We recently got back from an almost 2 week road trip. Usually I'd write a whole bunch of posts about all the things, but someone in our house has a big 1 year old birthday coming up so my focus has been there. So here's the highlights of our trip.
First main stop was Pigeon Forge, TN. We stayed 4 nights to enjoy some time in the mountains. It was a great town with so much to do and see.
Cooper loved trying out the rides at the Pigeon Forge Island.
We also took him for his first game of mini golf.
We spent a day hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Splashing in the creek is always a favorite. So many people stopped to comment on how much fun Cooper was having here.
We drove to Newfound Gap on the Tennessee/North Carolina border.
So beautiful.
The Appalachian Trail runs through Newfound Gap so we hiked a few steps of it ;). It was completely uphill at this point so I didn't make it long with Miles on my back.
After our day in the national park, we headed back to The Island to try out the Ferris wheel. Cooper was not a fan of it stopping at the top, but I'm glad we were all able to ride it together.
The main destination of our trip was to see our friends in Virginia! We originally were supposed to go to a family wedding up that way in April so we had planned to see our friends then. When the wedding was postponed, we decided to go ahead and still go up to Virginia to see the McCulloughs with a few stops along the way. It was so good to see them and let the kids play. We played a lot at their house and also got to explore a few places close to them like this park.
So thankful for all the seasons of life I've walked through with Erin. I miss her being close by, but I'm so thankful for our time together and for all the ways that technology keeps us connected so we can stay in touch between trips. Erin, thanks for at least moving to a pretty place to visit ;)
Reading books on their couch. Most of our time was spent with all the kids running around and making messes, so I had to snap a picture of this calmer moment. We had such a great long weekend visiting them!
On our drive home we ate inside our first restaurant in over a year-- a Chipotle in West Virginia. Most of our stops we tried to pick up food and eat at a park and luckily the weather held up for a lot of the trip, but our first day leaving Virginia was rainy all day. So we decided to eat inside Chipotle and it worked out well. Miles is always a big fan of the guacamole!
We stayed a night in St Louis and found a hotel with a ballpark view. It was so fun having this view out our window.
We also had tickets to the game. We went over and ate dinner and then as Miles and I headed back for his bedtime they announced that the game was postponed to the next day due to rain. So we missed out on the game, but it was fun to get to be inside the stadium-- you can see the St Louis Arch in the background from the stadium top deck!
Our last stop was in Tulsa and I found a hotel with an indoor pool so we could do a little swimming. We got to Tulsa Wednesday evening and let the boys swim for a while before dinner. Both of them had a blast-- this baby loves water, I can't wait to see how much he enjoys all the water play this summer.
Our stop in Tulsa was geared around checking out the Gathering Place. We tried to go last year on our way home from Kansas City (when COVID was just beginning) and Cooper ended up getting hurt as soon as we got out of the car so we didn't stay to play. I'm so thankful we planned this as part of our trip and got to redeem that a little. It is such a cool place-- we spent all day Thursday there with a short break for rest time and dinner before going back before bed. There were slides, sand, swings, and really cool playgrounds. There's also lots of water things to do! Both boys loved it.
Miles thought the sand was really funny.
Lots of places to climb.
One final ride on the zipline Thursday evening. Friday we headed home and were able to be home for lunch and naps. We had such a great trip and saw so many things together! But we were all thankful to be home too.
