Vacation

I'm on vacation right now. Yep that is right. As you read this I'm off having fun with my family. Brandon was able to get a week off from work. Add that to his 3 day weekend and he has a total of 10 days off in a row. But how, you may ask, are you able to post this? It's called scheduling posts. That's how I'm able to supply you with 4 blog posts a week even though I only go to the library and use the internet once a week.

Anyway, planning our vacations is one of my favorite things to do. Last May we went on a 9 day road trip around Southern Utah. I started planning it in November.

This year I had two little distractions in November so I wasn't able to start planning our vacation then. In fact I was hardly able to plan out things one day in advance for a while there. I joked with Brandon that I had lost my ability to see the future. It wasn't until about February that my powers came back to me and I started planning our vacation.

A year and a half ago (I told you I like to plan) when we talked about where we would want to go on vacation this year we thought about road tripping up to see Brandon's Bestifar (Grandpa) in Vancouver.

In July, when Brandon got his job we changed the plan to flying out to Houston to visit my sister Lindsey and her family. Lindsey and I got married two weeks apart so we talked about combining our anniversary celebrations. The Houston trip was something we sort of planned until about January. Then Brandon and I decided that we really didn't want to fly standby with two 6 month old twins. Plus Lindsey was coming out to Utah for a month in March and it seemed odd to go hang out with her right after seeing her.

So we decided to do something a little bit low key. We decided to do a Stay-cation and go places in Northern Utah. There was one rule. We had to go places that we had never been to together. We made a list of all the places we would like to visit. Then we planned out what day we would do each thing. There was a Ogden day, a Park City day, two Salt Lake days, etc. We even decided to try to camp with the girls. We reserved a night on Antelope Island and one at Deer Creek State Park.

Next week when we get back from vacation I'll do my traditional travel-blogs. You'll be able to see all the interesting things we did even though we weren't very far from home.

As a final thing here is a list we put together while driving home from our road trip last year. It is called:

What makes a successful camping/road trip:

• Rechargeable batteries

• Car charger for those batteries

• Really cool tent

• Buying fresh food halfway through

• Nap time

• Snacks

• Well organized storage

• Putting things back in the same place everyday

• Non-perishable food

• Tools such as a can opener, knife, hatchet

• Maps – good maps

• Reservations for lodging

• Sharing responsibilities

• Downloading the camera every night and naming the file well (We always put the date and then a general description of what we did that day ie 5/14/11 Wendover)

• Guidelines for what you want to do and see each day, but no hard and fast rules

• Annual passes if needed (We were able to use our State Park Pass again because it doesn't expire until the end of May)

• Research ahead of time

• Well maintained vehicle

• Always fill up your gas tank when you get to a half tank

• Jokes

• Candy

• Water – bottled water

• Sunscreen

• Bug repellant

• Print out reservation info

• Camp at places with showers

• Mix up the type of campgrounds you stay at (State parks, privately owned, KOAs)

• Drive during the heat of the day and hike in the morning

• Sleeping bags that zip together

• Proper clothing

• Extra blankets/sleeping bags

• Air mattress

• Matches and cigarette lighter

• Designated garbage bags

• Laptop Computer

• Good camera with bag

• Automotive tools – just in case

• Clip board