Sunday, August 15, 2010

florida.alabama.tennessee.arkansas.missouri.kansas.nebraska.wyoming.utah.nevada.california.arizona.new mexico.texas.louisiana.missisippi.alabama

and back to florida. we just got back a week ago from a month-and-a-week-long journey. and boy, does it feel good to be home!!!!!!!!!! except that we picked up a nasty virus in texas and liesel's had a fever/mouth sores/swollen gums/ear infection/nausea since we got home. but that's a story for another day. (we're still glad we visited you, joanne).

in order to keep your sanity and my sanity intact, i will only do a very brief rundown of the trip. followed by approximately one million pictures. give or take a few. it depends on how my sanity's holding up at that point.

day 1: drove 3 hours to kissimee, florida to give ourselves a bit of a head start on the trip. loren and i had a goal of working out every morning of the trip to utah, so we woke up early the next morning and went on a walk with pace, who rode his strider bike.

day 2: drove to somewhere in white-trash alabama. swam in the hotel pool. decided we do not like driving in alabama.

day 3: made it the "boy" allen home in arkansas (no relation to us--friends from california who had 3 boys when we had 4 girls--since then they've had a girl, and we've had a boy). had a fabulous dinner of homemade veggie burgers. did some crazy fireworks for the 4th of july. the dads loved the fireworks. the moms were nervous.
day 4: drove to marian and chad's house in kansas. had a thoroughly good time recovering from driving. got to watch a terrific fireworks show from their driveway. people in kansas are serious about their fireworks! played in the pool, went barefoot walking (it's all the rage now, didn't you know?), and watched the cousins play together. stayed in kansas for days 5 and 6.

day 7: drove to wyoming and stayed in a hotel.

day 8: drove to utah. stopped at maggie's house on our way to orem. loren's mom, dad, and sister came up for a visit, too.

days 9-15: stayed in orem. had a lot of fun seeing both sides of the family. we snuck in a trip to 7 peaks water park. i also got to meet up with some roommates of mine from byu. my big sadness of the trip was having to cancel a visit with kari and rochelle (friends from virginia). the logistics of packing and organizing a week-long camping trip proved to be complicated, to say the least, and i ran out of play time.

day 16: drove to tonopah, nevada. stayed there for a night on our way to the family reunion in yosemite.

day 17: drove into yosemite national park! hooray! went on the best roller coaster road ever. also went through lots of tunnels (or igloos, if you're pace). got to the campsite and set up camp. LET THE PARTY BEGIN!!!!!!

days 18-23: family reunion in yosemite. best fun ever. highlights: valley sightseeing, ponderosa grove, half dome hike (loren, liesel, gwyneth), swimming at the swinging bridge and hole-in-the-rock, policing the strider bike gang.....
day 24: drove to simi valley, california to karalee's house. had a happy reunion with liesel and gwyneth bffs kelsey and amelia. day 25: loren flew back to florida. the kids and i stayed there through day 26: went to church at our old ward, had a swim party with long-time friends........

day 27: drove to liza's house in arizona. played in the pool and the sun for 3 days. i could live in arizona, for sure. pace perfected his swimming techniques.

day 30: drove to poppy's house in new mexico. this was like a california reunion trip for me! went to a fabulous park and had a great time catching up with each other!

day 32: drove to joanne's house in texas. swam and played, swam and played, swam and played for the next 3 days. cousins are the best.
day 36: drove to louisiana for the night. swam in hotel pool. wished loren was there.

day 37: scrapped original plan of taking 3 days to get home from texas, and decided to drive all the way home. MADE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

end of trip.

random things i noticed on this trip: 4 wild pigs running along the side of the freeway (florida), a man doing pushups by his car on the side of the freeway (california), a town named "bangs" in texas, a huge mongo snake on the freeway (HUGE, seriously--like national geographic worthy) (louisiana), the ugliest swamp ever (louisiana), LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS OF EPIC RAINSTORMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (every state we drove in after california--it made for some very tense driving and lots of praying)

other side note: florida definitely has the craziest drivers of all the states we drove through. it also has the most highway patrol cars. hmmmmmmmmm. something's not right here.

13 comments:

Mindy said...

Sounds like it was a great trip. I am sorry we missed you in California.

Diane said...

What a great wrap up. I'm so glad I got to see you if only for a few minutes...

Is there a place to stay in Tonopah?? Although I think that's where those dicey looking casinos were...

Congrats to your girls for doing Half Dome. What a feat!

Poppy said...

I have been waiting for a post to make sure that you got home safe! I was sure that I would've heard if you hadn't, but it is nice to know for sure!! Thanks for stopping by, we had a blast!

Karalee said...

I'm impressed with your cliff notes version of your trip! It was great to have you here and will count down the days till we can visit with you again!

Rochelle said...

Wow. Pregnant, 5 kids, driving all over the U.S. You are MOM OF THE YEAR! Missed you in Utah. Funny how I went there when you came here! So glad you got to Yosemite. MY favorite place ever.

Annette said...

Wow, what an adventure! I'm sorry we didn't get together while you were in Utah. July was a crazy month and I realized I hadn't emailed you until it was past the 15th. Next time! Enjoy being home.

Eliza said...

Good synopsis. Sorry about the sickness you caught, that does not sound fun. I found a few stray socks too so i'll send those with your glasses.

Megan said...

Holy cow, you are crazy and I love you for it. I know of no other human in their right mind (I'm assuming you are though you are giving me evidence to the contrary) that would drive that far with five and 3/4 children. Once again, you are my hero.

Joanne said...

I haven't even been checking blogs because I've assumed that if I haven't gotten to my trip post yet, of course nobody else has done it. Whoops. Maybe I will finish mine tonight. Except now I want to redo mine like yours. That was a perfect way to recap your epic trip. Loved all the pictures - I knew about all your stops, but it was way fun to see photos of it all. And I love your random moments section - wild pigs! snakes! weird men doing push-ups! All added to the trip excitement, I'm sure.

Joanne said...

Oh, and I LOVE your new header picture. I am so jealous because we didn't get one of us taken on the wall. I am seriously considering just stealing yours and cutting and pasting my kids' heads onto yours. That would work, right?

Ellie said...

I'm so sad our ships crossed in the night! But glad you had a fun trip. And super impressed that you blogged it all in one post. I still have one more to do from our trip. And I love your new family picture!

Betsy said...

Wow, what a trip. Sounds great!

Penny said...

What a fun trip! You are such a trooper to be driving all over the place like that. Sounds like you had a fun time!