The Great 2013 Vacation: Heinz Field & Claustrophobia

I have to admit to being a little slower waking up Monday morning.  For the first time since beginning our trip, we were going to be able to travel without the specter of losing an hour to a new time zone looming over our heads.  If there was one thing in my planning that I don't think I properly prepared for, it was the time zone changes and the loss of an hour each day.  Intellectually, I had planned for it (I even marked it down on the itinerary to remind me); psychologically, however, it was a let down each day to suddenly have an hour evaporate on the clock.  There were times when Jennifer wanted to set the car clock ahead long before we reached the time zone boarder and I wouldn't let her because I didn't want to deal with it.  Also, I think I was beginning to feel the effects of 3 straight 10 hour days in the car. 

Our first stop on day 4 was the Columbus Ohio Temple.  It is a smaller temple built next to a Stake center.  Its architectural look is much the same as the Oklahoma City Temple.

Since it was Monday, I again didn't expect the gate to be open, but with some of the other happy circumstances we had experienced at other temple stops, I should have known better.  When we arrived the gate was opened.  We did our customary walk around the temple and took pictures.

When we returned to the front door and the boys and I prepared to take our "touching the temple" picture, the door suddenly opened and a man who introduced himself as the temple president poked his head out to politely ask what we were doing.  Apparently the temple was being cleaned by patrons (hence the reason for the gate being opened), and he had been standing near the door when he heard Jennifer posing us.  We told him where we were from and where we were headed and explained our "scavenger hunt" to him.  He smiled and told us he had lived in California and that he liked our idea.  After wishing us well on our journey, he closed the door and we took our pictures and left the temple to gas up the car in preparation for our next "mystery place."

The last two mystery places were the best because they were not on the original itinerary.  Stopping at Winslow had been established and traveling through Indianapolis was a given as well, but whenever the boys viewed our trip route on Google, it showed us traveling south of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Isaac has been a big fan of the Steelers since they beat the Seahawks in the Super Bowl back in 2006.  I don't know if he noticed how close we would be to Pittsburgh or not, but since I had told everyone that we would need to go as far as we could each day to make it to New Jersey in 4 days, I'm not sure he even entertained the notion that we would stop there.  But I noticed how close we would be and knew I had to make sure this was one of our stops.

Both boys fell asleep not long after we left Columbus.  I figured my secret was safe for a while.  After driving through the remainder of Ohio and briefly entering and exiting West Virginia, we made a stop for snacks (our regular snacks plus jalapeno, baby back ribs, and cheddar & sour cream flavored potato chips from a brand I'd never heard of--Utz--they were quite good) at a Petro gas station outside of Claysville, Pennsylvania and made our last 40 mile push toward Pittsburgh.  With the frequency of the signs marking our approach, it wasn't long before a cry of: "The mystery place is Pittsburgh!" came from the back seat.  The way we entered the city was interesting.  Eventually, traffic began to slow down and signs warned us of a tunnel.  Soon, we rounded a sweeping curve and the Fort Pitt Tunnel appeared in front of us.  When we came out on the other side, the city of Pittsburgh lay before us.  After crossing the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers, we circled around Heinz Field, the home of the Steelers, until I found a reasonably priced place to park.

 

Heinz Field was built next to Three Rivers Stadium where the Steelers used to play.  In planning out the sidewalks and roads and parking that would replace the old stadium after it was demolished, one section marked the area where the football field had once been and a plaque honoring the spot where Franco Harris caught the "Immaculate Reception" (the catch in 1972 that won their first playoff game and propelled the franchise to win 4 Super Bowls later in the decade) was erected next to the sidewalk.  I thought it was a clever move.  We walked to the south end of the field so Isaac could take some video of the inside of the stadium.  A security guard was near the gate.  He told us the field was being prepared for a concert.  We told him Isaac was a fan and he asked Isaac how he thought the team would do this season.  Isaac gave him a thumbs-up.  The official Steelers store was open for business.  We were able to catch a glimpse of the team "Hall of Fame" area.  I told Isaac I would get him an early birthday present; he picked a football.

The other part of the mystery place plan was to find the hockey area for the Penguins.  The directions took us to the downtown area, but after that, things became dicey.

