Family Road Trip Part 3

After seeing the Grand Canyon, we settled down for the night in Flagstaff, AZ. The next morning we headed towards our final destination of the trip...Albequerque!

We realized that we were traveling across the old Route 66 and we found several little historical stops along the way.

These were all taken at Two Guns, an abandoned wild west theme park just east of Flagstaff, AZ

This was a Trading Post just off the highway that claimed to have the world's larges map of Route 66.

Ashlyn thought it would be a funny picture, because it looked like she was holding up the building.

It also feature this old road sign that appeared to be along the original Route 66 highway. 

In Winslow, AZ, there is a landmark called Standin' on the Corner, which features a corner shop with Route 66 memorabilia and souvenirs.  It also features a huge Route 66 Arizona sign painted on the street, right at the corner.  We stopped, took a couple pictures and purchased a couple t-shirts.

One of the last stops we made was in Holbrook, AZ...where there were many old motels that were on the original Route 66 highway, including the popular WigWam motel that featured rooms in real teepees and another wall mural of the highway route.

We took our time taking pictures and reading about each little site. It was really pretty interesting. Well, at least for Chris and I. The girls had more fun creating a tent in the backseat of the car!

We made it into Albequerque early enough to get settled into our hotel, eat a nice dinner, check out where the Balloon Fiesta launch site was and visit the hotel pool before going to bed early as we had an early start planned for the next day.

On Thursday, we got up about 5:30 am so we could get to the launch site before all the balloons started taking flight.  We made it there just as the first balloons were beginning to be filled with hot air.

It was so exciting to be right there, walking along all the balloons as they were growing and growing, filling with enough air to lift off the ground.  This morning was a special morning as many of the balloons were special shapes.  It was gorgeous!  

It took about two hours for all the balloons that were planning to launch to get in the air.  I would guess that over 200 balloons were launched that morning in those two hours.  So, more than one balloon was launching every minute!   It was amazing!

Many of the shape balloons didn't even leave the ground!  Apparently the shapes are harder to pilot so lots of the balloons were blown up so everyone could see them, but then deflated after the launch was over.  It was so awesome and I'm so glad I was able to see it in person!

After the launch, we spent the rest of the morning checking out the booths, sampling the food and visiting the Hot Air Balloon Museum.

 Did you know that you can fit 22 full size elephants inside of a filled hot air balloon?  Isn't it amazing how big they get?

The rest of the day we goofed off, even deciding to go to a local laundromat and wash all of our dirty clothes.  This was actually one of the most brilliant ideas we had on the trip!  It was such a time saver to come home and put the majority of our clothes right back in our closets rather than filling up the laundry room with loads and loads of laundry to do.

On Friday, our plan was to go back to the Fiesta that evening to see the balloons launch at night and the firework show afterwards, but the weather turned bad and the event was cancelled due to wind and rain.  We were so bummed (especially me), but we took advantage of it by leaving early and breaking up the long drive home that we had planned for the next day.

We were able to take over 4 hours off of our drive by making it to the panhandle of Texas and getting hotel room in Dalhart, TX.  That was such a lifesaver and made for a much nicer drive on Saturday.  Were were even able to stop at the pumpkin patch in Turon, KS for a little playtime and stretching of our legs.  Grandma and Grandpa Mahoney even drove over to meet us there.

After driving over 2700 miles in eight states over 10 days, we finally made it back home Saturday evening...at an early 7 pm (which was much nicer than the originally planned 11 pm)!

It was a long trip...but we enjoyed every minute of it!

To sum it up... it was an AWESOME first family road trip for the Johnsons!

Family Road Trip Part 2

Once we made it to Las Vegas and got settled into our room at New York New York...we were able to relax for the evening.

The girls and I stayed in the room and watched a movie while Chris went down to the casino and gambled for a little bit.

We have always been big promoters that Vegas is not a place to take your kids and we only decided to break our rule so we could see our friends that live there because they had never met our kids. Well, we knew we had that rule for a reason. Being in Vegas with little kids is STRESSFUL! There are just too many people and lots of things that their little eyes should just not see. So, needless to say, we spent a lot of time at the pool and up in the room where I knew they were safe and sound.

On Monday we ventured out to the Mandalay Bay to see the Shark Reef, which the girls really enjoyed.

They even were brave enough to pet the sting rays...well Ashlyn was because she is our child that has no fear...

It took Brooke the longest to get the courage to touch them, but she finally did and thought they were cool and slippery.

We took a cab down to the M & M world and the girls picked out some fun souvenirs.

And, on the walk back to our hotel, we ran into Bumblebee!  He was alway our favorite Transformer, so of course we had to get our picture taken with him!

That afternoon we were able to go and visit Rey and Karen and their son Ryan, which was a lot of fun. And we ended our day by taking the girls to see the Tournament of the Kings, which is a jousting show at the Excalibur.

They had a ton of fun rooting for the evil dragon knight! They were so excited that they wanted their picture taken with him after the show.

 And a couple other knights too...Brooke thought they were cute. :)

After the show, Chris and Ashlyn rode the roller coaster at our hotel. Ashlyn had been talking about riding it all day long and she finally was able to talk her dad into it.

 This was Ashlyn's first ride on a roller coaster and Chris' first ride on this particular one. Chris has been asked by lots of different people on many different trips to Vegas to ride this ride, but he has always declined as it really wasn't something he wanted to do...but his daughter was able to persuade him to finally give it a try.

Here is their "before" picture...

It was definitely an interesting ride for the both of them. Ashlyn apparently started screaming "I want to get off" as soon as the ride started going up the first ramp and didn't stop until it was over. Chris felt so bad because there was nothing he could do but try and cover her eyes..but he still felt horrible that she was so terrified. When the ride finally stopped, he took his hand off her face and there was blood everywhere. Ashlyn's nose had started bleeding during the ride and neither one of them had noticed due to all the screaming and shielding of eyes during the ride. He immediately was swarmed by moms nearby and ride employees with Kleenex and wipes and bandaids. Without any doubt, Chris would describe that experience as the worst part of the trip...and I would guess Ashlyn agrees since she still says that she will never do that again!

And...of course we didn't take an after picture...it would have looked as if she had been beaten up since she had blood all down her shirt.  But I did get a picture of Chris' hand...

Before we left Vegas, we had to stop one last place...

The Gold & Silver Pawn Shop...from Pawn Stars, which is one of Chris' favorite shows!  

We have driven by this pawn store a ton of times...but we have never actually gone in.  So, since the girls know exactly what Pawn Stars is...as they watch it a lot with their daddy...we decided to stop by and go in.  There wasn't any lines outside like there is a lot of times we have gone by...but we soon figured out why.  About 5 minutes after we entered the shop, we were told by someone "that looked important" that they had good news and bad news.  The good news was that they were about to start filming a new episode...

the bad news...they were kicking everyone out!  That was fine by us...we at least got to say that we had been in the shop!  It was pretty cool actually.  And no, we unfortunately didn't see Rick or any of the other guys from the show.

Once we left, we headed to the Grand Canyon, making it there late that afternoon.

 It was definitely grand!

Chris had never seen the Grand Canyon before, so it was an experience for both him and the kids!

I love this picture...it reminds me that my kids do actually love each other...even after being stuck in a car for hours together.

Stay tuned...for the final post of our family road trip!!!