2017's Epic Roadtrip: The Smokies, Mickey, Harry and Space!

After taking a year off, it is almost time for this year's Kline Epic Roadtrip. We will be bringing our camper for the first time, so no more sleeping on the ground. We are getting very excited! Most people reading this blog will be doing so after we get home, but I will be posting daily, with updates and pictures. I use this blog as a journal and as a guide to creating a photobook of the trip once we get home. Here is a map of our planned trip.

The Long Drive Home

This blog post is going to cover the long drive home. Las Vegas to Green Bay. Two and a half days of driving. It was the longest part of the trip because we just wanted to get home, sleep in our own beds.

The first day we drove through some of the most beautiful scenery on the entire trip. Well, the first few hours were more desert with the mountains in a haze in the distance. The haze was so thick that it seemed that mountains just appeared out of nowhere. Later I realized the haze was probably caused by all the forest fires in the Northwest.

Does anyone know what these are for? They are like little hills that just end at a fence. They were on the sides of the roads ever mile or so just before we got to the mountains. This type of stuff intrigues me as we sit for hours and hours.  There was no cell signal anywhere near there so I couldn't look it up but I still can't think of what search terms to use anyway. 

After a couple hours, we started climbing into the mountains. We saw real trees again and lots of green besides the rocks and mountains. And it got beautiful!

We went through quite a few tunnels, the longest is called the Eisenhower tunnel. Kind of freaky that a whole mountain was above us!

I wouldn't want to have to drive this in the winter, but watching people float down the river and trains glide along the mountain was so beautiful!

That night we stayed at a Super 8 northwest of Denver. Kind of gross, we were there less than 10 hours and there wasn't an AmericInn near there (which we prefer when available).

The next day's drive wasn't nearly as exciting. Even Spencer took a nap. Something tells me that he is not going to like this photo when he's a teenager, but he did give me permission to use it now. 

That night we stayed at a nice AmericInn in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Much nicer than the previous night. 

Only 5-6 more hours to go, with a stop in Oshkosh to pick up Lego, have a delicious apple crisp that Oma made and chat a bit.

According to my fitbit, I walked 160,733 steps, 476 floors, 66.39 miles, and burned 49, 231 calories. I'm sure I ate more calories than that, but this was definitely not a sit and relax vacation, which is perfectly fine by me.

We made it home finally. 5200 miles, 100 hours of driving, 12 states, and countless memories. We had so much fun and can't wait for our next epic Kline road trip next summer!

A Day in Las Vegas

 Neither Jeff nor I had ever been in Las Vegas before. We are just a bit too old for the bachelor/bachelorette party weekend phenomenon and we don't really gamble or drink much. But we definitely wanted to have a look around and show the kids cool things. The Excalibur, which we chose based on recommendations that it was one of the more family friendly resort hotels (Circus Circus is the other one, but I hate clowns). Plus it was cheaper than a campsite, and had air conditioning.

Las Vegas seems to be like Disney for adults. Lots of gluttony in food, shopping, drinking and gambling. We helped the kids partake in gluttony in food as you can see. Carson loves Cinnamon rolls, and often begs Jeff to make them on weekend mornings. Well, this is from Cinnabun and he was in heaven!

Spencer and Jeff shared a dozen Krispie Kremes and Jeff flashbacked to college with a breakfast Mountain Dew. I decided to just grab a coffee and go to some of the shops in that area while they ate themselves silly.

We took the tram to the nearby hotels, Luxor and Mandalay Bay. Then we walked back to the Excalibur on the sidewalk. So hot! The temperature reached 109 degrees that day. Who ever thought it would be a good idea to build this city in the middle of a desert? 

After that, we walked across the skywalk to the New York, New York resort and escaped into the cool lobby. 

We spent some time in their arcade after getting a picture with Zoltar. We will have to show kids the movie "Big" for Kline Family Movie Night soon. 

We then wandered around at a lot of the shops. The Hershey store was really neat, and the kids had fun getting silly for the camera.

A Twizzler Statue of Liberty

And a chocolate one!

We have a tradition in our family when the kids are begging for things at stores. I take a picture of them holding it up and they can "remember" that they want it and add it to their Christmas wishlist. Works like a charm to stop the begging. I'm not sure if Carson really wants a stuffed Hershey bar or just wanted his picture taken, but I actually got a real smile out of him so it's going on the blog!

Spencer thought that "drinking" out of this huge chocolate sauce bank was hilarious!

It seems like walls of candy are popular here. I saw three stores with candy walls. This wall is full of all the varieties of Hershey kisses.

 This is a huge sign out front of the Hershey store. If you are on the Vegas Strip, you can't miss it!

 The Swatch store brought Jeff and I back to middle school. Did you know that they don't make the guards for them anymore? You can only buy them on ebay now.

Being in the stores must have tired out all the boys because we only made it to one more resort, the MGM.

The bathroom faucets had TVs in them! 

We ate the MGM Lunch buffet and it was delicious. Jeff is the one who usually loves to take pictures of his food and post it, but I just couldn't resist showing off the yummy desserts!

We headed back to the Excalibur and headed down to their arcade called the "Fun Dungeon". It was a lot more kid-friendly than the New York, New York arcade.

This game rocked and moved as they got the bad guys.

Jeff had just as much fun as the boys playing games like Guitar Hero.

Father and son, head-to-head in a race!

Spencer and I played a few rounds of air hockey. We will have one of these in our basement someday!

Star Wars Pod Racers!

The boys had a blast :)

Time to go back to the hotel where the boys were very excited to watch TV, while Jeff took a nap. We got rid of cable last year, so the kids were happy as clams to watch Spongebob, and reruns of Full House while I went out exploring more shops in the desert heat.

I went to a bunch of shops in Mandalay Bay and then went back to the strip and made it to a huge Coca-Cola store, a 4 story M&M store, and Marshall's where I bought a couple shirts so I wouldn't have to do laundry until we got home. 

An M&M wall of candy!

Our hotel, the Hershey store, and the roller coaster and Statue of Liberty. I couldn't take the heat after this and started back.

It was dinner time by the time I got back so I picked up Popeyes for Jeff and I and hot dogs from Hot Dog on a Stick for the boys. Funny that it's the only thing they have on their menu, hot dogs on sticks.

After watching one more episode of Full House, we all crashed in preparation for a long drive as we finally head for home.