Month: November 2018
Cheyenne, WY

Cheyenne, WY

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Hey Guys!! We made it to Wyoming! These weekly jumps are wearing us out!! We’ve had three weeks in a row of jumping states and long drive days. Moving so fast makes our travels seem kind of like a blur. We start the whole…which-state-did-we-do-that-in thing. It’s no bueno.

Utah sent us off with a spectacular sunrise. We also spent some in the morning keeping track of a big semi-truck that kept swerving all over the road. I think he needed a nap. He was swerving so bad we didn’t want to try and pass him…and honestly, we didn’t want him behind us. He’d speed up and slow down and was just all over the road.

It didn’t take us long to reach Wyoming. Unfortunately, the sign was in a bad spot to stop so I had to snap a picture on the go.

Our long drive to Cheyenne was filled with looonnggg stretches of road like the one above. We saw so many antelope. I think we found the land where the antelope play. We really wanted to see some deer playing with the antelope and maybe a buffalo roaming around. *wink, wink*

Our reason for staying in Cheyenne was to visit the State Capitol Building. Guys, it was closed! Completely closed! It won’t reopen until sometime in 2019. What the hey-diddly!!! They’re completely remodeling it. Y’all may or may not know, but I have a book that I collect stamps from each State Capitol Building…stamps you can only get in the SCB. It’s not a sticker stamp. It’s an ink stamp. *sigh*

Plan B. We went to the State Museum which is right across the street from the SCB and hoped that the stamp had been moved there during the SCB remodel. We lucked out and the stamp had been moved to the museum. The museum was small, but filled to the brim with information about Wyoming. This was the boys’ favorite exhibit. There was info about everything from Wyoming topography to Wyoming natural resources to the state’s history and lore.

Jerl was pretty excited to learn that the NCAR Wyoming Supercomputing Center was located in Cheyenne. There was a small visitor center with some hands on exhibits. I have four boys who were in nerdom heaven. We were able to take a tour of the facilities. I heard lots of numbers and names of things fly around. It all went over my head. All I can tell you is that you’re looking at a very, very, super-dee-duper fast computer. The little lights were flashy and it really was impressive.

If you’re ever in Cheyenne look for the big boots. They’re all over the place and are all decorated differently based on where they’re located.

We were surprised by how small town Cheyenne felt. We saw so many antelope all over the place. I don’t think there was a single time we went out that we didn’t see antelope. Wyoming really is the place of wide open places where the deer and the antelope play.

See y’all down the road!

#westernloop2018

Pizza Roundup Junction Pizzeria And Grill

Pizza Roundup Junction Pizzeria And Grill

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To my fellow pizza lovers! I bring to you a post from Midvale, UT.

Junction Pizzeria and Grill is a decent pizza place. I’m not sure the cashier quite understood what we were wanting when we tried to get a hamburger with no bun. One of us wanted just hamburger patties with cheese and they tried to charge us $30 for it. That’s an expensive burger.

The regular burgers looked pretty darn tasty.

The one who wanted the $30 burger ended up getting some chicken wings instead. He said they were good.

Mom got the poutine, and they do NOT skimp on the gravy. Or cheese. It’s all loaded! The restaurant was clean.

I’m giving a 3 star review because of the burger fiasco.

See y’all next time on…

Pizza Street!!

Written by Nicholas
Park City, UT

Park City, UT

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Hey Guys!! We made it to Utah! This trip, our stay in Utah was only one week, but we have plans to spend about a month and a half exploring more of Utah next year.

We stayed at an RV park in Park City, UT. It wasn’t a terribly long drive day for us, but it was super hot and it was pretty much a constant climb up hills the entire way. Our home-on-wheels started to protest the heat and having to work so hard when we were about twenty minutes away from our RV park in Park City. Luckily, we were right by a chain-up area where we could pull off. We unhooked the toad and I drove the rest of the way in the 4Runner while Jerl drove the RV.

The boys were super excited to have a pool to play in all week. We had the pool and the hot tub all to our selves the entire time. We didn’t mind. The water in the pool was pretty cold…even though the day temps were warm, the nights would dip pretty cold. Nicholas was really cold one day when he got out of the pool and it took us a good five minutes to talk him into getting into the hot tub with us to warm up. He kept saying he was too cold for the hot tub! Ha! Kids…

We had access to a great hiking trail right outside the RV park. We love to walk in the evenings. Some RV parks are good for it and some aren’t. It’s always nice to find a park where we can easily get some walking miles in.

We were close to Salt Lake City so we went to visit the Utah State Capitol Building. I love all of the columns. And Guys, check out that dome! I love the clouds and all of the seagulls painted on it. So pretty! All of that Georgia marble is gorgeous. And the huge skylight… love it!

