Road Trip Out West

When I was about 7 or 8 my family (mom, dad, brother, and I) took a road trip out west to visit the National Parks as well as San Francisco where my brother was born. It was the four of us in a full-size van for 17-18 days.

The trip started out in Traverse City, my hometown, and we drove south around Chicago and through the great plains. Both my brother and I played soccer, and we wished we could play on fields that were that flat. We continued through Colorado and into Utah were we visited the Mormon Tabernacle and the Great Salt Flats. The Great Salt Flats were really strange to me. It seemed like it was snow, but it wasn't cold and had a strange texture. I just remember that I got salt all over myself.

We then drove on to Nevada and stayed in Reno for a night. I was too young, so we just walked through a casino to get to the restaurant. After that, we went to Lake Tahoe and spent a few hours climbing on the large rocks that surround the lake. My brother and I really enjoyed that.

Our uncle and aunt lived in California, so we stopped to visit them before we headed on to Yosemite National Park where we stayed in a small cabin that had a view of "Half Dome." It's very pretty and I would like to go back there someday. We moved on to San Francisco where we saw the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf, and the house where my brother was born. Now, we were on our way back east.

On the way home we took a different route, driving north out of San Fran, going through Napa Valley, into Oregon and Idaho, stopping at Big Mountain, Montana. Although it was summer, there was still some snow on the mountain and we pretended to ski in our tennis shoes. From there we drove to Glacier International Peace Park. What I remember from this part of the trip was not being able to walk up a mountain because I was too young and not dressed "appropriately" for the snow. My mother now apologizes for not letting me go. That was the last of our major sight seeing; we drove back home through Montana, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and across the Mackinaw Bridge. It was quite an adventure for just two and a half weeks, and without many reservations.