Road Trip--Part 1: Outer Banks to Niagara Falls

Even when you are excited about a road trip, 

...it's always a challenge to get out of town.  After we risked creating a blackhole by putting absolutely everything in the universe into the moving truck, we somehow found an entire carload more stuff.  

Here, Terisa takes a picture of our Grapes of Wrath car.  Luckily we dropped most of it off in Maryland at Paul and Bethany's apartment.

Then we flew to SLC to drive Paul and Bethany's moving truck, affectionately known as the "mother ship."

With a short pit stop at Great Grandma's house for breakfast and zoo-play (yes, that animal in Charlie's left hand is, randomly, a goat),

and a picture or two,

we were off into the Rockies.  Still had snow at the highest passes. Not to mention construction.

That evening, the very first day, we had a rainstorm.  Not like this.  This is pretty and artistic and aesthetic and nice.

Our rainstorm was more like this, below. 

Only in the dark.  

At freeway speeds.  

Interrupted by artillery shells of lightning. 

 In fact, on our entire two week road trip, every single day we had at least one storm where the wipers couldn't keep up with the rain.

We didn't see too much touristy stuff going east, since we had a schedule to get to Maryland.  We saw more on the return trip.  (Note: this is my attempt at foreshadowing.)

We got to Maryland, got the truck unloaded, got the kids started on unpacking. 

Then we dashed over to the Washington DC temple to meet up with our Philly Ward friends who had come to town for a temple day.

Then it was time to head for Utah. 

By way of the outer banks in North Carolina. We drove to Kittyhawk, where we found a beach,

and a hammock with our name on it.

Same hammock, different nap.

The water was too cold to get in, and it was threatening to rain-of course-

so we went to the Kill Devil Hills monument/museum marking the Wright brothers' first flights. This no-doubt-working-reproduction of the 1903 Flyer was pretty spectacular.

Back to Maryland for a birthday party,

some Grandpa-horse rides,

and some last hugs on Grandma.

And then we were off to upstate New York, via the finger lakes region.

Wow. Gorgeous country.

It rained pitchforks and plowhandles (what? rain?) just a little bit after this picture.

We stopped in Rochester to visit Terisa's friend Susannah and her family.

Then on to the Smith farm and grove in Palmyra, a key site in LDS Church history.

We had a nice morning walking around in the mostly empty grove. Before it rained. Again.

Then we went on to Niagara falls.  We went across the Rainbow bridge to the Canadian side, where we were greeted by these less-than-impressive falls.

Turns out there are more impressive falls just downstream...

Whoa.

After the day's rainstorm, there was a little bit of sun to give us a rainbow.  Or three.

We got pretty soaked by just the mist.

But true to form, there were kids who couldn't get wet enough.

Stay tuned: in Road Trip, part 2, we visit the Jello Museum!

Purple Mountains Magesty...er...Majesty

When you are born and reared amongst the mountains, 

returning to them after an absence is like getting out of jail. Not that I've ever been in jail to get out of. As far as you know.

But it is even more special when you can be with family.  At a reunion.

Yes, we had one reunion last week.  But we had another this week, on Terisa's side. This year it was at Granite Flats, up Tibble Fork in American Fork Canyon.  We took Ol' Reliable again.  The historical preservation society wants us to donate this to their prehistoric museum, but we think there are many more camps remaining.

The camp was not entirely rough. There were words about this generator.  

Aunt Dayna has been cruise director for years now.  Except for her hair, she runs a tight ship.

We had the first ever Pit Spit contest. 

Cherry pits. 

From Santaquin cherries. 

It turns out that my knowledge of ballistics, aerodynamics and pneumatic propulsion principles were no match for Uncle Todd's brutally effective form.  He spit a pit an alarming distance and took home the trophy.

 

 In horseshoes, Gabe and Alan withstood all challenges by the younger whippersnappers, like Uncle Mike, here.

 In the no-match-flint-and-magnesium-naked-and-afraid-firestarter contest (which was NOT actually naked), Alan's set up gave us the the best example, but dogged determination by Alan, Mike, Todd, and Nathaniel actually resulted in fires.  No squirrel sushi for us!

There were crafts for those so inclined, such as the family quilt (we all did a square to represent ourselves), look closely at the yellow square on the left and you'll see where the title of today's blog comes from, courtesy of Doctor Mother Terisa.

The water fight was welcome in the warm afternoon.  Water balloons.  Plus, small fry with water pistols soaked my kneecaps.

Food was great.  As usual. Here are biscuits and gravy, courtesy of Monica. Children cheered, women fainted, strong men wept.

 This Empire State Building o' goodness was full of chicken and potatoes.  For scale, you can see King Kong climbing up the right side...

Mike took an heroic risk with pineapple and brown sugar.  It was entirely successful.  Mahalo nui loa, Mike.

 

 CJ waited with this donut poised at his mouth until I got my camera out. Good boy! This is his face at the moment of first chomp.

And when we asked connoisseur Alan to judge whether we had been able to match Monica's potato salad, all he would say was, "can't talk. Eating."

 Facepainting was courtesy of Professor, Doctor, Sister Mother Terisa.  She calls it a hobby.  I call it epic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 But as you can tell from these semi-candid shots, everyone had a good time.

Do it again next year?  Yes, please.