I'm sure a GPS would have been "recalibrating" over and over as we tried to figure out where the directions were telling us to go.  Meanwhile, we got to see more of downtown Pittsburgh than we wanted and the citizens drove Jennifer crazy.  They were walking across the street in front of the car and behind the car while we were stopped at lights (sometimes while we were moving).  She was so on edge at one point, I had to ask her to chill out because she was getting to me.  Signs would point us toward the arena and then disappear when we would drive in that direction, making it difficult to figure out where to go next.  I think I lost about an hour trying to navigate the area and then we found the arena purely by accident.  Ben and Isaac quickly took video of the building out the car window, but that's all we had time for.  As it was, I had to find a way to turn us around in order to merge onto the correct route to take us to the Squirrel Hill Tunnel and out of the city.  Now we were ready to make our final push to reach New Jersey.

I have to admit that as the day wore on, I started to get grumpy.  I do like to drive and I didn't mind serving as the only driver, but being in a car for nearly four full days in a row had finally begun to take a toll on me.  The trip out of Pittsburgh north toward the I-80 took longer than I expected because the road we were traveling passed through towns and we'd have to constantly slow down and speed up.  By the time we got to State College (where Penn State is located), I was I bit on edge.  About an hour later, we stopped at a Subway in Milton for dinner and had a bad experience.  To save money, we bought two foot long sandwiches and were going to split them.  The sandwich maker kept asking Ben and Isaac, "Are you sure you want that?" with every choice they made--I don't know if she wanted to make absolutely sure she'd heard them right, but her tone sounded more patronizing then helpful.  Our sandwich maker was more concerned about listening to another co-worker's latest love life drama and ended up squirting mayonnaise on the entire sandwich.  I hate mayonnaise.  Part of me wanted to pitch a fit, but the other part of me wanted so badly to get back on the road that I paid for the sandwiches and herded us all back to the car.  While I pumped gas, Jennifer worked on scraping the mayo from my half of the sub--she did a good job; I didn't taste it.

The final 170 or so miles are a bit of a blur to me.  I remember as the sun set the deepening shadows caused the trees on either side of the road to look as if they were closing in on me.  I felt claustrophobic.  Finally, mercifully, we passed the New Jersey state line.  This made me feel better, but not completely.  In my planning, I had found a Best Western in Ramsey, NJ that offered a very good deal for a 4 night stay.  It was located on Route 17 South.  Route 17 turned out to be a main thoroughfare with cars traveling at 55 to 65 mph.  At the same time, I was supposed to find the hotel and get off the road in the dark without causing anyone to bury themselves in my trunk--fun.  Somehow, I managed to execute this major maneuver.  We checked in and tumbled gratefully into our room.  Ben decided to record our arrival.  I was able to capture this shot of me from the video to show how hammered I felt.  But, we had made it to our destination in 4 days, we were safe and happy to be there.  At that moment, all these things were good enough for me as I fell into bed after a verse of scripture was read and prayers were said. 

The Great 2013 Vacation: Father's Day

Father's Day, June 16th, dawned bright and sunny.  We showered and dressed in our church clothes and broke camp (the boys and I looked pretty funny breaking down the tent in white shirts and ties and Jennifer in a dress--we got a couple of good stares from other campers in the vicinity).  To my chagrin, I found besides missing my church shoes due to lack of room in the trunk, I had also forgotten to pack my belt (I feel incomplete without a belt).  Oh, well, grumble about it for a moment and move on.  Jennifer asked me if I wanted to open my Father's Day gift then or later.  I decided on later.  The plan was to attend Sacrament meeting in the Joplin 1st Ward at 9:00 and then get back on the road; another 628 miles awaited us, our destination this day was the KOA in Brookville, Ohio just west of Dayton.

We reached the building in plenty of time and were able to get settled.  Several wards members were former Californians who knew where we lived with the right amount of coaxing--one brother knew it immediately.  The church building was brand new (it had been almost completely destroyed by the tornado that tore through town 2 years before) and it still had that "new church building smell." :)  The talks were good, the spirit was strong and I got a small loaf of white bread as I walked out of the chapel.  We changed clothes in the bathroom (our church clothes had to last the entire trip) and piled into the car to continue on our way.  We had left the I-40 after Oklahoma City and were now traveling along Interstate 44.  One of the things I found interesting as we traveled through the southeast portion of Missouri was the lack of mention of Route 66.  All along the 40, Route 66 found its way into so many things (motels, businesses, Indian casinos), but after we left the 40 all those references disappeared.  The other thing I noticed was the amount of churches (big churches) along the interstate.  Maybe I was more aware of it because it was Sunday, but I found myself making note of them as we passed.

