Yellowstone Trip--part 3

After saying goodbye to all of the cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents,

we started driving back...

We stopped in Utah see Brian's grandfather who lives in a beautiful assisted living facility in Layton.

This was a great opportunity to have Grandpa Parry give Jake his patriarchal blessing.

We had a nice visit with him and then headed over to see our dear friends, the Merrills and Brian's brother, Kreg and his family who live just a block or so away from Rob and Heather.

The kids got to visit with Jen and Larry's kids again (since they had just driven back from the cabin in Idaho a few hours earlier).  They got to stay overnight there while we went to dinner with Rob and Heather. 

Brian and I stayed in a hotel that night.  It was nice not to have to share our space with the kiddos...

From there, we drove through Glenwood Springs Canyon and Vale, Colorado.  We stayed in Aurora that night.

We then drove on to Independance, Missouri where we were able to go to the Liberty Jail visitors center.  We got to see an interesting presentation about Joseph Smith's time there.

Look at how thick the walls were in the jail!  

We stayed in Independence that night...

The next day, we drove to St. Louis, (fyi...one of my least liked places).  It was unbelievably hot and humid...(especially oppressive since we were used to dry heat at that point).  The kids wanted to go up in the arch but the lines were so long and my patience was waning at that point.

There was an interesting (and more importantly, air conditioned!) museum at the arch where we were able to get our National Park pass stamped as well as learn some new things about the Louis and Clark expedition.

One of the only highlights of our stop off in Missouri (for me, anyway) (besides the airconditioning) was the fact that we got to see a rainbow...!

Which must have been an omen of good things to come...

Shortly after seeing the rainbow, the girl that was house/pet sitting for us sent me this text.  My cat was stretched out in one of our window boxes.  After seeing this, I started feeling super homesick and was anxious to return to non-nomad living.

When we returned the rental van, the final mileage that we ended up putting on it was 6070 miles...

It was definitely a trip to remember...A trip of a lifetime, really...

But it was good to be home!