Schwieterman Summer Adventure Series 2025: Part One- The Intro
In 2022, our family drove all the way from Ohio to California for a family wedding, stopping at a few points of interest along the way. After spending a few hours in Utah at Arches National Park, this mommy was hooked! I knew that our travels would most certainly take us back to Utah for further exploration. This is the year! I passionately dove into itinerary planning last fall and had all our campgrounds reserved before the ball even dropped on 2025. Since then, I’ve been eagerly waiting for summer’s approach as I continued to fine-tune our detailed itinerary.
We’re calling this year’s vacation the High-Altitude Trip Out West. The goal was to avoid the intense summer heat even though we would be vacationing during the hottest month of the year. We would be staying at elevations between 6,500-8,000 feet in hopes that we would find cooler temps. Our sweet little trachie really doesn’t tolerate the heat very well. It’s not unusual for individuals with dwarfism to struggle with regulating body temperature. Within minutes of being in the heat, our girl will have a steady stream of sweat droplets falling from her forehead.
With our 32-foot travel trailer packed for the voyage, we took off on a Thursday afternoon to make our way along I-70 (a different route than previous trips). Since Daddy drives semi along that route from time to time, he knew which stretches of the route to avoid in Indiana (Richmond) due to construction and their infamously rough roads. If INDOT is reading, your highways are a real source of strife for travelers! May the Lord bless your efforts towards improvement.
If you’re a parent, you likely can relate to the need to stop every two hours for restroom breaks. I recall my own dad shaking his head at me on long car rides as a kid. I was told on multiple occasions that I have a bladder the size of a pea. We have one of those kiddos as well! However, our trachie also factors into the need to stop every two hours. She has always been uncomfortable in her car seat. The growing rods fused to her spine make it much worse. She can only tolerate sitting if she’s on a z-flo cushion and even then, she requires stretching breaks. We travel with a portable cot so she can lay down to rest her spine during breaks. So, stops every couple of hours are just built into our itinerary. Finding the best rest areas is Daddy’s department. Since he’s been out on the roads with the semi for many years, he’s basically stopped at all of them, and he marks the good ones on his atlas. Yes, he’s that old-school! He still uses a road atlas! He scoffs at my use of Google Maps and is determined to teach our girls how to read maps. Best of luck to you, Babe!
Our first evening found us at a rest area west of Columbia, MO after covering over 500 miles and some serious thunderstorms in Illinois. We had to boondock, meaning no electric hookup, which meant no air conditioning. We do bring a portable battery generator (4Patriots) which allows us to run our trachie’s vent humidifier for about six hours, which is exactly how long we slept before getting back on the road bright and early.
Next, our travels brought us to Salina, KS where we stopped at a lovely Cathedral and the Smoky Hill Museum. The kids really liked the museum, especially the tornado simulator! If you’re in the area, we recommend it (and it’s free). Our closest city at home is Celina, OH, so we knew that we had to visit our sister city…maybe one day we’ll make it to Celina, TX and TN, too! We covered just under 500 miles before parking for the evening at a campground in Oakley, KS. We were all hot and exhausted, and the kids were highly disappointed that the splash zone was broken down. After watching the Wizard of Oz in the camper (when in Kansas…), we all decided to just cool off by taking long showers in the bathhouse and sticking to our eastern time zone, we called it an early night.
So far, our quest to find cooler temperatures was failing! We couldn’t wait to see what Colorado had in store for us. Although, there was still over 200 miles of the High Plains’ arid prairie lands between us and the Rocky Mountains. And our next destination was on the other side of the expansive mountain range. We had another long day of travel ahead of us. I know they say, “it’s not the destination but the journey,” but that saying wasn’t carrying much weight in our eyes! We were eager to get out West!
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