In keeping with our temple scavenger hunt, we made a stop at the St. Louis, Missouri temple.  We were again surprised to find the gate open.  There was a building off to the side.  At first I thought it was a visitor's center (which would explain the gate being open), but the building turned out to be a distribution center.  I do recall seeing what looked like a maintenance truck, but it may have been parked there since the day before (unless there was an emergency, I didn't see someone working on a Sunday).  As far as I can tell, we were blessed again to be able to walk the grounds and take our pictures.  We all liked the look of this temple very much.  Ben liked the design on the doors; Isaac liked the fountain that looked as though it came out of the sidewalk.

Full view of the front of the St. Louis, Missouri Temple.

Ben and Isaac in front of the fountain (you can partially see how the fountain comes out of a plastic "grate" in the sidewalk)

Touching the St. Louis temple just before I am given my Father's Day gift--notice how we've stayed in the shade the last two times? ;)

It was here that I received my Father's Day gift.  First I was given cards from both the boys and Jennifer and then I got to open my present: a t-shirt depicting Darth Vader with his arms folded menacingly across his chest.  The caption underneath his imposing figure states: #1 Dad.  It's great and I love it.  I am thankful for my wife and sons and the blessing they are to me in my life.  I know there have been times when I've been less than lovable (don't we all have those moments), but their patience and forgiveness over the years has allowed me to become a better person now than I was before--that's what the Savior's Atonement does for each of us; it allows us to improve and become better.

After seeing the St. Louis Arch and the hockey and baseball stadiums, we said "goodbye" to what was once Route 66 (generally speaking) and followed I-70.  Two "mystery places" were on the itinerary next.  After traveling through the southern tip of Illinois, we entered Indiana and were scheduled to pass through Indianapolis.  All through the planning stages of our trip, Ben would talk about Indianapolis and how he would be able to see the Colts football stadium, Lucas Oil Field, from the freeway.  The Packers are his favorite football team, but the Colts are his 2nd favorite.  Since traveling to Green Bay was out of the question, I decided that it might be fun for him to actually walk the grounds of the stadium.  Ben started taking video of our approach to the stadium, but I don't think he really realized this was the first mystery place until I pulled off the freeway.  I tried to find a place to park, but couldn't figure out how or where to go, so I let Jen and the boys out of the car and drove around the stadium twice before picking them up again (it figures, but as I pulled up to collect them, I saw a place where I could have parked--grumble again).

   See the big smiles, exciting times for my two interstate travelers!

Jennifer made sure to get the "Colts" sign in the picture.

The second "mystery place" was the building site for the Indianapolis Temple.  I remember when we would travel to Redlands every other Sunday to see what progress had been made on that temple while it was being built.  I reasoned that even though it was a work in progress, this temple would qualify as being a part of our scavenger hunt.  We took these two pictures (the second one is a bit blurry--maybe because I'm zooming in at dusk--but you still see quite a bit):

An hour and a half later, we entered Ohio and arrived at our next KOA.  After two nights of being either one of two or the only tent campers, we now found ourselves amongst many tent campers.  It took a couple of times to find the spot marked on the map.  As we were putting up the tent, we had a weird run-in with a staff member.  He rode up in a golf cart and told me that I need to be sure to register my car at the office in the morning.  I thought to myself, "It's 11:00 at night and you come to tell me that?" but what I said was "Okay," thinking the conversation had ended.  Suddenly, the guy noticed Ben and Isaac.  "Who are you," he says in a boarder line belligerent voice. "Are you 18?"  "No," Ben replied, "I'm 16."  "Then who are you with?  You can't be here alone."  I walked up to him, "They're with me." I made an encompassing gesture. "We're all together." "Well," he mumbled, "we've had kids try to get in here by themselves to have sex and booze parties.  Can't be too careful."  As he drove away in his cart, the four of us looked at each other in stunned silence.  If I hadn't been so tired, I might have laughed at the absurdity of it all.  We all had to wonder what he'd been drinking as we finished what was needed to settle down for the night.

