Roadtripping

Last week we went to Denver and it was a good time.

Being in the car with my people is my favorite.  Throw in some beautiful scenery and you have a fantastic time.

We drove to Denver on I-70, which is straight up amazing.  It seemed like every mile brought new loveliness.

At a rest area near Vail we saw this pampered poodle (with great posture).

There's always something to see and rest areas bring a lot of zaniness.

We stopped at a middle of nowhere gas station because we didn't know where the nearest rest area was (it was a few miles down the road).

I was sort of delighted by these signs and apostrophes.  And capitalization.  They are so bad they're good.

Emma and I both loved the food sleeping on this sign:

someone had hyphenated food-sleeping but it had been painted over

(At that same rest area there were 4 signs for the women's bathroom and 4 signs for the men's bathroom--all next to each other--as well as a sign for each with left and right written on them.   Signs!  Never-ending appeal and a look into the workings of someone's mind.)

The reason for the trip (and my festively painted fingernails) was a Mariners game.

We donned our Mariners shirts and walked to the stadium from our downtown hotel room.

Selfie in the mirror so everything's backward but you get the idea.

In the hotel elevator there was another family in Mariners clothes as well.  Solidarity!

Baseball stadiums are endlessly photogenic:

There's a row of seats in the stadium that are purple to mark the mile high line.

Even though we root root rooted for the Mariners, they didn't win.  It didn't dampen our good time though!

The next day we drove back home, this time on I-80 because we were picking Braeden up at the Salt Lake airport.  We coasted into town on the last bit of gas in the tank (it's a 18 gallon tank).

Living on the edge!

We were thrilled to see Braeden again.  Everyone shifted and I slid my seat way forward and he climbed into the backseat.

Back on the freeway, listening to the three children clamor to talk to each other and catch up for lost time and laughing a lot, Adam said, "Hearing that makes it worthwhile, doesn't it?"

And I don't know what "it" he was referring to.  Maybe the "it" he meant was all of it, as in, here, right now, us together?  This is why we do everything we do.

We stopped at MOD for pizza on the way home (of course we did) and then we swung by Vanessa's to pick up Bruiser, Emma's fish that Vanessa had been feeding in our absence.

The hands down most stressful time of the entire week was the drive home up 1100 North which is probably the bumpiest road known to man.  I was holding Bruiser's bowl because of the backseat crammed-in-there situation.

None of the sloshing water spilled over and everyone laughed at my panicked cries the entire way up the hill.

Then it was deck time.  Braeden took this picture and said, "Mark, our feet are back together, like they were meant to be."  Amen.