Our primary reason for stopping in Salt Lake City was to visit with friends, some of whom we haven’t seen for a long time. Antonio’s friend Marlena was an exchange student in Costa Rica 20 years ago and now lives in Wyoming. Although she and her daughters were willing to drive 5 hours each way to meet us, we opted to meet them part way. I perused the map to find a suitable town around the midpoint and was surprised to see that Wyoming appears, essentially unpopulated. It turns out the entire State comprises only 585,000 people in 97,818 square miles. The drive confirms what the map appeared to be saying, there ain’t nobody here. We settle on a town named Kemmerer and decide to meet at Fossil Butte National Monument just outside of town. We ... read more

I’ve never understood why it’s common practice to compare everything to Switzerland, but let me tell you, Grand Tetons is the Switzerland of Wyoming! We had initially planned to spend another day in Yellowstone and then visit Grand Teton on Wednesday on our way through to Salt Lake City, but upon reviewing the map we thought that might be too much to take on. So after an early morning breakfast at the Running Bear (another successful Yelp discovery), we set off. The shortest way to the Grand Teton National Park is south through Yellowstone, so we backtracked on our route from yesterday. I quickly realize that I am becoming jaded to the splendors surrounding us, perhaps my brain is on overload. We pass some waterfalls which at any other time would have resulted in a definite ... read more

Today was one of the longest drives we will have on the trip. Over 500 miles and almost 8 hours is enough to wear on anybody's nerves, but add a 4 and 5 year old into the mix and well..... things escalate. We have been limiting their exposure recently to ipads and TV which overall has been a very positive experience, but four hours into our eight hour odyssey and I caved. Out came the laptop, Bluetooth audio to the car speakers, fade them to rear, add a couple of towels on the back windows and boom! We were in movie theatre mode. Although Antonio initially resisted the plan, he quickly agreed that listening to the soundtrack of Angry Birds was a small price to pay for the relative peace that ensued. It seems that you ... read more

INTRODUCTION (It's all come down to this). Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Stephen and you are about to accompany me on a number of firsts, (assuming you choose to continue reading). This is my first Blog, my first foray into writing, my first cross country road trip, and my first time moving back to the U.K. My traveling companions on this adventure are my delightful Husband Antonio, and our two mostly delightful children AJ and Graciela (5 and 4 years old). I say mostly because we are only two hours into the trip and about 5 minutes into our first meltdown. This one belongs to Gracie, but I'm sure before this is all over we will all be able to lay claim to a few of our own. I'll start you off with ... read more