I don’t know what this animal is supposed to be. It looks like a Pegasus with pink wings combined with a seahorse. Whatever it is, it’s stinkin’ cute. Even though the Utah SCB wasn’t one of the biggest ones we’ve seen…even though it wasn’t super ornate… the whole building was impressive with it’s attention to details.

We wanted to lay eyes on the Great Salt Lake. I did a little looking and found Antelope Island State Park which sits in the Great Salt Lake. We headed over for a little looky-loo one afternoon. From my research I knew the best place to see the island’s bison herd was over at the Historic Fielding Garr Ranch so we headed that way. We hadn’t gotten very far into the park when we spotted our first bison. They were everywhere! Some were in groups, some were out solo or in pairs.

Down the road from the bison we ran into these curious prong horn antelope. They were right by the road. I didn’t have to use zoom at all to get that shot. We stopped for a minute, then drove on when they started to get a little antsy with the paparazzi sticking a camera in their face. Aren’t the gorgeous though?! We were really surprised by how awesome this little island was. At forty-two square miles, Antelope Island is the largest of ten islands that sit in the Great Salt Lake.

The Historic Fielding Garr Ranch is where the majority of the bison herd hangs out. It was closed when we got there (after 5pm), but we were still able to walk around and look. Fielding Garr Ranch was established in 1848 and is one of the oldest working ranches in the Western US. In 1893, twelve American Bison were brought to Fielding Garr Ranch. Those twelve eventually became one of the biggest and oldest bison herds in the US. Today, the number of bison fluctuates between 500 and 700 bison depending on how many calves were born and how many bison were culled, sent to other herds, or died of natural causes. If you’re in the area, every October the Great Bison Roundup takes place where they gather up all of the bison on the island and do a health check to decide about culling or moving of the bison. We’d love to go check out the roundup some year!

After we got our fill of bison…honestly, can that ever happen…we drove to the other side of the island to do a short hike out to Lady Finger Point. We were loosing the sun at this point so we couldn’t do much hiking. We got out to the point just in time for a pretty spectacular sunset. We took our time looking around then headed back to the car before we lost all light.

We found a great burger place called Proper Burger. Check out that burger! Yup, those are fries on the burger. You can’t see it but there was also an egg on the burger with those fries and bacon. You should check it out if you’re in the Salt Lake area.

I didn’t really see any pretties during our week in Utah. It was toward the end of summer and still really hot and dry. I did catch this thistle just as it was starting to open up. I love the symmetry of it along with the colors.

We really enjoyed our week in Utah. It was short and went fast, but it was a great first trip to the state. We’re hoping to spend all of next September (2019) and part of October exploring a few of Utah’s National Parks!

See y’all down the road!

#westernloop2018

Pizza Roundup Flying Pie Pizzeria

Pizza Roundup Flying Pie Pizzeria

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To my fellow pizza lovers! I bring to you a post from Boise, Idaho.

Flying Pie Pizzaria and Bistro is a really good pizza place that has WAY too many choices on the menu, but they just can’t get all of the tastiness they have on a small menu.

The first time we went there, (yes, we went more than once) we spent a while looking at the menu trying to decide what to get.

Mom and Alex split a Chile-N-Lime Chicken pizza. It has a bean sauce instead of your typical red sauce AND it’s on sourdough crust. You just can not beat a sourdough crust.

I believe this one is the No Veggy Pieway pizza. With added jalapenos. Just look at all the meat!!

What I am about to say may shock some of you, but the first time we went I didn’t get a pizza. I got a pizza sammich!! It was really good, but you’ll want to eat it quick so the bread doesn’t get soggy from all the pepperoni they put on it. My only complaint about the sandwich is it was kinda sweet.

Now, the second time there was no menu needed for me…they have a buffet! Weekdays only. And it did not disappoint. They have a lot more than 2 pizzas on the buffet at a time, some dessert and garlic knots!

I may have eaten too much there. They should get a warning sign saying “Caution! Not responsible for eating too much!”

The restaurant is nice and clean. The service is good.

Oh yeah, they have aliens in the bathroom. Pretty cool! Well with all of that I think it’s obvious Flying Pie Pizzeria and Bistro gets a 5-star review.

See y’all next time on…

Pizza Street!!

#pizzastreet

Written by Nicholas
Boise, ID

Boise, ID

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Hey Guys! The next three weeks are going to fly by for us! We are officially on our way to Florida for the winter. We’re making some big jumps with the next three states so we can spend some time back in Missouri and Texas before hunkering down in the Sunshine State for the cold winter months.