The Great 2013 Vacation: Temples, Scenery & Steak n Shake

The alarm on my watch rang at 6:00 the next morning and we all, to varying degrees, got up and began to get ready for our next day of traveling.  The goal was to be off by 8 and we actually did a pretty good job of doing so that morning.  I was impressed by how our battery operated air blower could be reversed to draw the air out of the mattresses to make that process quicker.  It was also easier to take the tent down then to put it up (why is that).  After breakfast, I loading up the Kia and we were off again!  I mentioned in the "planning stages" that one of my goals was to do our LDS Temple scavenger hunt.  Besides being the first stop on our journey, Albuquerque was also home to the first temple on our list.  Since it was Saturday, I expected the parking lot to be full of patrons, but when we arrived, we found the gate open but the lot empty--the temple was closed for its six month cleaning.  Still, we were able to take our pictures and take our time walking around the building.

Two views of the Albuquerque, New Mexico Temple

We also have a tradition we have done since the boys were little where they and I get our picture taken touching the temple, but the picture at this temple shows us working really hard not to squint in the morning sun--the results are . . . less than satisfying.  I'll wait until later to add one of those. :)  From here, we started on our 8 hour drive to the next temple on our list: the Oklahoma City Temple.

The day before, crossing the Colorado River into Arizona, showed a sharp contrast in scenery from the desert to the mountainous elevation of Williams and Flagstaff and back to the desert again.  The western and central portions of New Mexico also showed a nice contrast in scenery that was enjoyable and made the drive easier.  In fact, at some point either right before leaving Arizona or not long after entering NM, I saw a line of buttes that made me wonder if they had been the inspiration for the Cadillac buttes in the movie Cars.  

As we drove into the eastern portion of NM, the terrain began to flatten.  Then we reached the panhandle of Texas.  I had been to Texas before when I was 18 (the last vacation I was a part of with my family before leaving on my mission).  I admit that I spent a lot of time on that trip in the back of RV either reading or talking or sleeping and not paying much attention to the landscape.  I have nothing against Texas (although I find it funny that every time we have visited Yellowstone, I always end up behind a very slow moving car with a Texas license plate), but I have to say that the panhandle of Texas was the most boring portion of our trip scenery wise.  It was unceasingly flat (no hills, no contrast, no nothing) and dry.  I've also always heard that "everything is big in Texas."  I have to admit this was true, but maybe not in the way the phrase was intended.  At one point, we passed a cattle ranch with several hundred head of cattle all penned into a very concentrated area.  I had the air conditioning blowing.  As we passed that point, the smell of cow that slammed into us was bigger than anything I've every smelled before (worse than the dairy farm). *Yikes!*  

After gassing up in Amarillo and grabbing our snacks, we drove about 50 to 80 miles more and came upon a huge cross next to a "mega-church" pretty much out in the middle of nowhere.  The cross had to be at least four-stories high, but I had to wonder where the parishioners would come from.  Maybe there was a town nearby; I don't remember seeing it.  To break the monotony we played a game where we tell a story with each person choosing one word to move the narrative forward.  We did this a few other times along the way, but the first story (about a baby who stops his Uncle Hugh from exacting revenge upon his boss, a ringmaster, by slobbering in the poison concocted to kill the boss and is rewarded with a silver elephant; Hugh escapes on a camel and, in a effort to repent, coverts to Judaism) was the best.

We finally left Texas and entered Oklahoma.  Honestly, I was expecting more of the same as far as the scenery was concerned, but I was happy to be proven wrong.  Oklahoma, at least this portion of it, had very green, rolling hills.  The drive became a lot more pleasant and I enjoyed looking out the windshield again.  As we approached Oklahoma City (by the way, we just found out that a member of our ward has been called to serve his mission there), I began looking for signs of the recent tornadoes that had devastated the area.  Knowing that we would be traveling through this way, I had been paying very close attention to the weather and the news in the days leading up to our vacation after the tornadoes tore through the areas around Oklahoma City.  I knew that the second one had blown across the I-40.  Remembering the movie Twister, I found myself searching for the "path" the tornado may have left behind.

The temple is actually located in Yukon, a suburb of the city.  It may be that we left the interstate before reaching what I was looking for (or it may be that movies don't imitate life--gasp, did I really say that), but while I did see blown out signs, ripped up billboards, and tree limbs in places where they normally wouldn't be, there was not much to indicate that a major tornado had been in the area only two weeks before.  The Oklahoma City Temple is a smaller temple located next to a Stake Center.  We arrived around 5 o'clock and were surprised to find it devoid of patrons as well--apparently sessions end earlier in the afternoon on Saturday.  We took our pictures, walked around, and prepared to move on to Tulsa for our date with Steak 'n Shake.

