yeah--waiting around to hear whether Brandon needed surgery.  

We had only been in town a few days when we got together with all of Brandon's family.  Brandon was playing kickball with the nieces and nephews and his hand was hit by the ball hard enough to break his finger.  (He had broken the same finger ten years ago.)  I subbed in for him to finish out the game and he went inside to ice his finger and go to the ER.  They took an x-ray and confirmed that it was, in fact, broken and to check with a specialist to make sure it didn't need surgery.

The doctor's office couldn't get him in for a week, but when he was finally able to see the doctor, he was told that he may not need surgery.  We needed to wait to see how it healed on its own and come back in a week to see how it had progressed.  The original plan was to leave Utah and head to Houston during the kids' fall break, which would mean leaving only two days after the next doctor's appointment.  If he needed surgery then that plan would be thrown out--we would have to stay in UT while he had surgery and recovered--but we were in limbo until we knew for sure.  Luckily, the next set of x-rays the following week showed that the finger was healing well on its own and he wouldn't need surgery afterall.  He just needed to wear his finger splint for another six weeks and then get it re-checked by a doctor again, wherever we were at that time.

In the meantime, and in-between school and work, we did some fun (outdoorsy) things with family.  We hiked to Grotto Falls and enjoyed the first fall colors we've since we moved away from Russia:

And saw Devil's Kitchen:

We went to a pumpkin patch: 

We went to Antelope Island:

And after two years of asking, we agreed to let E get her hair cut however short she wanted, which ended up being about 8 1/2 inches.  She was thrilled!  (The last time it was this short was in 2016!)

And we spent lots of time with grandparents!

At Grandma and Grandpa's house

and their first time raking (and jumping in) leaves!

It was so great to spend a few weeks with family, but it was time to get going again!  Snow was on the forecast!

Passport update: We kept checking the kids' passport status online and CJ's never showed up.  After waiting a couple weeks, we called the Passport office to see what was happening.  Apparently her birthday date on the paperwork was mixed up, so it was a good thing we called!  We got it corrected and while we were on the phone we asked about whether expedited service was available yet--and it was!  We paid the service in the hopes that their new passports would arrive before we left UT.  CJ's came while we were there, but the others arrived the day after we left.  We had them mailed to Brian and Emilee's house so we could pick them up when we visited them the following week.  (Along with Brandon's new drivers license, which was expiring.)  Now that we had their passports, we could work on getting new Indian visas since--oh yeah--those were going to expire soon, too.  Oh the joys of living overseas. 🙄

Roadtrip: Driving from NC to UT

We knew if we wanted to see family, we needed to do it before the weather turned cold because there was no way we could waste our luggage space on something like coats!  So we used a weekend when the kids had a Friday off school to drive our way across the country.  For four days, we drove an average of 8-hours a day.  It. was. a. lot.

Our first stop was Nashville, but for a very random reason.  I have had various gift cards in my wallet for years and they have become especially worthless since we moved abroad.  I had one to a ice cream shop called Maggie Moo's which, I'm pretty sure, I've had since we lived in Arlington.  But there aren't very many locations to this ice cream shop anymore, so when I saw there was one in Nashville and that we would be driving through there anyway, we decided it would be a good mid-drive stop.  No, they didn't accept our decade old gift card--they didn't even know what to do with it--but we did get some ice cream.  We kept driving and at the end of Day 1, we spent the night in Marion, IL.

Day 2 was exciting because we were going to get together with friends for lunch (so convenient when friends live along major freeways)!  But we were so eager that we left our hotel with enough time to stop in St. Louis to see the Gateway Arch.

And then we stopped in Columbia, MO to see our good friends, the Gotbergs.  It was wonderful to catch up with them before they moved elsewhere and, of course, we were thrilled to get some Missouri barbecue.  Proof of just how much they love us!  😉

After lunch we kept driving and finally stopped for the night in downtown Omaha, NE.  We didn't do much exploring--just walked to dinner and back--but we thought it was charming.  The main reason we stopped in Omaha was to see our old friends, the Gardners, which we did the following morning.  It had been eight years since we had last seen them! We got donuts and Taylor put a candle in one so we could sing 'Happy Birthday' to E (nine years old!), and we spent the morning catching up.  It was so good to see them!

