Feel free to confirm my status in the Hall of Dorks – I’m perfectly comfortable with that status and you’ll certainly be entitled in a moment.

Carrie and I are huge fans of the TV show The Amazing Race, an interest that has been fueled lately by old season reruns that our TiVo gobbles up for our back to back viewing pleasure. We do a lot of analysis of the people on the show, and mostly pick at the weak points in people’s behaviors towards their racing partner.

We say things like “we’d totally not freak out and break down over that” or “we’re far more patient”.

So, here comes the entry into the Hall of Dorks. During this little road trip we’ve been on we’ve been pretending we’re on the Amazing Race. Not fully, but just a lot of the time. I mean we’re not racing to the pit stop or opening fake clues or anything, we’re just assuming that through whatever little uncomfortable patch we’re going through, it’s for the greater good – whether that’s driving for hours or holding your toddler in the air in the middle of your truck as the other changes the poopiest diaper possible in the middle of a hail storm. That’s the kind of stuff that happens on The Amazing Race, and so it makes us happy.

So, to prove our Amazing Racingness, this is what we’ve done in the past five days:

Day 1
Decide at 10:00am to drive to Utah, a 12 hour trip which we’ll break up by staying at Erik’s house in Boise. With two kids under the age of three.

Day 2
Leave Boise, drive to Salt Lake City area. Plenty of DVDs for the kids. Jump on trampoline.

Day 3
Hike several miles and perhaps a few thousand feet up to a cave. Go to Snowbird and partake of all the summer goodness, which includes alpine slides, bouncing rubber band like things, zip lines, gondolas to 11,000 feet. Jump on trampoline.

Day 4
Drive three hours south to visit great grand parents. Pick up several dozen pounds of produce. Drive another three hours getting lost in the middle of nowhere, change diaper in hail storm, eat great food at some middle of nowhere home cookin’ cafe.

Arrive at campsite. Youngest begins eating sand, as usual. Oldest strips naked, walks in the lake collecting moss. Digs hole to pee in, buries with stick.

Carrie and I drive (pilot?) the Sea-Doo around the lake. I pick mayflies out of my teeth.

I wake board for the first time, stand up on second or third try, have a good old time as the sunset begins to build.

Roast marshmallows around the fire, leave to go sleep at the great grandparents nearby ranch (our kids don’t generally sleep well at new places, especially when camping).

Day 5
Drive back to SLC area. Meet Heather, Jon, and Leta for lunch. Leta and Jonas bond while eating playground sand. Drive back to grandparents house and collapse from exhaustion. Watch Leah jump on the trampoline. Reluctantly (and sorely) jump with her and wait for the stars to come out.

Tomorrow we’re going to relax and then drive the entire 12 hours back to Portland on Tuesday.

The entire time we’ll be pretending that we’re on the Amazing Race, because it totally makes everything easier and hundreds of times more fun. No arguing, no stress, it’s all fun.