A view of the front of the Oklahoma City Temple.

Here the boys and I keep with our "touching the temple" tradition.

Jennifer was also taking pictures on her iPod for a slide show she wanted to put together of places we visited.  I had to take a picture of her taking a picture of herself.

Having seen our two temples for the day, it was time to eat.  We were all quite hungry.  As I mentioned previously, the Steak 'n Shake franchise is building two of its first locations in California in our area, so we had to try it out to see if this was a good thing or not.  In planning the itinerary, I found there were a couple of places in Oklahoma City that we could have gone to, but since the temple was outside the city and backtracking would not have forwarded our progress, I decided to drive another hour and a half to Tulsa.  We arrived with very hearty appetites.  Steak 'n Shake turned out to be a sit-down restaurant (although it appears there is a drive-thru).  We were happy to find the food reasonably priced and very good.  The "steak" part of the name has to do with steak burgers.  There is a difference in preparation, but steak burgers are different from hamburgers.  The variety of burgers was quite large.  We all had different kinds and we each liked our choices (Isaac, as is his custom, made sure we were all enjoying our food).  The shakes were delicious.  I had a tropical banana shake that reminded me of the banana shakes Dad would make when we had over-ripe bananas and vanilla ice cream in the house--to me, that was the sign of an excellent shake.

Ben & Isaac wanted to make sure their first experience at Steak n Shake was well documented (they also took video to mark the occasion).

After satisfying our taste buds and tummies, we still had another hour and a half to go to get to Joplin, Missouri, our next KOA destination.  I made my biggest driving error of the trip as we left Tulsa.  To rent a GPS from Avis would have been an extra $30 and my thinking is, why deal with some disembodied, electronic woman's voice when I can print maps off the computer (which is where the GPS gets its stuff as well) and listen to my wife's voice instead.  As we left Tulsa, she told me where I was to go, but I must have been distracted at the crucial moment and ended up taking a road headed in the direction of Arkansas rather than Missouri.  I suppose this would have been the point where the GPS woman would have said, "Hey, stupid, you're going the wrong way!"  But none of us knew of my error until about 20 miles later when the junction we saw had nothing to do with where we were supposed to be going.  Luckily, a guy at the counter of a gas station took pity on my poor lost soul and instead of sending us back to Tulsa, told me to go back 7 miles and take a state road that would connect us back with the I-40.  Jennifer had called the KOA earlier to let them know we were coming.  At the time, we were told it was raining.  When we arrived at around 11, the storm had thankfully passed through.  We were able to put our tent together, make our trips to the bathroom and crash on our air mattresses sometime around midnight.

The Great 2013 Vacation: Off We Go

I left a little early from work on Thursday to make sure we could pick up our rental car that evening (a KIA Optima--a very roomy, nice car with a deep truck that averaged about 35 mpg) and have it packed and ready to go Friday morning.  The plan had been to leave no later then 8:00 that morning, but the vacation gods rose up to smite me and I ended up needing to do some last minute, necessary things.  We didn't actually go until around 8:45 (Ben and Isaac were practically burning holes into the back of my head as they willed me to finish).  As I stuffed the last of the trip necessities into the trunk, Jennifer remembered she hadn't packed church shoes--there was room for hers, but that was all: "We'll just wear our tennis shoes." I said as I shut the trunk.  With a last minute check of the house and the locks and the alarm, I locked the front door and we were off!

Our first destination was a KOA in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  When we reached Barstow, I left the I-15 and merged onto the I-40 which is the interstate that follows the general route of the old Route 66.  I had burned ten "trip cd's" for our excursion.  Each family member picked about 45 to 50 favorite songs from our iTunes play lists and I spread them out evenly over the ten cd's.  With each cd I also added two "road" songs as the first and eleventh song.  Since we were following route 66, my pick for the first road song on cd number one was "(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66" by Nat "King" Cole.  I told everyone to listen to the names of the towns and look for them as we drove.  The trunk of the car had enough room for our tent, air mattresses, and tarp (our bishop suggested getting a tarp to lay underneath the tent and stronger tent stakes--I'm glad I did), as well as two rucksacks full of clothes, a zip-up holder for our church clothes, a camping lantern, a battery operated device to blow up our mattresses (I was surprised how well it worked) and a cooler (and a partridge in a pear tree).  Finally, I had gone to Costco the day before and bought about 5 different snacks.  We poured the contents of the boxes into grocery bags and I stuffed them next to the cooler.

