road trip day thirty eight: drive HOME!

Since we stayed in Knoxville, we were able to go the long way home from there and drive Blue Ridge Parkway to see the rhododendron blooms.

-the Albaeck sweethearts-

July 14, 2016 - Blue Ridge Parkway NC - State #1 AGAIN - 6257 miles (the chalkboard got left in Knoxville)

Blue Ridge Parkway

We usually drive the Parkway in the fall but it is just as pretty in the summer when everything is green and the flowers are blooming.

Roadside flowers.

Queen Anne's Lace

Linn Cove Viaduct- one of the most recognizable parts of the Parkway

Blue Ridge Parkway

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail enjoying the rhododendron

Price Lake

The rain put Ellie to sleep and we enjoyed a peaceful drive to Boone for a quick dinner (at Coyote Kitchen, another fave!) on our way home.  All in all, our trip took 38 days, went through 13 states, and was nearly 6400 miles long!

road trip day thirty seven: drive to knoxville

After leaving Jackson, we decided that we weren't quite ready for our trip to be over so we booked a hotel in Knoxville, TN, allowing us to have two short driving days instead of one long one.  We stopped at Sweet P's BBQ (one of our faves!) for a delicious late lunch!

July 14, 2016 - Knoxville TN - State #13 - 6060 miles

As soon as we checked in at the hotel, it started pouring and there was a HUGE thunderstorm causing the power to go on and off-- when we left the next morning there were tons of downed trees.  Once the storm passed, the kids got their swimsuits on and we headed to the pool to burn off some energy before enjoying happy hour.  We ordered the kids dinner from the hotel restaurant-- Lexie LOVED her nutella and jelly sandwich with fresh fruit!

road trip day thirty six: drive to jackson

We stopped for lunch at Braum's and Ellie insisted that we get a high chair for Hannah... and that we talked to her throughout our meal. She misses her cousin!!

July 13, 2016 - Van Buren AR - State #12 - 5374 miles

Even though we stayed in Jackson for the night, we made sure to stop in Memphis for dinner!

July 13, 2016 - Memphis TN - State #13 - 5671 miles

road trip day thirty five: drive to oklahoma city

We continued our drive east and unfortunately, Ben wasn't feeling too well so we pulled over.  After a couple minutes of fresh air, he was feeling better and we were back on the road!

We drove on the musical road (on Route 66) outside of Tijeras, NM quite a few times!  It's only musical going eastbound so we had to drive in circles for awhile to hear the song several times.

We stopped in Amarillo for a delicious lunch at Leal's.  Ellie only wanted to eat if she was sitting on Christopher's lap and he agreed to feed her-- he's such a good big brother!

July 12, 2016 - Amarillo TX - State #7 AGAIN - 4928 miles

We FINALLY made it to our hotel in Oklahoma City!  Clearly, the kids were tired of being in the car (especially the little one!) and enjoyed stretching out in the room.

July 12, 2016 - Oklahoma City OK - State #11 - 5188 miles

road trip day thirty four: drive to albuquerque

All too soon it was time to say goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa and head back east.

July 11, 2016 - Albuquerque NM - State #8 AGAIN - 4639 miles

road trip day thirty three: organ stop and snow

For dinner on our last night in Arizona we headed back to Organ Stop Pizza for their Christmas in July celebration.

Dancing :)

Not your typical organ music!!

After a delicious dinner, we stopped by Bahama Bucks for a quick snack and realized that they sell snowballs!  We bought a cooler full of snowballs and headed back to the house for a snowball fight, in Arizona, in July!

The kids had a blast having a summer snowball fight...

They thought it was fun to gang up on Ellie...

... but once she started targeting Hannah, they attacked each other instead.

Sweet girl and her baby snowball.  This was such a fun way to end our time in Arizona this year.

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road trip days thirty and thirty two: ice cream, movies, and watermelon

We had the most delicious ice cream sandwiches at Ice Cream Sammies.  You get to pick two homemade cookies, a homemade ice cream flavor, and a topping for the edge and they create an ice cream sandwich for you.  Yum!

Grandma stayed home with the girls while the rest of the adults and boys went to see Independence Day: Resurgence.  We had a great time at the movie but it was nice to come back to the house and snuggle sweet Hannah.  Miss Ellie tried to live off of watermelon and strawberries while we were in Arizona.

road trip day twenty nine: bearizona

One of the main reasons that we drove up to Flagstaff was to check out Bearizona, a drive-through wildlife park.

We drove the meandering road and saw all sorts of animals native to North America (though not all native to Arizona).

Even though the rules expressly state that hands and arms are to remain in the vehicle at all times, some grandparents think it's ok to not follow the rules.  ;)  Luckily, they were just driving through the goats and not the bears!

 We only saw a couple of bears on our drive-- the rest must have been sleeping!

Pictures at the entrance to the walk-through part of the park.

The kids all loved the Birds of Prey show-- it was so cool to see the birds flying right over the audience.

Bearcubs :)

Sweet sleeping fox... and then sweet awake fox.  While not as many of the animals were awake and playing on our visit as we expected, we had fun strolling the grounds before driving back to Grandma and Grandpa's house.

road trip day twenty eight: flagstaff and lowell observatory

We drove up to Flagstaff for the night and our first stop was Bunhuggers for a delicious lunch!  We checked in at our hotel and spent the afternoon relaxing before heading down for Happy Hour.  Ellie ate bowls of cherries and tried to trade her Shirley Temple for my Dirty Shirley (obviously didn't happen).

After a dinner of happy hour snacks, we made our way to Lowell Observatory (named after Percival Lowell!) to see the night sky.  Lowell Observatory is credited with discovering Pluto as well as doing the moon mapping for the Apollo missions.

Far away from the city lights, it's much easier to see the stars- especially the recognizable constellations like the Big Dipper.  We were even able to see the Milky Way from the parking lot (those photos did not come out good AT ALL!)!

We checked out Saturn through the Clark Telescope before calling it a night and heading back to the hotel.

road trip day twenty seven: 4th of july!

We started our Fourth of July festivities by making our most favorite ice cream cake-- Lexie got the job of smooshing the Oreo crumbs and butter.

She has such a sweet tooth-- if there's candy around, she will find it.  And DEVOUR it!

The big kids had a lemonade (and otter pop and Red Vines) stand at the end of the grandparents' street.  They lasted about an hour before calling it quits (with two of them severely overheated), but they managed to make SIXTY dollars!!

We spent some time in the pool to cool off-- Ellie can be such a diva!

It's always more fun to run around when there's someone your own size to do it with!

Instead of going to see fireworks this year, we bought some from a roadside stand and did them in the street and the kids enjoyed laying in the grass and watching the show.

Sparkler fun!

Ellie LOVED the sparklers this year!