A STAYCATION is ...
just as fun as a vacation
lots of eating out
no cleaning
no packing
sleeping in your own bed instead of paying for hotel rooms
Add family history to your staycation and it's even better!
A few months ago we started brainstorming. We decided we needed four days of staycation ... one day for each of our four family tree branches. It wasn't hard to think of activities that we could do in honor of each branch. Here's what we came up with:
DAY 1: GREENHALGH DAY
Our Greenhalgh family is from Nephi, Utah, in the shadows of beautiful Mt. Nebo. Years ago, Uncle Wes built a cabin hidden in the forest on Mt. Nebo, and it's a good hike (you just have to be a Greenhalgh to know how to get there)!
We hiked to the cabin, and then enjoyed a nice dinner in the canyon with some of our Greenhalgh cousins. Guess what we ate?
Obviously, it was Great-Grandma Greenhalgh's "Cowboy Delight" and cake. That's what she would have served. On our way home, we took a few rocks and flowers from Nebo down to Great-Grandma & Grandpa's grave in Nephi.
DAY 2: LOSEE DAY
Our Losee's lived in Provo, Utah, and Grandpa Losee was a professor at BYU. We started the day by delivering some Lehi flowers to his grave (Grandpa grew up in Lehi, which is where we now live!)
We stopped by the BYU Creamery for lunch and ice cream before heading to Seven Peaks Waterpark for the afternoon (we completely justified this activity for Losee Day by remembering how much our grandma loves swimming).
Some of our cousins joined us and we had so much fun we didn't even take any pictures at the waterpark! But here you can see that we enjoyed an amazing dinner at the Brick Oven restaurant afterwards. It's good to be a Losee.
DAY 3: HARDMAN DAY
Grandpa & Grandma Hardman joined us on this amazing day of our staycation. We traveled to a cemetery we've never been to before, and we found the graves of Grandpa's grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandmother!
From there we traveled to the middle of nowhere. In honor of our many ancestors who traveled to Utah by train, and because some of our Hardman ancestors actually worked on the railroad, we visited Golden Spike national historic site. The steam engines were awesome!
After a nice picnic, we journeyed to the Hill Air Force Base museum to admire other awesome machines. Engineer Grandpa (who works for Boeing at HAFB) made a great tour guide.
To finish off Hardman Day, we found a hole-in-the-wall "chippy", The Little Taste of Britain. Since Hardmans are British, we thought we'd give it a shot. We can recommend the fish & chips, but we certainly cannot recommend the Steak & Kidney Pie (that must be a British tastebud that is NOT passed through the generations).
DAY 4: BISCHOFF DAY
A few of our Bischoff pioneers settled the beautiful town of Midway, Utah. On our way to visit their graves, we enjoyed a picnic in Provo Canyon and watched dad demonstrate his fly-fishing skills (that's a Bischoff trait, for sure!)
We boarded the Heber Creeper that afternoon and enjoyed the area via old train car.
And what's a trip to Heber Valley without stopping at Dairy Keen for a milkshake? We sure needed it after the un-air-conditioned train ride and four big days!
