Scorching the World

Going home 7/29/18                  We just kind of fizzled out on our vacation. We had scheduled to stay in Utah until Saturday, but I got tired of being gone and Tom thought about all the things he needed to do at home before he goes back to work next Monday. Traveling is tiring, but oh so fun! Last night we decided that what we really ought to do was leave first thing in the morning. It was going to be a 12 hour drive, if there were no complications, and we wanted to get home before we started falling asleep at the wheel. We woke up fairly early and went to the hotel’s “continental breakfast” about 6am. We ate a piece of waffle and some cereal. They had a good variety of other things to eat so I grabbed 2 of a bunch of things and kept them for our trip home so we wouldn’t have to buy anything. The food did last almost all the way home! Pretty good breakfast!! Before we left Utah we found a good radio station that was play...

Sometime in the night we decided to take off early for home. We have so much to do at home that it seems frivolous to be sitting around here visiting people and playing and relaxing. So instead of staying until Sunday with Mike and Becky, then visiting people all next week, we decided to do some visits today, then go home in the morning. We headed into Salt Lake City where we hoped to see several people on the way, but the only one that was available was Carmen so we had a good visit with her. She is doing much better, and we really hope that she continues to heal and get better. We stopped at Carma’s for a little bit and got caught up on her life – they just returned from their annual family camp, so there was lots to tell. Then we stopped at Anne’s to see their new house. We could have talked all night with Carma and Anne both, but we left for the hotel so we could hopefully get an early start tomorrow. Then we found out that Trina will be in our area all next week because sh...

Tom and I didn’t get up as early as we had thought, which was nice. We slept in a little but still headed out before Cai was awake. Fortunately, we had said goodbye last night. It was nice to be just Tom and I alone in the car again so we could stretch out a little and talk about anything. We had some good conversations on the road and still saw some pretty awesome sights. Tom is a very social person, but I appreciate it a lot when we get to be alone together. We got to Mike and Becky’s about noon. Half the family wasn’t there but arrived eventually. Amy was at a special ward conference in which they went to the family history center in Salt Lake City. She said it was awesome – good speakers, and lots of fun with all the cool equipment they have in the center. Ivon was gone almost the whole time we were there but we did get to see him for a few minutes. That’s how young adults are. We went to play tennis after it cooled off some outside. It is always fun to just hit all...

7/26         I think this is the longest vacation we’ve taken since we got married. It’s strange being gone so long and we sure hope everything is ok at home. When we woke up in our hotel, we were again glad it was so close to where we planned to meet up with everyone else. We thought about going out to breakfast, but decided to check out the hotel “continental breakfast”. It sounded like it would be just some sweet rolls, but turned out to be a great breakfast. Except for the fact that the eggs tasted pretty fake, everything else was delicious. They had yogurt, canned peaches and pineapple, several flavors of cold cereal and milk, 2 flavors of muffins, waffles with several flavors of jam or syrup, eggs and sausage, apple juice, orange juice, and toast. It was a good variety so we had a good breakfast right there. Since we were entering the park much earlier this time – we left at 8am, there was no traffic, and fortunately there were no buffalos crossing th...

7/25/18        Yellowstone! I’m not sure if I’ve ever been to Yellowstone. If I have, I was very little, and Tom has not ever been. So we were both pretty excited to be involved in this trip with Cai, Devin, and Tanya and family.   We were a little late getting out of the house, and after we were about 15 minutes down the road, Cai remembered she forgot something so we had to turn around and go back. Tanya was in a different car and used that time to run to Walmart for some snacks for the road. Miraculously we ended up on the road at exactly the same time. It was pretty amazing! It was 1 1/2 hours to Yellowstone, and once we passed the entrance, the traffic was barely moving. We inched along for about 2 hours. When we finally got to the first attraction, it was amazing! We saw so many beautiful places – geysers and hydrothermal where the water, steam, ground, minerals, and everything were just spectacular! We took lots of pictures.     ...

