Road Trip Stage Five: CO, UT, ID, OR, and Home!

I can't believe we've already been home for a week! Still find myself daydreaming about roadside photo-ops... At least there are some good ones on the rolls from the last stage of our trip:

Somewhere in Southern Idaho.

On our return journey, we got to Idaho by way of Utah:


Map of these last legs:


At first it seemed cute that the Welcome to Utah rest stop was populated by prairie dogs:

But then we discovered that they aren't really afraid of people, so... back in the car!

You probably heard that we did a short detour to take a look at Arches National Park:




Weird and beautiful, but not the most hospitable weather for hiking:

Luckily there's plenty to see from the car :)

A couple of days and a few rest stops later, we made it to Baker City Oregon, where we spent the night at the very cool Geiser Grand Hotel.

Charming old details, good food, friendly staff.


A nearly perfect last night on the road.


Decent views from our room too:

Nice find, Emily!



And just outside of Baker City is the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center.

Hadn't really thought about it until we started touring some of the Center's interesting exhibit spaces, but the route's a little familiar:
Oregon Trail Map 5 A
Now, it took us about a week, including stops to see friends and family, to make it from Missouri to Oregon. Thought-provoking and humbling to think that over a quarter of a million people spent six months getting there by foot...

Anyway, as I said, some nice exhibits inside:


And views outside:


We ran out of time, but apparently if you walk to the bottom of the hill here, you can see ruts from the original trail:

There's a wagon parked down there marking the spot (if you want a better view, try the large version of the photo).

We did make time to visit some replica wagons near the parking lot:

Come and get it!

Next day, we were home. Nothing like waking up in your own bed:

All in all it was a great trip. We all had a wonderful time, and I'm incredibly grateful that we had the chance to see so much together, and to introduce Franklin to so many great friends and relatives.