Goodbye to NYC, Road Trip, and the Next Adventure

Well, we have left New York and are preparing to move on to our next adventure. Ben got a position as a postdoctorate at Hebrew University, so we are moving to Jerusalem at the end of August for the year. We are really excited to spend a year in Jerusalem.

In the meantime, we are having fun visiting family. We flew to SLC then took a road trip to Iowa City to see Ben's family. We decided that the best way to take a road trip with three little kids was to just decide that we weren't in a rush, and therefore could stop as often as we wanted. We decided to map out a route with lots of things to see along the way, and just take our time.

We spent Monday getting ready to leave first thing Tuesday morning. At about 3:00 Aaron said, "Let's leave today instead of tomorrow!" We decided to start off our relaxed attitude about the whole thing and follow Aaron's advice. So we left at about 6:30 pm on Monday. We drove a few hours to Rexburg, Idaho and slept in the car for a few hours. Then we met up with a friend Katya from Ukraine and had breakfast. She let us shower in her apartment, then we headed off to Yellowstone Park. When we entered Yellowstone, this was the first sight that greeted us:


We drove part of the loop around the park and, needless to say, the entire drive around was a feast for the eyes. Of course, we had to stop by Old Faithful. We almost didn't go in because we couldn't find a parking place and the kids were ready to just go set up camp, but I decided to run in and see how long it would be until she went off. Luckily, Old Faithful was predicted to go off within 20-30 minutes, so we waited around. The kids rode their scooters on the little boardwalk thing and then we watched. At first it was just little spurts, and I thought, "That's it?" It completely stopped and so I figured that was all, but Ben assured me that there was more, so we waited. We weren't disappointed.

Old Faithful

Ben and I were amazed. The kids thought it was pretty cool too, but were more excited about just getting to the campground. So we drove on and set up camp. We had very little gear (tent, sleeting bags, blankets, food) but had a great time.

Trying to make a fire (it never quite got going... we didn't have enough of the middle-sized stuff but nobody felt like hunting for some, so we just ate the salads and hard-boiled eggs leftover from our drive)

Our campsite was covered in dry buffalo poop, which was pretty exciting.

Well, I have a lot more pictures to show and events to share, but I am going to close for now. We are actually in Los Angeles now. We just got our visas and are visiting with my sister and her family now. Hopefully I'll post more soon.