The joy and curse of traveling by car, is you can pretty much do what you want within the limitation of time, distance and stamina!

On our trip to WA we skipped our favorite winery in favor of getting there without an extra day. We decided to hit it on the way home. It ended up adding an extra 2 hours… and since we weren’t trying any other wineries.. probably not necessary, but it did break up the monotony of the drive!

We got 4 of our favorites and then splurged on another one we tasted and really liked!

The rest of that day was just getting to Boise – to sleep in a king size bed! Ahhh! MIL and FIL have a double bed, and with 2 people that spread out and the pups… oy!

So we pulled the block out curtains and enjoyed the night!

The next day was trying to get to Moab so we could visit Arches the next day before heading home!

We got there too late and too pooped to enjoy all that Moab had to offer! Breweries and fun restaurants!

The next morning we did the “if you have 1 and 1/2 hours to spent” trip thru the national park

From there we scooted home as fast as we could!

We were tempted to hit our favorite wineries in Grand Junction again – but decided a side trip was not what we wanted to do, so our next order of business is to find them in the big liquor stores locally!

It was a fun trip – not very many fights, or getting lost!

We are considering doing the same this to my parents this coming year…  we’ll see!

It was a pretty relaxing week! I got to the gym every morning – except for Christmas day! We walked the pups with their cousin Bounce many of the days and just enjoyed the company of family!

We had a nice day on Christmas! Lots of great presents from Grandma and Grandpa, and SIL and BIL

One day while we were there we took a trip to a local winery – English Estate Winery

It was an adorable little place with interesting “Bag” distribution and adorable bags to hold the bags in!

We enjoyed some tastings with my MIL and took a couple home to enjoy later!

On our last day in town – the day it rained ALL day – we finally decided to take a jaunt down to Portland!

We started with Voodoo Donuts

I went with the maple bar with bacon – yes, i did it! It was great! The hour wait – was not worth the results. It was fun and we were just chatting the whole time, but i think i would visit the second location that is less popular!

Our next stop was the 24 Hour Church of Elvis

I mean really, how could we not take a peak at this one??

We ended the night with dinner with friends!

It was a great trip!

What did you do over your Christmas vacation?

We took a road trip with the pups to see grandma and grandpa in Washington state!

We cruised thru Grand Junction and picked up some of our favorite wines – Carlson Vinyard and Colorado Cellars – also some jalapeno mustard… Super yummy!

That night we decided we weren’t feeling like wine tasting since we were both feeling the affects of our cold – why bother to taste something when there isn’t any taste going on…  So we decided to cruise thru to grandma and grandpa’s with a quick stop at Shoshone Falls!

This place was absolutely amazing! They said it was the Niagara of the west and it was so beautiful!

The mist from the falls left an amazing layer of ice all over the parking lots and sidewalks and it sparkled!

On the way into finding this little midwest treasure we stopped at a little view point to check out the snake river. We were amazed!!

This bridge did not look quite as scary going over as from below!

From there it was drive drive drive to Washington State!

We got there before Grandpa went to bed, and got to catch up with everyone before we hit the hay!