When I awoke there was a message waiting on my phone. “On my way to the airport. See you soon!” The kids would be so excited. Today is the day that we pick up Mom. I pulled open the sliding door to let the 49 degree air rush in. That will wake kids up quickly!
Hey Dad, why so early? Kellan slept in the "front" bunk.
Julia's response was to pull her sleeping bag up. She was in the "back bunk." I slept on top of the platform in the top left corner of the photo.
Punching Salt Lake City in to the GPS, I heard the first groans of despair that I had heard the entire trip. 6 hours? Really?
I wasn’t worried. We had a new audiobook to listen to (Holes, by Louis Sachar), the van was running fine, and I was also pretty sure that I could come through on my promise to hit a trampoline park in SLC before we picked up Karen.
We drove along the Colorado River, through colorful canyons and tunnels. The welcome sign hadn’t lied after all. Julia and Kellan were already talking about wanting to come back to Colorado. I-70 dumped us out of the Centennial State and into Utah, which, at the CO/UT border kind of looks like the entrance ramp to another planet when you're used to living in the eastern US.
Colorful Colorado: Brown sign.
See, Colorado? This is more like it.
While we fueled up, I used my phone to find an indoor trampoline park not far from the airport. I set the GPS for its location and according to its math, the kids would have about an hour to bounce before we had to leave to pick up Karen. On our way up I-15 in Orem, Kellan yelled “Hang Time Trampoline Park! Dad! I just saw a banner on a building, can we stop?” Why, yes, we can. We pulled off the exit and I asked Siri to guide us to Hang Time. This wasn’t the place I had found online earlier. It was still about 40 minutes to the airport. But I felt like this stop was meant to be when I saw the lettering on the wall claiming this facility to be the “largest trampoline park in the USA”. Check that superlative off the list. Sure beats seeing a big ball of twine.
Sheer luck or tramp champ intuition? Kellan happened to spot the trampoline park of his dreams.
The kids loved bouncing into the foam pits.
No diving, but flips are encouraged!
Karen’s flight was on time and in the excitement to see her, we neglected to take any pictures. We tossed her stuff into the van and made the short drive to Midway, UT where my brother Stever used to live. This area, bordering Park City, is familiar to me so we booked two nights at the Wasatch Mountain State Campground. Time to slow down a bit and relax. The family was back together and Part 2 of the adventure was about to begin.
Nestled into our campsite in Midway.