roadtrip pt. 1: on the road

Having family over provides us with an excellent excuse to take a day off work and get in the car to visit Vegas, and some of Utah's national parks - which is exactly what we did last weekend. Since I came home from this trip with an impressive amount of pictures on my memory card, I'll do us both a favor and divide them over several blog posts. 

Our Dodge Caravan will seat 7, so we all piled in, left Elliot in the excellent care of my parents, and headed down the I-15 towards Las Vegas. We consider Vegas to be pretty close, but it's still well over 400 miles (or 650 km) to get there. But we were all set with hot drinks from Star bucks, fresh donuts from Krispy Kreme, and some pillows for in transit naps. The drive is beautiful, with constant views of mountains, and especially Marianne and Maarten produced a steady flow of 'ooooh's and 'aaah's at every beautiful new sight. Particularly the drive through the canyon between St. George (UT) and Mesquite (NE) proved awe inspiring. We stopped at a roadside Subway for lunch, and proved that the Americans even know how to make a decent 'broodje' (sandwich)! I personally came to a very surprising realization during this drive: I can read in a moving car without getting sick! This is completely new. I have always been prone to getting carsick, and reading in the car was the most surefire way to ensure maximum puking odds. For some reason I thought I'd get my book out during the drive, and see how far I could get before I started feeling queasy. Much to my surprise, 100 pages later I was still feeling just fine! I'll have to research what could cause a change like that. Anyway, here is the first set of pictures.