A Spring Break

As much fun as the trip was, it was still a roadtrip involving being cooped up in the pickup for hours on end....yah right. Actually, that is not how it was at all; I wish that had been the case! When we stopped to fuel up for the first time, we discovered the horrible reality of our situation--the rear tank on the pickup would not fuel up at all, and the front tank would only fill at a snails pace (we timed 1 gal/minute or longer)! Oh drat. This meant that we had to stop and fuel up often--sometimes as often as every 100 miles due to long stretches of roadway without fuel stops or in the passes that guzzzled the diesel. This made the trip much longer, and you can guarantee that is was always bitter cold with a wind to boot. The pump had to be constantly nursed along because the fuel went in too slowly for even the slowest automatic setting. Lloyd improvised a bolt or swiss army knife setup at the pumps that were slow enough, but most of the time it was click--click--click--click. By the last day of the trip and following a horrible lunch in Montpelier, we were ready for the trip to be LONG over. Not even singing all the cheesy songs we could think of kept our spirits up for long. Lava Hot Springs was coming up, and it was a genuine gift. I had never been there before (once again Lloyd had been) and when I told him that we all had swimsuits, it became a mandatory Hot Springs Break. After 3 days on the road, it was time to do something for ourselves. Lava was amazing! There are 2 big pools and 2 jacuzzi pools. It was in a beautiful grassy area with flowers, and the bottom of the pools were gravel which was genius because it felt like a massage on your feet. Kate had fun, but the water was "too hot". By the time we left, she had worked her way in up to her waist though. Jessa on the other hand was a regular water baby and when I tried to take her out because I worried about her getting too warm, she threw a fit and wanted to swim around again. Even though it would put us home at nearly 2am the next morning, it was BEYOND worth it. We drove westward home, toward the most beautiful sunset I have seen in a long time. It went on and on and on for nearly 2 hours with a colorful display playing off the clouds. Not even having to stop and get some click-click-click fuel could spoil the high of the hot springs break and sunset. Doug was waiting up when we pulled in during the wee hours. There's no place like home!