Senior Trip

When our oldest son was 17 he asked if he and his younger brother could take a road trip to California.

We said no.

Then we offered the use of our car so that he could take a trip up north to Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana, ALONE with his brother, as long as I was in the back seat.

So during spring break of his 11th grade, in May of 2011 we drove up to Yellowstone Park.

Memories of Andrew on his 16th Birthday.

Andy, Jeff, and I took a road trip to Montana to see the sights and it was the most enjoyable one I have ever been on. I figured something right is going on in my sons lives when we listened to all five sessions of General Conference on the drive home, per their request. This was to balance The delight we all experienced when driving through Yellowstone blasting the rock bands Kansas, Chicago, Rush, and a few more modern bands that I have never heard of.

Andy and Jeff were not too happy about Mom crashing their party.

But we made the best of it.

I only had one goal on this trip and that was to go see a musical at the Playmill Theatre where I had performed Summer Stock in 1987. We went to see High School Musical and laughed our heads off.

As fun as the live show was, my favorite memory of the trip was sitting in our car at the KOA while a blizzard roared. I had brought my mini disc player with a few movies and needing to kill time, we watched You Can’t Take it With You. My boys had never watched this movie and being my favorite non musical play, it was sheer joy to introduce them to it and see it through their eyes.

We all laughed so hard at the restaurant scene!

We drove up to Jackson Hole Wyoming the first day and camped right on the snake river. The boys did some horseback riding and we ate at this amazing restaurant that served the most delicious sweet potatoes I have ever eaten.

On the second day of our trip we drove directly west around the Teton Mountains to Rexburg Idaho. We toured the BYU CAMPUS and went to the Temple to take a few photos.

We had no idea that Jeff would return to this campus a few short years later to finish his undergrad.

He also met and married his wife, who gave birth to our oldest granddaughter while they were still in school.

From Rexburg we headed north to West Yellowstone, Montana where we planned to tent camp at the KOA.

Along the way we stopped at the Bear Reserve.

After we set up our tent it began to snow!

We lasted until about three in the morning and I woke up so cold I was concerned that my sons would freeze to death from hypothermia.

So we drove into town and spent the rest of that night at the Best Western where we were able to warm up and get a hot breakfast.

I had pre cooked about twenty foil dinners and frozen them. Except for our night eating out, we ate those foil dinners for lunch and supper every day, heated up in the campfire.

I had planned for that to be our only food, but we knew it was folly to stick with the tent model of camping and decided to rent a cabin with a small kitchen at the KOA.

So we drove the ten miles back to the KOA and saw a bear running alongside the highway. The boys also saw a baby Moose, Buffalo, a Fox, and a few other animals on this trip.

Jeff captured this photo of a grizzly when we drove through Yellowstone Park.

We only had one rule for the trip and it was that we would stick together. No going off alone. We stuck to that rule and it made the pace of our activities slow, because I move at a slow pace. Between my naps we took several excursions into the park and were able to see almost all of it. A section of the park was snowed in.

We had planned to drive through the park and camp again on the snake river at Jackson Hole, but it was so cold Jeff suggested we just drive straight home from West Yellowstone.

It took almost eleven hours and we listened to almost all five sessions of April 2011 General Conference, but we did it with just a few stops.

Here are a few photos of my son Jeff. He is just about to finish up a PhD in Computational Chemistry at the University of Michigan. It has been so fun watching him and his family fall in love with Michigan.

I grew up close to Ann Arbor where they are living and have so many wonderful memories in and around the area.

Jenny Marie Hatch

Peace