Sunday, June 02, 2013

Road Trip Day 1: Points System and Happy Times in the Van

This is Ashton, Saren’s oldest child. I'm in charge of the blog while my mom drives. Yesterday, we drove through Wyoming and Nebraska. They are very big states and the trip was very long. We made our 12 hours in the car as fun as possible with a points system.

It went like this; writing a page, reading ten pages in a book, or doing three pages in a math workbook gives you a point each. Once you got to five points, you could choose between a candy bar, sitting in shotgun, or 30 minutes of playing on the Kindle Fire.

Eliza chose to sit in the front and play on the Kindle, Oliver, Silas, and Isaac all chose Kindle time, and I chose a candy bar. The person in shotgun was in charge of keeping track of points on a small notebook.

While we were driving, and our mom was on the phone, Oliver suddenly announced that he needed to go to the bathroom. Immediately. #2.

We pulled over and... well, let's just say that every car that passed us got quite a laugh when they saw Ollie mooning them. We're just glad he took care o' business  outside of the car instead of inside.

People seemed pretty happy and got stuff done with the point system. We had a lot of good snacks (thanks to Kashi for sending a HUGE box of deliciousness and Subway for buying us lunch. Kashi and Subway are our partial sponsors of this trip). We stopped in Cheyenne to see the capitol, and then we were on our way again. Check out our progress in pictures by clicking here: . We'll be posting several pictures and updates a day.

Random Statistics:
Today we saw...

  • Nine trains (longest one was 85 cars)
  • Fort Bridger (we looked up some stuff about it but didn't stop. It's where all the pioneers and mountain men did their trading and shopping)
  • an R, an M, an E, and a GR on the mountains
  • a mountain tunnel
  • castle rocks (big turrets of rocks that stuck out of Wyomian mountains)
  • Rolands (where our great grandpa grew up)
  • Towns with with wierd names: Road Wamsutter, Medicine Bow, Wahoo
  • Continental Divide

6 comments:

Linda said...

Hey you guys, congrats on a great first day! Ashton, your post was stellar! Loved hearing it through your eyes. You have a smart mom and that's probably why you are so smart (well your dad's smarts probably helped a lot too). Thanks for taking care of everything. Can't wait for the next installment. Good luck!

Barb said...

Ashton, you're a great writer! I loved the points system idea.

Camile said...

Ashton - I thoroughly enjoyed reading your travelogue of day one! It's fun to read a teenager's perspective. We moved to CT from UT last summer, so you will be seeing a lot of the same things that we saw. I hope you and your family have a fabulous road trip - you'll make memories that will be treasured forever!

Kathryn said...

Great post, Ashton! You're an excellent writer. Looking forward to hearing about more of your adventures on the road. Love, Aunt Kathryn

Shawni said...

Awesome post ashie!! Love you!

Jessica said...

Nebraska is a very boring state to drive through...I should know, I live in Omaha and have driven across it more then once.
Thanks for the travel blog!

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