Katie and I spent the last week taking a road-trip vacation. In total we traveled through 7 different states and over 2,500 miles. We got to see mountains, plains, Christian graffiti, Eric Jackson get hitched, squished turtles, Rob and Natalie, and two of the most famous mountain bike towns in the country. Here is our map:
Day 1 - Lift Off:
Katie and I left Thursday morning at around 6:00 AM. Our plan was to make it somewhere in the middle of Kansas, which was around 12 hours away. Unfortunately, when we got up Katie was feeling a little bit sick/nauseous (NO - she is NOT pregnant!). For a few minutes it looked like the trip might be cancelled, but she toughed it out and spent most of the ride between Provo and Grand Junction sleeping in the back seat of the car. By the end of the first day she was fine, but parts of the first day were a bit uncomfortable for her.
After about 4 hours, we reached Grand Junction, and we grabbed a quick McDonalds breakfast of McGriddles, hashbrowns, and yogurt parfait. Katie introduced me to the McDonalds yogurt parfait and it became one of my favorite foods for the trip.
We continued on to Denver and started to see some beautiful scenery. I-70 slowly climbed up and up until we reached almost 11,000 feet where we stopped and took some pictures. We also passed the ski resorts of Vail, Breckenridge, Keystone, and several others. The towns around the resorts looked like Park City and I doubt we'll ever be moving to any of them, but on the way down the other side of the Rockies we passed a town called Idaho Springs. It's a tiny, tiny town in a narrow canyon. I told Katie that we would have to move there someday because it would be like returning home for me.
After coming out of the Rockies, the east side of Colorado became very flat. It was also less interesting. So we sped through there into Kansas. Kansas was a pleasant surprise for me. Maybe because my expectations were low, but I thought it was pretty even if featureless. Driving through Kansas was like watching an old cartoon where the background repeats itself over and over. Every 30 miles would be an identical farming town from the previous with a few grain silos, a church, and some trees. Each freeway overpass we passed had 'Jesus Saves' graffitied on the rightmost pillar, and there were some threatening billboards warning us that abortion is murder (complete with a bloody type-font).
We reached our destination, Cedar Bluff State Park, at around 7:30 that night and spent the night camped out by a nice looking reservoir with 30-40 4H kids. They were nice.
Day 2 - BBQ:
It was exciting to wake up on Day 2 and know that we only had 6 hours until we reached Fayetteville, AR, which was our ultimate destination. There isn't much to say about driving that day. We started listening to a book on tape called "The Chosen" by Chiam Potok. We really enjoyed listening to it and recommend it to anyone who has not read it yet. The only other notable thing about driving on day 2 is a recommendation to double check where Google maps is taking you when you ask it for directions. The last 30 miles of our trip, Google maps took us off the main highway and had us winding through the backwoods of Arkansas, running over razorbacks and being shot at by hicks. It was very forrested and pretty though.
The hotel we stayed at was just a Holiday Inn Express but many of my friends were staying in the same hotel including Jeff Miles, Cori Bates, and Alison and Brad.
That night we visited a restaraunt called Pengin Ed's and I had me some of the best BBQ Arkansas had to offer. I ordered 10 wings (for $1.99!) and a half-rack of ribs. The entire trip was worth it for that meal alone. I only wish I had pictures.
Day 3 - Wedding Day:
We were pretty tired the next morning so we just hung around the hotel for most of the morning. That afternoon we had a luncheon with Eric and his family at the bride's grandparent's home. It was a lot of fun to sit around with my friends and talk while eating southern food.
After the luncheon Katie left with the girls to see Nancy Drew, the movie. I went back to the hotel with the guys and played Nintendo Wii. Instead of being like a normal game machine, the Wii has motion sensors in the controllers. So instead of just pressing buttons to play tennis or golf or bowling, you actually go through the motions of hitting or throwing a ball. It's really amazing how well it works too. Someone other than me should get one for our family holidays. They are a lot of fun in groups.
