Trip Across the USA!

Hello Family and Friends…

Well we made it. Whew!!! It was a LONG drive. We did stop for some fun things along the way.

We left Logan at about midnight after packing and repacking the truck to fit as much as possible (my brother in law is awesome at packing, thank you Glen once again for helping us). We were so exhausted that we could only make it to Heber City.

The next day we made it to Roosevelt to visit with my family. The girls had a great time camping with them while we packed. Of course this was a bitter sweet time, glad to be with my family but cried for good 1/2 hour when we left, heck I am crying right now just thinking about it… it is hard to think about the fact that I am on the other side of the country from them. Thank heavens for modern technology!!!

Sunday we made it to Denver pretty late and slept in so we only had a short time for the kids to play in the pool. It was a beautiful hotel that Jason got a screaming deal on through priceline, I wish we could have stayed there longer to enjoy it. The kids loved the elevators, which were made of glass walls so you could see the gorgeous indoor gardens as you went up.

Monday brought us to Topeka Kansas, near the Kansas/Missouri border. The next day we explored western Missouri and visited Independence Missouri and Liberty Jail. It was a wonderful opportunity for us. Jason and I have always wanted to visit some of the church historic sites. Liberty Jail was such a formative period for the Prophet and the Church in general. Despite the cold and damp conditions in the squalid little stone jail, Joseph received some of the most beautiful, and relevant, revelations. As B.H. Roberts wrote, Liberty Jail turned out to be more a temple than a prison.

Tuesday we made it to St. Louis and learned a lesson that you should never reserve a hotel downtown in a big city when you are driving an enormous truck… a little tricky for parking! We had a lot of fun in St. Louis. Went to the arch, Becca and Katie were scared to go up but they did it. Xander loved seeing all the “little trucks” and cars and busses and pools and trains. We could even see our van with the canoe on top! He thought that was pretty exciting. They also had a really neat museum dedicated to western expansion. It was incredible. It went through all the changes over time in the west, as St. Louis is considered the “Gateway to the West.” We could have spent a whole day there. As we were leaving we decided to take a ride on… I don’t know what you would call it… a bicycle built for… all of us! It was fun, they rent by the hour but I think we only made it for 20 min. before we were drenched in sticky sweat from the humidity and our happy peddaling! Not to mention we ran out of riverwalk and didn’t want to head up the hill.

Before heading out of town we stopped in to Chuck E. Cheese’s to celebrate Susie’s birthday. We have never been to one before so it was fun. Susie was a little embarrassed (too grown up for this kid stuff) when Chuck came and gave her a big birthday hug. Great picture though!

We left late in the day and so arrived late to Nashville Tennesse. I have already lost track of days…

Our next stop was Ashville North Carolina…Yeah we made it to NC!!! Our day near Ashville we spent time in a place called the Emerald Village gem mine. We had a great time, once we finally made it there. Another lesson… on the map it looked just off our route an hour or so, well again with an enormous truck on those cute narrow winding forest lined roads took us more like 4 hours! It was a beautiful drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway, though.

The emerald mines were awesome. They had sluice boxes set up right outside the mouth of the cave and you could buy buckets of rocks to sort and sift through to find the precious stones among the granite chunks. We found several large pieces of garnet and amethyst as well as good size pieces of emerald, topaz, citrone, and other semi-precious stones. They can cut the good stones into faceted gems and finished stones for jewelry. It was really fun. It is definitely on our list to come back and do again.

Since we spent so much time roaming the hills of NC and several hours at the mine we decided not to make the drive into Havelock that night. We stayed in a little place called Hickory. We swam at the outdoor pool until past 10 pm then got a 5.00 pizza for the kids and I had my first “southern” meal of EVERYTHING deep fried. There was shrimp, flounder, and deviled crab. It was really good. Well ok I didn’t care for the stuffed crab too much.

Saturday brought us to our destination and new home in Havelock NC. We were so glad to be greeted by Jason’s parents. It was just as I had imagined and hoped for. Jason found us a beautiful home in a great family friendly neighborhood. The master bedroom, bathroom and walk-in closet are as big as the entire apartment the kids and I were living in. The kids are loving having more space and it is like Christmas when we unpack boxes and they discover toys and things that they haven’t seen in 6 months!

Love,

Jamie and the Family