The College Loop

3 kids

3 cities

5 days

Roland and I aren't much for being told what to do but this week we let the kids take charge. We spent one day with each child and let them plan the activities, who we would meet, where we would eat, what we would do. 

Grand Junction/Mesa State:

This is where Gabe The Babe lives. After meeting his friends, we walked around the quaint downtown and ate Indian food and gelato. He took us to Colorado Monument where we went on a little hike and admired the amazing view. We found the Kokopelli trail head and many pleasant hours were spent planning the next mountain bike trip. We also saw "Battle Los Angeles" and all agreed it was a super dud. 

Lots of hugs and kisses and we were off to:

Provo/BYU:

 This is where Hannah lives. Can you tell Ike is color blind? Does it matter? Too bad I didn't take more pictures of the funky house, she and her roommates have really made it hip and trendy and quite the hangout spot. Yes, Hannah is holding a can of hot chocolate mix I just canned at the church cannery (pretty much the best hot chocolate ever). 

After admiring a garden Hannah and her friends are building in SLC we went for a fancy vegan pizza dinner. The next morning we walked around Bridal Vail falls.

We had an early lunch with the Smith Cousins, staring Ashley and Calvin (who was indisposed when I had the camera out). Hannah also arranged a lovely dinner at Clark's family home where we were treated to delicious food and wonderful company. I was having such a nice time I forgot to take pictures. Too bad, because it was beautiful. Susan really knows how to throw a party!

Hannah gave us the tour of her BYU classes, we ran into Kallene Cutler (yay Kallene!), and got to meet Hannah's favorite professor. Then, after replenishing our BYU apparel supply we said goodbye.

IKEA:

Roland had never been to an IKEA (I know, right?) so we dragged him through there and now he is looking forward to the huge one being built in Denver.

Logan/USU:

This is where Noah lives. Noah was very excited about sharing some great restaurants with us. So we ate fancy food and awesome local food. Then we toured the music school and his dorm and met some of his friends. He is happy at USU and playing piano non-stop. We found an empty room and he played for us. I could spend hours listening to him play. 

Late that evening we headed to our hotel to lounge around and do some serious back scratching (Noah's favorite). I've been telling Roland that Noah is taller and he refused to believe it until he saw this picture. It was a victorious moment for Noah. 

Noah is 6' 6.5". That's pretty tall.

After a delicious breakfast at "Angie's, Where the Locals Eat" - we headed home only to find the road closed and white out conditions at Logan Canyon summit. After some tricky blind driving, freaking out as we bounced off snow drifts, we finally went back down to Ogden and drove through terrible storms in Wyoming - getting through them right before they closed those roads (there were miles where we only went 10 mph with our blinkers on because we couldn't see anything. Scary.). 

It was a crazy (and VERY LONG) drive home but seeing the kids in their places, eating where they eat, meeting their friends, it was worth the white knuckles.