A Place in the Cloud: The Epic-est

Ya'll, I just got back from the most epic-est road trip ever. It included a visit to Canada, visits to eleven national parks and seventeen states. It lasted for 55 days and roughly 9500 miles. We camped 44 of those nights in a pop-up trailer. Wicked, right? The trip was so long, I'm struggling with how I should condense it into a blog post... or several. I haven't even downloaded all of the pictures yet. I've mostly been sitting on my couch and peeing in my own toilet. I really missed my toilet.

When you travel anywhere with a toddler and a man, you are bound to have a few issues. This trip had its share, including an episode with a cowboy in Wyoming and another episode that involved me carrying RW kicking and screaming to the car in Yellowstone National Park...in front of hundreds of tourists. Discipline is rough when you're spending roughly five hours out of every day in a car.

Overall, though, things went freakishly well. We had no breakdowns (of the vehicle), almost no bad weather, no illnesses. We saw some of America's most beautiful places. We got to enjoy each others' company. We spent quality time with some family.

A quick rundown:
The states we visited were Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Ontario, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.
The national parks we saw were Hot Springs, Mammoth Cave, Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Devils Tower (a national monument), Grand Teton, Yellowstone, Mount Rainier, Olympic, Redwood, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon.

Here's a small selection of photos from the first half of the trip. Stay tuned for more photo-filled posts as I finish downloading all the images.

We are so lucky to have been able to do this. So so lucky.