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...

This was not a very exciting day. Work and school this morning then we packed up and checked out of the hotel. We swung by the post office and sent off a few post cards and did a small clean out of the car. It was good to vacuum it out, at least partially. We then headed out of Arcata on 299 towards Redding. And we drove and drove and drove. Stopped to go potty and then drove some more. We got to the hotel and set up to do some work. Maria discovered NaNoWriMo and is working on writing a novel. Our hotel room is a little bigger tonight which makes Cooper happy because he can use his VR without fear of hitting the walls... and with the pools closed it's good for him to have some way to get out some energy. We did that whole adult thing and got the tires rotated. Bless Les Schwab and all their tire glory! They got us in, rotated, and out in just over an hour. The kids had their books to keep them entertained while we waited. On ...

This morning we got up early. Another cold night. We packed up... it was hard to get the cartop carrier shut again. We had to shuffle things around 3 times before we were finally able to get it closed. We went to the pier again for breakfast today. It was foggy and a little chillier than yesterday. Church was at 10 am and things here in California are very similar to how it is in Washington. Church is something that I need and enjoy. The speakers talked on love, acceptance, self worth and striving for perfection. The first speaker referenced a talk from October 2017 conference called "Be Ye Therefore Perfect - Eventually" by Jeffrey R Holland . The second speaker's talk referenced "Pressing Toward The Mark" by Edward Dube We then hit up the Redwood Visitor Center in Crescent City for directions to the Howland Hill Road that takes you thru the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park to the Stout Trail. It's about a 6 mile drive on a dirt road that wi...

It was cold last night. Mid 40's cold. Cooper said he was warm and toasty in his sleeping bag. Maria said her sleeping bag didn't work. She also didn't like that she was trapped inside her sleeping bag. She's slept in a 'sleeping bag' before, but they were fun ones.... that had unicorn pillows or made of fancy material. This one was utilitarian... maybe that's what the problem was... maybe she just needed one that had a unicorn pillow attached to it!! We woke up and headed into Crescent City. We picked up some breakfast and headed out to B Street Pier. The tide was out and Cooper climbed down the rocks to play in the sand. He took some pictures of the pilings that had starfish on them. Maria and I walked along the pier while he played below. We met some people walking around with a bucket and they were checking their crab pots from the pier. We stopped by the p...

So, I did not get my tires rotated today.  By the time work/school was done and we got checked out of the hotel and made it to Les Schwab the wait was 2 1/2 hours... And I wasn't going to wait that long.  So we'll have to be adults on a different day. We made it to Crescent City and got set up at our camp ground.  And we had to buy wood...  It was so strange.  Back 'home' we have 20 acres of wood, but I didn't pack any wood... And the bundles that are sold are a rip off!!!  It's cold today and we would need much more than one bundle for cooking and keeping warm.  We made grilled cheese sandwiches in the pie iron... I think we will have to do apple pie tomorrow. We went for a walk and the kids LOVED finding all the climbing trees.  Those kids are hilarious trying to climb trees. Then we hung out in the hammock and tried to take selfies.   Looking up at the trees reminded m...

Going to Crater Lake has always been something on my bucket list. This isn't the best time of year to visit. There is still a bunch of snow and some of the roads are still closed... but it sure was beautiful. A place I'd love to come back to when the snow has all melted. On the drive there were little evergreens growing along the side of the road like weeds. We stopped at a park/recreation area along the side of the road to use the restrooms and ended up staying an playing in the river a bit. Cooper found this weird animal, built a fortress and protected it from all the bad guys, Maria worked on writing her story and I got my watercolors out. We then had to do adult responsible things and get the oil changed in the car. Tomorrow before we head out of town I'll need to get the tires rotated... so exciting!