We still had some driving to do, however, so we kept going until we got to Cheyenne, WY.  Since it was E's birthday, we let her choose dinner: Panda Express and Hostess Cupcakes for dessert.  We ordered way too much food and ended up eating it again for breakfast the next morning before we started our final day of driving.  

Neither of us have any pictures of our last day of driving, but the morning was interesting.  We stopped at the gas station and noticed a couple working on a truck.  As we were leaving, the man asked whether we could give him a ride to a nearby car parts store.  We said no because we didn't have room in the car for anyone else, but after watching him ask a few other people and getting turned down, Brandon decided we should take him afterall.  The kids and I stayed at the gas station and chatted with his wife, while he and Brandon went to get the car part.  In no time, they were back and we were on our way again.  We were cruising through town on our way to the freeway, and had just gotten on, when we were pulled over by a police officer.  For speeding through town.  But that is also how we learned that our rental car's tags were expired.  We did not get a ticket for the expired tags, but we did get one for speeding.

And after another eight-ish hours of driving, we finally made it to our destination: Utah.

One Week in Mt. Airy, North Carolina

When we were looking into where we should go after Chincoteague, we realized that if we wanted to see family before winter, we would need to go soonish.  However, we also needed to travel at a time when the kids didn't have school and Brandon could take off work.  So we decided to wait until the kids had a three-day weekend, but that meant we had one more week of time we needed to fill.  We looked at any AirBnbs within driving distance of Chincoteague and happened upon a house on a Bison farm.  I mean, it was the obvious choice. 

This was definitely the most remote of our stays, but it was so beautiful and peaceful.  Pulling into the road onto the property, we were met with bison in the field.  The kids were excited to see them, but even more so when we told them that--surprise!--this was also where we were staying!  

The bison couldn't go past the fence near the house.

But you can see that road through the field that we drove through.

We unpacked our things and then Brandon and I left the kids to go pick up some dinner.  This time, pulling into the property, the bison were actually on the road.  And they wouldn't move.  Would they charge at us if we spooked them?  We didn't know, but we also needed to get back to the house.  We honked, we waved our arms, we flashed our headlights.  Nothing.  We could see the kids watching us through the living room window.  Finally we drove as close to them as we could and eventually they moseyed on their way.

We could have reached out and touched this guy.

The bison our stayed near the house for a few days, but waking up at the bison farm was beautiful every. single. day.

  

Pretty sure E is making bison sounds.

We went to the nearest large town, Mt. Airy, which is famous for being Andy Griffith's hometown and what the fictional town Mayberry was based on.  It was so cute--the buildings, the shops, the street singers.  However, we didn't realize that we were there during the unofficial Mayberry Days ("unofficial" because it was actually cancelled due to Covid).  There were so many people--many without masks and/or open-carrying--that it made us uncomfortable.  We walked around a little bit, opted not to get custard from the shop with the line out the door, and instead got ice cream from a nearly empty store farther down the street (with the best peach ice cream we've ever had!).  We kept seeing signs for pumpkin fudge, but there were so many people in the stores, we told ourselves that we would come back later.  After walking up and down main street, we called it a day and left.

We did go back for fudge, btw, but Mayberry Days was over by then and Main Street was practically disserted.  The first shop was sold out of pumpkin fudge, so we let the kids pick out some candy to share (including a flavor of Bun candy that the candy store in Chincoteague didn't have.  FYI--the maple flavor is the best).  But we tried one more shop and they had fudge galore.  And it was buy two get one free, and we are suckers for the kind of thing.  So we got a pound each of pumpkin, mint chocolate, and chocolate cherry.  We all agreed: the pumpkin was the clear favorite, and we got way too much fudge.

The kids also loved this house because it was at the top of a hill and it came with scooters.  They had a great time taking turns going up and down.  There was a creek that ran along the fence and the girls had a loved playing in the water.  This place would be amazing in the summer!

There were several trails nearby and we picked one that we thought would lead to a waterfall...

... only to realize that there was a much shorter trail if we had driven farther up the road.  So we went back and tried again.

We also hiked around Pilot Mountain State Park.  It was as beautiful up close as it was from far away.

And that was it!  We tried to do as much as we could in the time we had, but our week in Mt. Airy was far too short.  It was time to start heading west.