7/24/18        Really? We’ve been on our trip for almost a week already? Cai must have a lot of patience to put up with so many people for so many days! Today was really fun. After breakfast we went for a tour of BYUI. Cai was really wanting to show us where she has been hanging out for the last 8 years and Becky really wanted to show her kids where she went to school so many years ago. It brought back lots of memories for her so we heard about lots of fun adventures she had here. It was pretty warm outside and unfortunately all the buildings were locked so we didn’t get to see inside any of them, which would have made it all way more interesting and would have given us rests from the heat. We walked up and down and all around for a couple of hours, I think. When we finally finished, we got in the cars to leave, and I suddenly got way too hot. I think I had or was close to heat exhaustion. I felt awful. We stopped so people could rent some inner tubes for r...

7/23 - The Graduation Cai started fairly early getting stuff ready. Tom made breakfast again and everyone ate. He cooked more potatoes and this time made a green bean omlete to go with it. Delicious! The tent and tables and chairs were delivered an we got a bunch of people out there to help set it up, but Devin said he needed duct tape to hold the poles, so we had to wait for Cai and Tanya to get home with those. When they got there, we started again getting a group out there to put it up. It took about half hour, but we got it up, and got all the tables and chairs set up. Cai had bought cloth tablecloths that needed run through the dryer to take out wrinkles, so we delayed that until after the graduation ceremonies. Everything was ready for us to go. Cai is really good at setting a schedule and getting everyone to stick to it. So we all left on time to get in the place for the Convocation with plenty of time to spare. But when we were about half way there, Mike and Bec...

Sunday is a relaxing day, especially when you’re on vacation. Cai’s ward started at 8:30 am but NOBODY was willing to get up that early. Cai usually works nights and sleeps days, so she’s a little over-tired trying to stay awake all day so many days in a row. So we agreed to go to a random ward that started near here at 11am. The meeting turned out to be wonderful. There was a couple speaking who just returned from their 8 th mission! They were the secretaries to the Area Presidency so they worked a lot with general authorities. They said it was the most rewarding mission yet. They were in the Argentina, Bolivia, Columbia, & something area. I guess they both speak Spanish.  We talked to them a little afterwards to get more details and they were pretty impressive. After church most of us took turns taking naps, while the awake people played Protect Your Assets. It was a very relaxing afternoon. Tom had arranged to go see a young woman who had served as a missionary ...

7/21/18   As always, we wo ke up before everyone else so we just got moving quietly until others got up. Cai had set out everything for Tom to make potato burritos for breakfast so he started on that quietly. When they all got up, everyone loved it. Devin had been up until about 4am doing homework, so he   slept later while we went to the parade. We left about 8:30 to go to the parade in St. Anthony, about 20 minutes away. We were more than half hour early, so we found a great place to set up our chairs, and enjoyed the nice weather in the shade. There was a lady selling homemade carmel corn in sandwich bags for $.75 and a place that was giving away snow cones  so we got some of those while we waited.   Eventually the parade started and was very enjoyable. It started slow – not very interesting, but got better. In all, there were about 20 floats made by different wards in the area. There was even one done by the Spanish Branch, with the theme from the mo...

Vacation day 2 Today got greatly delayed because Tom and I were both technically still working. While the girls were still asleep in the hotel Tom and I went for a little walk.  It felt good to be outside and moving instead of just sitting all day in the car. On the way, we saw a sign that said there would be a car show today and tomorrow. Tom got super excited and half wanted to stay in Winnemucca for the day! He sure loves cars! We both knew he wouldn’t really do that, but while we walked we also saw a 1937 Ford something. The owners were sitting in front of it at a hotel parking lot, having a nice peaceful smoke. Tom approached them and talked for at least 15 minutes about the car. Car people are always happy people talk to them about their car. It had been restored very nicely; they had even added power windows and a backup camera! Tom LOVES old churches. He really wanted to go in and tour around: When we got back to the hotel room Amy was awake but Ma...