Our Drive to Utah

August 5, 2013

Mom had planned to drive to Utah to pick up my Grandma and Aunt and all drive to Illinois for my cousin Sam's wedding on August 10th.  I would have loved to go to her wedding, but Illinois is too far to drive with young children and too expensive to fly.  Anyway, Mom didn't want to drive to Utah alone, so we decided to drive down with her.  It was a chance for a free trip to Utah and to see my Grandma and our old friends.

Along the way we stopped in Baker City and ate at Sumpter Junction.  This was the view from our booth.  The boys loved watching the train come around and around.  We used to stop there frequently on trips to Utah when we were kids.  

At the time of our stop, Baker City's water had become contaminated a few days earlier and they could not offer any ice or water.  Our waiter explained that most restaurant's in town had either closed or were using paper products to serve their food.  However, the owners of Sumpter Junction also owned the local brewery's so they had the ability to boil and sterilize large quantities of water for use in their restaurant.  --Just a reminder why water is a key food storage item, for times like this when you are unable to use the water.

Versii and Paxton did fairly well on our trip down.

Here they are with their dogs. 

Paxton's dog is named Juno, after Josh's sister Becky's live dog.  And Versii's dog is named Tiny.

Paxton feeding the Alpaca at our stop in "the middle of nowhere".  Versii happily watched from a distance, but refused to feed them himself.