Our Family Travels and Activities

[Dougnuts]

We also took a day trip down to Savanna. After walking around one of the parks and getting lunch, we took one of the tour trolleys around the city, which was very much worth the time. Lots of old houses and history in Savanna.

 

[barongan]

Great trip

 

[Dougnuts]

I have some catching up to do. These pictures are from October of 2020 (during the harvest moon), which I think was our first family trip of 2020. We went to Lincoln, NE to visit my cousin, his wife, and two beautiful girls.

 

[Dougnuts]

Lincoln trip continued - We also went to the Omaha Zoo.

 

[Dougnuts]

Edit: Removed some boring pictures.

 

[Dougnuts]

For Spring Break 2021, we went to the New River Gorge in West Virginia, which had recently become a National Park. The weather was borderline, but we made the best of it, did a LOT of hiking, and had some good family time.













The boys scratching off their maps for the states that we have been to and done an activity. Passing through doesn't count, according to my wife.

 

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

I disagree with your wife....passing through does count !

I really enjoy seeing your family outings. These family outings are so much better than all my years on the road. The best days of my life were times like these.....when I went on adventures with my 2 boys.

Enjoy every minute....every second.....it goes by so fast.

Thanks for sharing.....

 

[Dougnuts]

I'm behind on my travels updates, but here's an update on our Outback. After previously planning to lower my Outback, and installing STI wheels and brakes........well, how's this for a change of direction? After talking to my Pastor, of all people , I decided to go for more of an off road build than a handling machine.

I went with Rallitek 0.75" overload springs, Bilstein struts, new control arms, Whiteline top hats, KMC708s with 245/65/17 Falken Wildpeaks. Overall the car gained 3" up front and 2" in the rear.

Not a bad looking ride for 141K miles. If I had it to do over again, I would have went with the 0" lift springs (which actually do lift the car a little).

 

[Dougnuts]

Playing catch-up here. We have been blessed to have been healthy and financially able to travel a bit over the last few years. In the fall of 2021 we went to Seaside Beach in Florida. Most of our week was spent up and down 30A. The weather wasn't the best, but it made for some great sunsets and I still remember how relaxing this trip was. In no particular order:

 

[Dougnuts]

Fall of 2021 - Seaside/30A continued:

The house from The Truman Show

A page from Greenlights by Mathew McConaughey, which I read on this trip.

 

[Dougnuts]

Spring break of 2022 was a trip to St. Louis.

We went to City Museum, which is really an indoor playground, mixed with a little bit of Alice in Wonderland, complete with hidden passages and small doors. It's hard to describe and a whole lot of fun. Here's a drone view that gives an idea of what it's like.

Three different views of the 8-ish story slides.

We went to the St. Louis Zoo.

 

[Dougnuts]

After the zoo, I searched for places to eat and found Gioia's Deli in the Italian area of St. Louis. It was fantastic!

As always, we made time for the pool and some sweets. We hit up both Ted Drewes and Fitz's on this trip.

I saw The Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis on the GPS, so we stopped by to check it out.

 

[Dougnuts]

Of course, we also stopped by Gateway Arch National Park. It was my first visit since the huge renovation.

The new entrance, which now extends over the highways.

 

[Dougnuts]

Next up was my nearly annual trip to Nebraska. No family because the kids are in school. I stopped in Lincoln along the way to see my cousin and his family. He had recently purchased a Wrangler Rubicon 4xe. I also made time to swing by a popular AirBnB.

700 mile range, nice!

 

[Dougnuts]

In late July of 2022, my wife and I went to SLC with her brother and his wife. We did a lot of hiking around SLC and Park City. It was super hot (100°) in the city, and altitude sickness was an issue for me all week. The wife and I drove out to the Salt Flats, which was a bucket list item for me.

Stats for the week:
Steps 115,405
Calories 7,182
Minutes 731
Miles 50.85
Flights Climbed 448

Trails I know we did were Ensign Peak, Bells Canyon, Living Room Lookout. I don't remember the trail names around Park City. There were many others as well as a visit to the Red Butte Gardens. The Mormon temple was under exterior renovation, so I don't have any pictures of that, but we did visit. We also visited the library, but it was packed with homeless due to the weather conditions.

Salt Flats

Park City

This is a video of the ski jump

We also did the bobsled!