The goal was to make the least amount of stops as possible.  We needed potty breaks and breaks to stretch our legs, but I think we did pretty good.  As I mentioned, our first gas stop was in Winslow, Arizona.  "Mystery place" was written on the itinerary, so everyone knew one was coming.  The eleventh song on the third vacation cd was "Take It Easy" by the Eagles.  I told everyone to listen closely to the song and it would tell them where and what the mystery place was.  When the line, "Well, I'm a standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona" came, the car erupted with, "Winslow, Arizona!"  Then Jen looked at me and said, "Wait, you already said we were getting gas there.  What's the mystery?"  I smiled and said nothing.  As I drove into Winslow and followed Main Street, everyone kept asking, "What's the mystery place?"  I told them to think about the line from the song.  "Okay, it says he's standin' on the corner, but what's the mystery place?"  Even with signs, I passed the statue and had to drive back around the block to come back to it.

  

As we pulled up to the corner, I pointed, "See, he's standin' on the corner in Winslow, Arizona." 

If you look behind Ben's left shoulder, you can see the girl in the flat bed Ford slowing down to take a look at him.

We reached Albuquerque sometime around 10 that evening.  I would have liked to have seen the city in daylight, but one interesting aspect was that many of the bridges were lit up with colored stage type lights (one would be all red, another yellow, we were quite fascinated by it).  Since I had booked and prepaid all our KOA stays, the manager left a map for us which directed us to our campsite.  The tent areas were not grassy, but had pebbles (made me glad we had air mattresses).  Before we left, we had practiced putting up our tent in the front yard several times to learn how to do it.  The wind was blowing a little bit which made things difficult at first until I got the idea to secure one side of the tent into the ground to keep it from blowing away.  I had an adventure trying to locate the bathrooms while the rest of my family found them without any trouble.  We finally crashed around 11:30.

The Great 2013 Vacation: Planning Stages

In my initial post, I said that my first goal was to talk about what our recent family vacation meant for me and that is where I will begin the festivities.  We haven't had a vacation of this magnitude for five years.  I take my vacations very seriously.  Having a plan is important because then I know how, where and when to book reservations and the like.  We made a trip out to New Jersey to see Jennifer's family 13 years ago.  Over the last few years, Jen has wanted to make a return trip, but when the economy went south, we had to settle for short, close to home excursions.  Through some blessings and some savings, we finally had the means to make the cross-country trip a reality this summer.  Basing our time frame on Ben's football practice schedule from last summer and Girl's Camp (Jennifer) and Boy Scout camp (Isaac), we realized the last two weeks of June would be our time-frame.  The plan was to fly out to New Jersey, stay for two weeks, make a side trip to Palmyra, New York during that time and fly back home.  Funny how things don't work out, but work out anyway.

 

As we started making plans, I began to see that round-trip tickets for the four of us, car rental and a hotel stay (not to mention food, gas and other costs) would make the trip expensive--possibly more so then our trip money would allow.  I had made a promise to Jennifer that we would go this year, but I was beginning to wonder how I could actually make it happen.  A new idea presented itself: make this a driving trip, spend three days in New Jersey, and visit Church history sites (Palmyra, Kirtland, Nauvoo. Far West, Liberty and Independence) on the way home.  Last summer, we had purchased an 8-man tent on sale at Bass Pro Shop.  We could stay at KOA's along the route for some of the trip and stay in hotels for the other parts.  I presented the idea to my family and they all became very excited--the idea was a "go."

 

In order to make the three days in New Jersey work, we had to get the Ringwood area in 4 days of driving (all-nighters were not an option).  Also, I wanted to make sure we didn't see the same scenery both going to and coming back from the East Coast.  Of the various options, going to NJ following the old Route 66 way made the most sense to me.  I had to break the route into sections that could be accomplished in a day's worth of driving without overtaxing us (relatively speaking).  KOA campsites became my guides to how far each day's journey would be.  With the "get there" figured out, I set to work on the "come back" plan via Church history sites.  Once I had the basic itinerary fleshed out, I took a critical look at it to make whatever tweaks I thought were necessary.

