Grand Adventure, Part Three

Yes, I know I'm a bad blogger. It was so hard to blog while on this trip. But the good thing is, is why it was hard. It was hard because I was living, not blogging. Having fun, enjoying my family. Of course, I kept making mental notes on things I wanted to blog about, but I didn't really have time to blog. And that was a good thing.

So, I took some short notes and will just give a condensed version of what we did on the rest of our trip.

Day Six:
We just hung out with family and friends. My sister Gael and her two youngest boys came over to the camp site, and the girls headed to some scrapbook stores. Later that day we went boating and tubing with the Bryant's and finished off the evening with them at our favorite Utah mexican restaurant, Los Hermanos. Yummy fajitas!

Day Seven:

We went to church with Kristen, reminicsing about how fun it was to attend church in a college classroom. We then headed over to Lehi for dinner at my niece Anna’s house. She has a beautiful new home with a really cool home theater and gourmet kitchen. All of Gael's kids were there, and all her grandbabies. It was fun to hang out with them. My brother Giles came, too! Bonus! He is still a cool brother. I wish I could spend more time with my sibs.

Day Eight:

This day was spent first working, then playing. We spent the morning moving Kristen in to her apartment. We got her stuff out of storage (took two trips!) and dropped it at her apartment. She had to be at work at noon, so we went up to campus and ate lunch at the Cougareat. More reminicsing! Then we played. We went to the water park Seven Peaks. We had a blast with water slides, tubes, the wave pool and the lazy river. That evening we picked up Kristen and went to visit our old friends from H'ville, the Nordins. It was great to see them!

Day Nine:

We started the day off doing some shopping for Kristen. We went to the Walmart in Springville because we've found that the Orem Walmart is Always Crowded. I told Josh he could go look in electronics and see if they had any Wii's. That's become our little custom everytime we went in a store that carried them. And guess what was announced as we walked in the door. "Shoppers we have just put 7 Nintendo Wii's on the shelf. Please line up in the electronics department." He was first in line. Joshua finally has a wii!!! Later we met at Gael’s, picked up her and the boys and drove up to Salt Lake City. We grabbed a bite to eat, went to see the Joseph Smith movie at Temple Square (very well done!) and then we did something I have never done before. We went to the Great Salt Lake. All those years I lived there, and visited Utah, I had never seen the Great Salt Lake up close and personal. It was not too stinky, but the bugs! Thousands and millions of brine flies, everywhere. Yuck. I took off my sandals and stuck my toes in the water, just so I can say I did. I don't think I could ever go swimming in that water! Later we met my brother Giles at another favorite place,P F Changs. More Yumminess! We said goodbye to Kristen. So sad! We probably won't see her again until Christmas.

Day Ten
Time to pack up the camper and head back east. We got up early and headed to Vernal, Utah and Dinosaur Nat’l monument. Unfortunately, the museum was closed. So on to Rocky Mountain National Park. We arrived early evening to some absolutely beautiful mountains! We drove across the park to our campsite in Morraine campground. So beautiful, so tall, wow. I love snow capped mountains! We set up camp in our no electricity site, and froze again. It was much colder than at the Grand Canyon. We were at 8000 ft. I was dressed in layers and layers and was still cold!

Day Eleven
We spent the day in the park. We drove back to Alpine visitor center, and hiked up to top of a mountain. It was so cool to be so Rocky Mountain High. Such beautiful vistas! One of my favorites was at Bear lake, the perfect reflection of the mountain in the water. Of course, it wasn't a perfect lake because there were leeches and huge skeeters! We decided to hike to Alberta Falls, a really cool water fall less than two miles from the parking lot. And that's where I had my adventure… a true, lost and stranded in the mountains, bait for mountain lions type adventure. Okay, I was never truly lost. I was abandoned my my hiking party. They hiked on ahead of me. I slowly tredged along, and not realizing i had reached the main falls, and not seeing the guys because they had left the path...I kept going. And going. And going. Then I realized something was wrong. There were no people around and I started to think I must have passed the guys. It was scary all by myself in the middle of a mountain wilderness! I got to a place where, believe it or not, I had cell phone reception! I tried to call the boys but couldn't get through. Finally, I just sat. Stayed put. I was able to get through to them, and Marc came and found me. At least I was able to see a cooler view of the falls from above! I don't think he'll ever leave me alone on a hike again. I think he was more scared than I was! We went back to the campsite and had stew for dinner. And then we froze again. If you ever camp in the Rockies... bring your -10 degree sleeping bags. Trust me on that one.

Day Twelve:

We got up at the crack of dawn so we could get an early start on our trip home. We packed up the camper, got in car and prepared to drive and drive and drive. After you leave Denver it's flat. Barren. Nothing. Drove through a funny named town...Kanarado, a town on border of Kansas and Colorado. Kansas takes forever to get through. Where are we? In Kansas. Where are we? We are still in Kansas. And we’re still in Kansas. And now we are in… Kansas. Still Kansas. While trying to figure out just where we wanted to spend the night we may the decision to drive all night. Heck, we have three drivers so we take shift. I tried to take a nap so I can take the graveyard shift. Nothing exciting happened for the rest of the trip… just driving, driving driving on flat straight interstate.

Day Thirteen:

I drove from 1:45 am until we arrived in Huntsville at 7:30 am. Hurray! We are home!!! I crash for several hours. In a zombie like state I go grocery shopping that evening. What a fun trip, but I'm glad to be home!