After two very long drive days we finally made it to Idaho!! When we first started this nomad life thing, we did really long drive days all the time. It was just part of the life since we were trying to jump our way out of Tornado Alley during tornado season. After we got back from Alaska where we had a week of twelve to fourteen hour drive days through Canada to get back to the lower 48…well, we decided those long drive days weren’t working for us anymore and I started planning shorter drive days. So, the two really long drive days to get to Boise, Idaho had us…I don’t know if reminiscing is really the right word…more like dredging up how we felt about all of those super long drive days we used to have.

We were only in Idaho for one week, but we crammed us much in as we could! Our first stop was the State Capitol Building. I loved all of the marble used in the Idaho SCB. We, actually, ended up visiting the Idaho SCB twice. The first time we went the stamp I need for my State Capitol book was locked up. We didn’t get to take a guided tour, but we were able to poke around on our own.

Y’all know I love a great staircase. This is one of the main staircases in the Idaho SCB and is made of marble! We enjoyed the Idaho State Capitol Building. There are a few things I tend to look for at SCBs and a great dome is pretty much at the top of my list. The Idaho SCB’s dome is simple, but beautiful. It’s an apt description for the entire building. Simple. Great colors. And Beautiful.

We always look for different things to do in each area we visit so when we found out about the old Idaho State Penitentiary, we planned a day to go explore it. We were lucky enough to get there right before a tour started.

Before it was an Idaho State Penitentiary, it was an Idaho Territorial Prison. The building in the picture above used to be the kitchen. It burned when some inmates started a riot over…bacon. The Great Bacon Riot of 1973. That should totally be a book. Or a movie.

We got to take a look in the cells of the isolation building called Siberia. No heat, no AC, no bathroom…it earned it’s name when some of the inmates froze to death while serving time there.

According to the docent, there are parts of the old prison known to be haunted. The cell in the picture above is one of those areas that more than one person has claimed to experience something paranormal while near it. We were allowed into several of the cells in this area, but this cell was locked tight. Are you interested in a ghost story? Well, according to the docent, each year during Halloween the old penitentiary holds a haunted prison. It’s like a haunted house. They hire actors and local college kids to help in the haunted prison. One of the girls hired started screaming for someone to let her out of the cell about an hour into her shift. The others thought it was part of her act, so they didn’t go investigate. By the time her shift was over, she was curled up in the corner crying. She claims that there was a thick shadow that kept following her around the cell and crowding her. Several other actors throughout the years have had similar stories about that same cell.

The Idaho Territorial Prison was built in 1870. In 1872 it was turned into the Idaho State Penitentiary and was open until 1973 when they opened a new State Penitentiary that was bigger.  In the over 100 years the Old Idaho State Penitentiary was running, it received over 13,000 prisoners. Only 213 of those inmates were women. Back when the prison was first opened, they had the women and men inmates in the same facility. Our docent kept all of the stories she told us to PG, but she did hint at more than a few…unsavory things that happened during the lifetime of the prison. I think the experience was eye opening for the boys. We all hear about prison, we see it on televisions and in the movies, but to actually walk the halls and see the cells of a real prison and to hear real stories about real people who were in those cells and halls…it’s different. It’s real.

We found an overlook of More’s Creek. It was a gorgeous day! We’d just spent several weeks in smoky areas of Oregon and Washington without seeing a blue sky so you can imagine that this amazingly blue sky was a very welcome sight.

We found the old Diversion Dam. Back in the late 1800s the Territory of Idaho built the Diversion Dam to help with farming. We were going to walk down this cute boardwalk until we noticed all of the spiderwebs. There were so many webs! So. Many!! And most of their residents were home. I wanted to kill them all with fire, but we didn’t think Idaho would appreciate that. So we drove on.

Let’s talk foodies! We found a pizza place that landed firmly on our top five list. Nicholas will tell you all about it in a Pizza Street post, but I will say this…the spinach artichoke dip with those little bread bites…I could have easily eaten my weight in them. I might have done just that. Maybe.

We also found a…well, a fry place that serves their fries with a side of burger. Seriously. The Boise Fry Company had so many different kinds of fries! Different types of potatoes are offered in different cuts of fries. My faves were the little po’ balls. Little scoops of mashed potatoes deep fried…it was like little balls of deep fried heaven. The potatoes available change seasonally and the cuts offered per potato change daily. And…check out all of the different kinds of dips! You didn’t really think a place that specializes in fries would only offer ketchup, did you? We had to try all of the dips and several of the shakers. They ranged from savory to sweet. We would have totally eaten at this place again! It was a fun find.

We were pleasantly surprised by the top-notch foodies offered in Boise. We definitely didn’t go hungry.

It was hot and toward the end of a dry summer when we were in Boise so there weren’t many pretties. We saw quite a few of these flowers along the roads though. The bees were thoroughly enjoying them!

We enjoyed Boise, ID more than we thought we would. We have plans to go back to Idaho next year to do some more exploring!

See y’all down the road!

#westernloop2018