Museums, Pumpkins, and Spangles

Our last vacation somehow slipped through the blogging cracks.  We took a longish break and went to Boise to visit Justin's family.  It was a visit that was long overdue.  Justin hadn't been home in well over a year.  My favorite part of the trip was a vacation within a vacation when we took a little road trip from Boise up to Couer d'alene, somewhere that Justin and I had never visited.  It was really beautiful up there.  However, we quickly discovered that it's beautiful, but not exactly packed with things to do, particularly with small children in tow.  However, we caught the Northern Idaho state fair, did a boat tour out on the lake, and enjoyed a nice dinner at a restaurant right on the shoreline.  I can't speak for the others, but I found the experience very enjoyable.  We returned to Boise the next day and continued with the vacation full of cousins, pool time, a trip to Lucky Peak, feeding the ducks with Grandma Cotter, and the paddle boats at Julia Davis park (which I've been wanting to do for years, and I loved it and want to go again.)

Notice the still damp pants on Ivan.  There was another wading/swimming incident with the kids prior to the boat tour, and again afterwards.

The only kid with any energy left at the end of the day.

Weirdly we didn't end up taking any other pictures this trip. 

After Boise we have been awaiting our next vacation, a long weekend to Oklahoma City over Columbus Day.  We wanted to go somewhere new, and we wanted to go somewhere that we wouldn't be disappointed if the weather went to crap, so Oklahoma City is the obvious choice, right?  It must be, because Brianna and Ima decided to fly in and join us for this one, and we got a chance to see Andrew and Katie there too.

Our first stop was the bombing memorial.  This one was my idea, it's been on my bucket list for a while.  To be honest, the memorial was nice.  The museum, was great.  A little heavy, but we enjoyed it.  I also like that Vivian is getting old enough now that I showed her a video about the bombing before we went, and she was at least vaguely aware of what had happened and why we were there.  

It's a little weird to me that these are chairs for each bombing victim, I felt weird with the idea of sitting on one.

As a side note, the size of downtown Oklahoma City was surprisingly small, and it struck all of us that it made the location of the bombing seem very random.

By the time we emerged the kids were over it. 

Viv's face here is pretty hilarious.

We took them to ice cream at Braum's, a chain that Justin recognized from his mission, and then off to a pumpkin farm.

I have never been to a pumpkin farm like this one.  There was a train, a carousel, tube slides, playgrounds, corn pits, sand boxes, jump pads, tire stacks, hay stacks, petting zoo, pumpkin patch, pony rides, hay rides, a sad corn maze that hadn't grown in as well as one would hope, and then a smaller, thicker corn patch.  We spent a few hours there, before we made our way to the corn maze at the far reaches of the property.  We wandered around in it for a while, and then went to the pumpkin patch to let the kids pick out a pumpkin for themselves while I nursed Evalyn.  The adults were all talking, and Vivian and Ivan were picking out pumpkins, and then Ivan wasn't.  He was just gone.  The pumpkin patch wasn't big, and it was right next to the corn maze, and the thick corn patch. It was not an ideal place to lose track of a small child.  When we realized that he was gone everyone started splitting up searching for him, and I found myself barking orders at a very young employee to call someone and see if security to watch at the front gate for my small son.  She was a little on the panicky side, and I honestly was considering snatching her phone, when only a moment or two later Ivan was spotted cruising around in the half-grown corn maze.  He followed someone in that he had apparently mistaken for me.  He was returned to me wide-eyed and shaking, and for a while just hugged me while he repeated over and over again "you left me behind."  Aside from that unfortunate incident we loved the pumpkin farm.  

Evalyn was not such a fan of this idea.

We made our way back to the hotel that night exhausted.  The next morning we left and drove through portions Justin's mission, and Route 66.  We spent the night in Wichita, where we discovered the restaurant chain, Spangles that appears to only exist in Kansas.  To our disappointment the ice cream machine was broken, and it's the kind of place where you can just sort of sense that you're going to need a shake.  Fortunately there was one about an hour or so down the road, so breakfast the next morning was at the hotel, and topped off with shakes from Spangles, and they were delicious.  So if you ever find yourself in Kansas, we'd recommend stopping in at a Spangles for a milkshake. 

We also took a little time to drive through the heart of Wichita so that we could take in the number three recommendation in tripadvisor and visit the Guardian of the Plains. 

Not a thrill a minute kind of thing, but it was quite scenic. 

Our next stop on the way home was at another one of the eight wonders of Kansas, Mushroom Rock State Park.  It was only a short detour, and sounded interesting...or at least as interesting as the other two rocks we'd already seen that were on the list.  As it turns out the state park consisted of about a dozen or so odd rocks, a couple of which were in fact shaped like mushrooms. 

The state park was down a lovely dirt road.  It really was nice out there.

The kids loved climbing around on the rocks.

The most mushroom looking rock in the "park."

After that it was just a long haul back to Denver to drop off Brianna and Ima, and cruise home.  We were pretty sad to have the trip end.  We had a great time, and it was one of the best short trips we've done, and in all seriousness, we're liking our ventures out onto the plains.  Justin has added that this is not my most interesting blog post, so I guess next time I'll have to figure out a way to hype this up a little.