MM&C Adventure

I'm taking today to rest... for the most part. We did go to church this morning. I need to take the sacrament and remember. I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is a worldwide church. I love that I can go anywhere in the world and it is the same. There are wards, which are geographical areas that meet together... you attend the meetings with the people that live in the same area as you. In areas where the membership in the church is greater the geographical area for each ward is smaller. Here in southern Utah there is a high density of members... so the geographical area for each ward tends to be rather small... like one neighborhood. Today the ward we visited must have been a 55+ neighborhood. Cooper was really puzzled and wondered where the other kids were. There were none, but it was all good. We sang, we listened to the talks, we had the sacrament, and then we left. We had to get some batteries. Yesterday my car didn't recognize that

Last night we stayed at a campground, and while we weren't in a tent we still got to wake up early and be outside. I think that is one of my favorite things. Waking up early and being outside before the rest of the world is awake. Taking some time to see the sun rise and hear the birds chirp. This morning I had about 30 minutes before Cooper joined me. Apparently I am a bit of a snore-er. I think that my nocturnal noises bring comfort to him, and when he can't hear me anymore he wakes up... because inevitably shortly after I wake up he comes and finds me. We had some great conversations and I was marveling at how smart he is. He wa telling me all sorts of things that he knows and sometimes he just blows my mind. We packed up our stuff and headed north. Packing up and driving every day is not easy. I'm sure that eventually I'd get used to it, but there is a certain amount of stress involved. We drove up and over and then down into Bryce Canyon. Before yo

When we left the hotel this morning it was cold and windy and snowing. Not exactly what I expected. I thought it would be hot and dry, emphasis on the hot part. Today was probably the longest day of driving so far. At one junction there was an abandon building called Warm Spring. There was a creek that was steaming, it was kinda cool. Unbeknownst to me we traveled along the Extraterrestrial Highway right by Area 51. We stopped on the side of the road to get some lunch and took a couple of panoramic pictures. For some reason I thought Area 51 was over by Roswell, New Mexico. It wasn't until we reached another intersection where there was a place that advertized "Alien Jerky" that I wondered... but we didn't stop there. There isn't much of anything along that stretch of road.... Absolutely NO bathrooms and my firstborn had been holding it for over an hour. Maria liked being able to see the different layers in the mountains and the pink hills were cool.

Another day that started off with work and school. I'm generally up and working by 6. The kids sleep until 8 or 9. Today Maria slept until 10! I think we might be entering the teenage years. She did stay up a little later last night working on her book. I'm excited for her and this love of writing and reading that she is developing! We checked out of the hotel just before 11, which is the norm for us and then headed out to the middle of nowhere. There isn't a lot between Fallon and Tonopah... and there isn't a lot in Tonopah. Once upon a time in my college days I took a construction management class and we were discussing concrete. The professor talked about how in rural areas it is hard to pour concrete. If you get a concrete truck to deliver you have to make sure that the water to other stuff ratio is correct and that it will pass the slump (I think that's what they called it) test. If it doesn't pass the test then you can't use it. We stopp

We checked out of the less than stellar hotel this morning. Like Maria said I have a bruise on my arm. The room had a towel hook on the back of the door at elbow level and I scraped and bruised my arm on it pretty bad. I'm sure it will hurt for a few days. We went into Walmart to pick up some things and then got the car washed. The car has needed a wash since we were in the Redwoods.... and the bugs were starting to add up. ew. We then did something that Maria has been wanting to do FOR-E-VER! Ax throwing. She LOVED it. She was also the best and hit the most bullseyes! She is looking forward to setting up a safe area at the 20 where she can throw axes, knifes, and practice her archery. Later in the afternoon we went to The Discovery. It's a hands-on museum/science center for kids. I LOVE places like this. It had stuff for kids of all ages. I think Maria loved the Mindbender room and the workshop the best, while Cooper's favorites were the DaVinci Lab and water

It's Maria. I get to write the daily journal for yesterday.  So, we started out the morning by doing school and work. After school I started writing my book and at the end I had about 2,000 words done. When we left it was around noon so we got chick-fil-a. After that we drove to Lassen National Park and drove around the moutains. We took a few stops and looked at pinecones, a sizemograph, and a lake that we tried to break because it said that there was thin ice so we used rocks. I accidentally threw a rock at the sign and after i had ran into the car and we all stoped laughing mom told me "cooper thought it was cool so he tried to copy it but missed. we also went into the visitors center and saw valcano stuff I thought that the thing where you jump and it show how big the earth quake was, was the coolest. After that we started the real journey in our journey( The car ) to the hotel but before that we st