It’s not every day that you drive across the country to drop off your first child at college. Our daughter Heidi started school September of 2021 at BYU Idaho in Rexburg. Natalie and I drove Heidi, and tubs of her stuff, in our van from our home in Roanoke, IN. After we kicked her to the curb, we drove back just the two of us.
Going out, we decided to take the high road (more northern route) to see some things we hadn’t seen before. It was great staying with friends and family and taking one last adventure with Heidi.
On the way back, it was wonderful spending some time alone with Natalie. We also had a few adventures of our own before returning home.
Some highlights of our trip include:
- Visiting Natalie’s brother Ben north of Chicago
- Staying with Natalie’s college friend’s family in Minnesota and eating delicious brick oven pizza from their own homemade oven
- Staying with my Aunt Arlene’s family in Dickinson, ND
- Visiting Theodore Roosevelt National Park
- Stopping at Pompey’s Pillar in Montana to see where the famed William Clark etched his name on his way back from the Lewis & Clark Expedition
- Spending a couple days with Heidi at her new school
- Seeing the Teton Mountain’s other side as we drove East (though it was smokey from the fires)
- Dodging hundreds of deer and antelope on our drive through Wyoming’s rural routes
- Eating delicious pizza (see a pattern here?) at Racca’s in Casper, WY
- Sleeping in the back of our van within the shadows of Devil’s Tower National Monument and waking up to a sunrise hike around its circumference
- Driving through Badlands National Park
- Strolling around the falls that Sioux Falls are named after
- Stopping at my Aunt Ruth’s house in Merrillville, IN for a small family get together
