adventure *days 1 & 2*

We just returned from a fabulous vacation back East.

Our adventure began with Nick's coach telling us last summer that their team, the Utah Scrappers, would have the opportunity to play in Cooperstown. But not wanting the trip to just be about baseball for the other boys, we decided to travel after the week long tournament. We spent a total of 18 days on vacation and not only went to Cooperstown but to Niagara Falls, New York City, and Washington D.C.

It. was. awesome.

We crammed everything and everyone into our Suburban and trekked over 5000 miles, covered 18 states, and was able to experience first hand the amazing beauty America possesses.

The first day we drove to Omaha. It took about 15 hours to get there and surprisingly, it wasn't that bad of a drive. We watched quite a few movies, the boys found licence plates (they found all but one U.S. state (Hawaii), 4 of the Canadian Providences, and one Mexican licence plate from Chihuahua over the course of the trip), drew in notebooks, and were very well behaved. We ate at a cute restaurant called the Farmhouse and tried deep fried pickles. As bizzare as they sound, they were actually pretty tasty.

We woke up early the next morning and continued our trek east. As we were looking at the atlas, we realized that we would be pretty close to South Bend, Indiana by lunchtime, home of the famous University of Notre Dame. I think it is every college football fan's dream to see the well known icon so we pulled off the freeway and ate lunch on the campus lawn while watching a group of coeds play a game of handball.



The boys made friends with this squirrel who was super interested in our leftover food.


We decided to walk around the campus a bit. It was absolutely stunning. I loved all of the old buildings, the endless tree canopies, and the spirit of pride that everyone had on that campus was almost tangible.




This was my favorite building on campus. It is their law school. I think I may need to change my profession.


Wouldn't walking to these doors make you want to go to class everyday?


Of course we had to stop by the football stadium. It was locked up for the season but the boys, all 5 of them, had to take a peek inside.


However, that little peek was not enough for Justin. As I was taking this picture, he asked one of the administrators walking by the stadium if we would be able to get inside. He told her that we were driving from Utah to New York and that we would only be there for an hour and he would love his boys to see the inside of the stadium. Isn't having kids awesome? Don't you love how if you really, really want something you will usually get it if you say your kids want it? After a little persuasion, you know what? She got on her little walkie talkie to Dan, the head groundskeeper, and he let us in.



You could tell Dan loved his job. He told us all about the stadium, how he cares for the grass, everything you would ever want to know. He was such a nice guy. He took our picture, let the boys run around the bleachers, and let Justin and the boys go out onto the field and touch the grass. I don't think Justin has washed his hands since. He said if the locker room wasn't in the process of getting recarpeted, he would let us go in and look around. Justin actually swooned.







There is a beautiful cemetery just as you enter the campus and I had to stop to take some pictures as we were leaving. I don't know why I am intrigued with cemeteries but they are so reverent and peaceful and you wonder what the life stories are of the people who are buried there. I am particularly drawn to those with old, big, romantic headstones with full grown trees and beautiful surroundings because I think that it is a tribute to those who are laid to rest. This one fit the bill perfectly.




We made it to Willoughby, OH that night which is a little suburb outside of Cleveland. We had dinner at Texas Roadhouse and went to bed to get rested up for our final leg of the trip to Cooperstown, New York.