 

A few things that came into play during my refining process.  1) I started looking for LDS Temple sites along our overall route.  On previous big trips like this, we have gone on a sort of temple scavenger hunt.  I identified 9 temples along our way.  2) As I was looking for cheaper hotels in the surrounding Palmyra and Nauvoo areas, it suddenly dawned on me that it would be a great experience for Jennifer and me to visit those two temples and complete endowment sessions in both.  With this in mind, I decided it would be better to pay extra for hotels in Palmyra and Nauvoo in order to be close to the temples.  3)  Learning that a restaurant chain called Steak & Shake was going to build one of the first franchises in California in our hometown, I looked them up on the Internet and found they are all over the mid-west.  I figured we could try one to see if it was any good and I would add two more to the itinerary in case we liked the food.  4)  After booking the rental car and realizing we could make it Winslow, Arizona before needing to gas up, I learned Winslow has a statue in town dedicated to the Eagles song "Take It Easy" titled "Standin' on the Corner."  This gave me the idea to come up with "mystery places"--places along or near our travel route that I thought different family members (or all of them) would enjoy visiting.  Armed with these thoughts, I put our itinerary together, made the reservations and waited with mounting anticipation for June 14th to finally arrive.

So, It Begins

I guess everything needs to start somewhere, so I'll begin here.  This is a little strange for me.  Up until now, I haven't been the type of person who does this sort of thing--posting thoughts on the Internet.  I don't care for Facebook and think even less of Twitter and yet, here I am, going against my usual inclinations and making my first post on a blog.  I'm not sure exactly what is driving this other than the fact that we came home from our recent vacation to New Jersey (driving, by the way, over 6000 miles in two weeks to go there and back again; go ahead, tell me we were crazy, you won't be the first) and I started to get this . . . tickle (for lack of a better word), spurring me on to start a blog.  The whys and the wherefores of this inkling is as big a mystery to me as it is to Jennifer.  When I told her I was thinking of doing this she was speechless, "I don't know how to respond," she said after several moments of stunned silence; a sentiment that made perfect sense to me.  I guess if nothing else, maybe this will keep me from wasting a couple of hours reading articles on msn or other news websites while I wait for my body to wind down enough to crash when I go to bed.  I've never been very good at keeping a journal, maybe this will help.

First, I had to come up with an appropriate title.  I figured no self-respecting blog could live without a good title.  Mine comes from an ELO song (yes, as a child of the late 70's and early 80's, I am a fan) from their album Time.  At first, I was thinking "Strange Magic," but then I wondered if some unsuspecting person perusing random blogs might think I was a Harry Potter wannabe or a practicing warlock.  No need to make trouble for myself.  In the song, the narrator turns the title into more of a question: "I wonder, is this the way the way life's meant to be."  Although the title seems more of a statement rather than a question, I've decided to use the question.  I'm sure we've all had moments when we've thought, "Is this the way life's meant to be?"  Thankfully, I can say my answer to that question has been mostly positive.  The subtitle is a riff on a comment made by someone at the beginning of "Our Heavenly Father's Plan"--a video I showed quite a bit as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints back in the late '80's.  It just seemed to fit with the direction I think my blog may take me as I follow this particular yellow brick road.

What do I want to accomplish with this blog?  Good question, thank you for asking.  As I considered and disregarded several answers, I'm left with: I suppose I'll figure that out as I go along.  My initial hope is that I'll be able to make some observations as to what our recent vacation meant to me; from there, I hope I'll be able to write some things that are either important to me (the "general" part) or make random musings that might be funny at least to me and possibly someone else (the "abstract" part).  Who might read this?  I don't know.  Will anyone read it other than me?  Probably (family members who will take pity on my poor soul), but I don't expect to have some huge following like those people with popular blogs I have read--that would be a shock.  All I know for sure right now is I had a feeling that I should start this, so, I'm starting it.  If there is anyone out there besides me who is reading this, welcome to my head--please lock your trays, return your seats to an upright position and cinch your seat belts tight.  I've tried to sweep out the cobwebs, beat the dust off the sofa cushions and fluff the pillows, but if you need to use the restroom be sure to watch out for the three-headed dog at the end of the corridor.