Friday morning we bid fond and grateful farewells to Aunt Sue who had a flight out of Idaho Falls later that evening. Aubree didn't complain about getting to sit in the front seat again.
Then we drove to meet friends at Craters of the Moon National Park, near Arco, Idaho. This is another Park smack in the middle of nowhere. If these kids look familiar, it's because we stayed with them at their home in Albuquerque the first week of our trip.
How fun is it that the end of our trip coincided with their planned vacation to visit grandparents in Arco? It seemed like we'd truly come full circle.
Craters of the Moon is definitely a unique place. It's a "vast ocean of lava flows with scattered islands of cinder cones and sagebrush."
We drove around the scenic loop and took advantage of many short hikes to see the unusual landscape and formations.
Nellie had been so great about walking on her own since Mark went home, but on one of our little hikes she tripped and skinned her knee a little bit. Hallie took pity on her and scooped in up. In the process, Hallie earned herself a devoted fan.
We had lunch with our buddies, got our super cool Lunar Jr Ranger badges (Thane and Graham's favorite badges of the trip because they're silver instead of gold), said final good-byes, and were heading west again by 12:30 pm.
This part of our trip was not well planned ahead of time. We'd hoped to visit with some friends in Idaho Falls, but they were out of town, so we turned the van towards home with an open itinerary. As we drove, we all agreed we were willing to put in a long drive day to get home that night. We wanted to surprise Mark, but he's too smart and figured it out.
It was a loooonnnnggg day of driving (13 hours of drive time, not counting stops - and there were plenty of those), but it went pretty well right up until we passed Nellie's bedtime. We'd been careful the whole trip to be mindful of her bedtime, and this drive proved that had been a very wise decision. She cried for an hour straight, "Mom, stop saying Noooo!" There was no reasoning with her or consoling her. She finally, finally fell asleep around 9:30 pm. Graham conked out around 10, and the big three never did fall asleep in the car.
We got home around 11pm. I'd imagined a joyful reunion, but instead I was D.O.N.E. - grumpy, overwhelmed, and exhausted. We did the minimum to unload the car and put kids in their beds, and then I promptly put myself to bed, glad to be home, but even more grateful for the promise of sleep.
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