Finally at 7:00 that night it came time for the wedding itself. It was a catholic wedding held in a very normal looking church. It was sort of like watching a wedding during sacrement meeting except that it was only half the time and no sacrement was served, of course. The deacon presiding over the wedding gave marital advice. He told them to pray together, worship together, and have children. Someone else from the congregation got up and read a few scriptures from the Bible about the creation of Eve and husband and wife serving each other. Every once in a while the knowing catholics would chant something I couldn't understand or randomly bow their heads and say something else, and it reminded me how strange any church would seem the first time you attended. I would imagine that the first time an investigator saw the sacrement coming around, it might be a nervous moment. Anyway, they said their 'I dos' and we headed over to a country club for the reception.
The reception had great food, a 10 piece band, a lot of dancing, and NO LINE. Mormon receptions need to learn from this.
Nobody missed having the line and
everybody loved the band and the dancing. The bride and groom were still able to mingle and talk to people but also got to enjoy the food and dancing. It seems crazy to spend thousands of dollars on a beautiful hall, food, and music and then cement the wedding couple to the floor of a remote corner for the entire night. Crazy. My kids can't have a line.
In summary, the wedding went off with only one hitch (haha) and was a lot of fun.
Day 4 - More Driving:
The next morning Katie and I got up early again for another long day on the road. Originally we had planned to head back to provo the way we had come, but that just didn't sound like any fun so we decided to take a more southernly route. The destination for that day became Rob and Natalie's house in Albuquerque; another 12 hours on the road.
The morning drive heading south out of Fayetteville was absolutely beautiful. We drove through the Boston mountains heading south out of Fayetteville. They are very green and were misty that morning. Unfortunately the rest of the day was by far the dullest day of driving for the entire trip. There was very little to see and it was very, very flat, especially the panhandle of Texas. We did stop at a rest stop near Amarillo, Texas and took some nice photos though. What I thought about during this day was that I used to have a desire to ride my bike across the country. But after driving for 12 hours and seeing very little, it's hard to imagine that riding that stretch of country on a bike for two weeks straight would be much fun. Especially if it was hot and windy. I listened to a podcast recently where the host was interviewing a man who was riding his bike around the world by himself. It dawned on me how lonely and monotonous much of a trip like this would be.
Eventually we reached Rob and Natalie's house. We went and launched and promptly lost a model rocket of Dominick's. We also played hockey on the Playstation 2 where Dominick narrowly beat me after I made a spectacular 3rd period comeback. Rob also mentioned that he and Dom have a Youtube video. They should post the video here on the blog. It was fun to see Rob, Natalie, and the kid's.
Day 5 - Durango!:
The next day Katie and I were really tired from all the driving the day before so we didn't feel like spending another 10 hours in the car to get all the way back to Provo, so we booked a room in Durango and opted for a short 4 hour drive. In a way, this one was one of the hardest days of driving, even though it was the shortest. Compared to 12 hours days we had done, 4 hours sounded like a 15 minute drive to the mall, so it made us very anxious to get there. Because of that, we had this "c'mon,
c'mon. Are we there yet?" kind of atitude for the whole drive. It was also exciting to be going to Durango even though I had no bike stuff. When we got to Durango, we checked into our hotel and headed for the old downtown to walk around. We ate some lunch, walked along the river, and looked around at the shops and people. We were even accosted by a local bum who asked us for 60 cents so he could buy a beer. Other than the bum, the town has a very young, granola feel to it. Everyone seems fit and unconcerned about their career. I think we should have a family reunion down there. We could spend a few days camping out, riding bikes, and visiting the national parks in the area. Who knows, maybe we would see John Tomac or Ned Overand.
Day 6 - Homeward Bound:
We finally headed home the next morning. We passed through Moab on our way back. Moab seemed more spectacular than ever to me. After seeing so many different types of country, Moab suddenly seemed more spectacularly unique than ever.
Well, that pretty much wraps up our vacation. It should give you plenty of reading material to chew on.
Here are the rest of Katie and my photos.Here are Eric and Jenny's wedding photos.
