Oh Canada: The edition not in Canada

When you drive 3,000+ miles alone with the kids, there are certain stretches of road that you dread. Mine is the 11-hour drive from Vernon, B.C. through the wastelands of Washington and Oregon before landing in Boise.

The bad: Waking up at 4 a.m. to drop Jamie at the Kelowna airport for his 6 a.m. flight.

The good: There were no suicidal, cliff-jumping cows like last year.

The debatable: Whenever we’ve passed Dry Falls in years past, there’s always been a lot of cars so we pulled over at this pitstop in Central Washington. We learned Dry Falls was once five times the size of Niagara Falls. During the Ice Age. I’m not sure if this was a letdown or fascinating marketing about an enormous waterfall that is no longer there.

Boise

Once we finally arrived in Boise, we overnighted with my former mission companion Katie’s family. The kids pressured me to play BeanBoozled (the worst game ever) where we ate such memorable jelly bellies like booger. Grass. Vomit. And those were the good ones.

Fortunately, the rest of our visit wasn’t nearly as traumatic.

Twin Falls

From there, we did a slight detour to play in the Snake River with my friend Jenny near Twin Falls. Driving along I-84, I thought this area was an arid wasteland but how very, very wrong I was. Unlike Dry Falls (read: NO FALLS), Shoshone Falls is 212 feet high–45 feet higher than Niagara Falls and at its peak, it flows over the rim 1,000 feet wide.

My outdoorsy kids met their match (and were exceeded) with Jenny’s wonderfully wild Idaho kids.

Here, Bode is playing with one of her twins in the Snake River in a stirring portrait I call “Synchronized Mud Flinging.” His sister (on the receiving end) had another name for it.

Salt Lake City

I wish we could have stayed longer but it was onto Utah for a quick two days with Jamie’s wonderful family where the kiddos snuggled with their cousin Darby for the first time.

And I sneaked in a quick hike to the Living Room in my former home.

Normally we’ll stay in Salt Lake City for several days but we were crunched on time. Bode was staying an extra week with Grandma and flying home by himself while Hadley and I were racing back so she could climb her first 14er.