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!