My Sugar House Life: Road Trip

In Utah we celebrate a not-quite-holiday that highlights the difference between California and the Mountain West. It's called UEA, it coincides with the start of hunting season, and the kids get three days off of school for it.

Since we don't hunt, the Cummings family seized the opportunity for the long-awaited family trip that is not to Los Angeles or Salt Lake City. We made almost no plans. We did know that we were going to start our trip at the Lagoon Amusement Park and stay in Logan the first night, but that's where the planning stopped. We didn't even know exactly where our road trip would end. We just wanted to head north to see where it took us.

Robert's free-spiritedness included driving without looking at the road

On our way out of Salt Lake we went to Lagoon, which was celebrating their annual Frightmares. As far as I can tell Frightmares is basically the regular park with pumpkins, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

"Frightmares"

Abby, Aidan, and Aiden

Whiny face

Wild Mouse

Paratroopers

Abby not impressed

After Lagoon, we kept heading north to Logan, UT where they practically give hotel rooms away for free. I'm not kidding. We stayed at the Days Inn and Suites in Logan for $64, which included a free dinner for two at Cafe Sabor, an above average hotel breakfast for three, and a pool where you can convince your dripping wet son to run around the building in 30 degree weather in exchange for a $0.99 iPad app.

Free food

Free pool

Free temple view (those are my index fingers, I am not giving the temple the bird)

Our trip started out so frugally, that I started mentally crafting a blog post called "UEA trips under $500". Unfortunately, it is really hard to keep that kind of budget so I changed the mental blog post to "UEA trips that rock" to avoid any pesky budget restrictions.

After stopping by the Logan Temple and driving past Utah State University, we took the scenic route through the Cache Valley forest and Bear Lake up to Lava Hot Springs. Bear Lake was beautiful so I have mentally earmarked it for a future family vacation. We would Google/Wikipedia every town we drove through and learn interesting "facts" about the Monster of Bear Lake and the world's only contained geyser in Soda Springs, ID.

Overlooking Bear Lake

Bear Lake is sometimes called the "Caribbean of the Rockies" because of its turquoise color. Or so says Wikipedia.

Sorry Aidan.

"I'm good at selfies" he says

World's only contained geyser in Soda Springs, ID

The second night of our journey we stayed at the Harkness Hotel in McCammon, ID which was a dramatic departure from the cookie cutter hotels that dot the freeways on road trips. The Harkness Hotel is a completely restored 100 year old building that serves as a boutique hotel in the middle of nowhere.

Front of hotel

Not our room, but a cool one nonetheless

Also not our room, but take my word that our was nice too

The vault downstairs with real bullet holes, harkening back to the hotel's former life as a bank

McCammon is just down the road from Lava Hot Springs, which are natural 110 degree pools with magical healing powers. The Harkness Hotel gave us two free passes to Lava Hot Springs with our room and we continued to enjoy our vacation freebies.

Lava Hot Springs

By this time, I think we had spent less than $200 on a vacation that felt pretty posh.

But the goal of this trip was to gather no moss. So we headed out the next morning for Idaho Falls, ID. Of all the places we saw, this felt the most like a cute little college town. We walked through a Farmer's Market, checked out the Idaho Falls Temple, had some amazing lobster tacos at the Snake Bite restaurant, and went to go see Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Highly recommend all. Also, another free breakfast, yay!

Pretty in the fall

Aidan in the hotel fitness center

I worked out morning and night in Idaho Falls. Very proud.

On the fourth day, our trip leveled up when we decided to drive to Jackson, WY.

I can't even begin to describe the awe I have for Jackson, WY. Unlike every other place we traveled where the service people were over-the-top nice, the people who work in Jackson are so cool they don't even have to be nice. They have that "I am a bad ass rock star skier who will serve you drinks and check you into your room to fund my endless winter" vibe. I don't even care because I totally agree with them. At one point, I was also a misanthrope who thumbed my nose at societal expectations and snowboarded 200 days a year. And yes, I was infinitely cooler then than I am now that I have bowed down to the man in exchange for stability and health benefits.

But I digress...