Blah, Blah, Bl-Onken Blog!

I was bummed recently to discover that I was scheduled to work two weekends in October, including my birthday. When I work a weekend I am required to take a work day off the week before (in exchange for Saturday) and the week after (in exchange for Sunday.) As I was planning my weekdays off, I realized that I would be able to make a four day weekend for myself. Martin and I thought about a weekend getaway first, but then when Martin said he had to fly to Billings Montana and drive a motorhome back, I was excited: "ROAD TRIP!!" I love road trips.

We had originally planned to drive from Billings, through Yellowstone, and then out the west entrance to Rexburg to see Skyler and Sarah. We discovered right before we left that Yellowstone had a major road closure that was going to make that impossible to do in the time frame we needed. So we made a last minute plan change to drive straight to Rexburg, then backtrack through the west entrance into Yellowstone and drive it straight down through the southern entrance and through Jackson, Wyoming. The serendipitous discovery was that this would take us right down into Cache Valley and into Logan Utah where we would be able to visit the Arnells!

So last Friday we flew Allegiant Airlines to Billings ($50 one way ticket) and picked up the RV. It was about a 5 hour drive to Rexburg (after a stop at Walmart to pick up snacks, drinks, pillows and blankies). We rolled into Rexburg a little on the late side and Skyler and Sarah drove us to their favorite burger joint where they serve these humongous 1 lb. hamburgers the size of your head. I did not have one of those, but I did have a quite tasty burger. We spent the night in the local Comfort Inn and then Saturday morning Sarah fed us a very delicious french toast and eggs breakfast. Skyler and Sarah took us on a tour of BYU-I campus before we had to head out on the road again. It was too short but very sweet.

The drive through Yosemite was lovely and we made a few quick stops to look at mudpots, fumaroles and geysers but didn't really have the time to see Old Faithful in action. We did see a group of Elk (they have very cute butts) and Martin saw a bison from the distance, but I missed that. We drove back and forth across the continental divide three times while driving through the park. We had an opportunity to drive through the town of Jackson, Wyoming (Jackson Hole is not the actual name of the city) and then drove through the beautiful Star Valley area. We hit the Bear Lake area of Idaho as it began to get dark and took the last of our scenic route through Logan Canyon in the dark. We arrived late at the Arnell's home to find a warm welcome and a waiting meal.

Sunday morning we attended a regional stake conference with the Arnells which was broadcast from USU Spectrum. It was a nice feeling sitting in church with the Arnells again. Back to the Arnell homestead for a wonderful multigenerational lunch - it truly wasn't long enough and I wish I had more time to visit with each of my Arnell kids and I'm sorry we didn't get to see Doug and his family.

Our next stop was Ogden and my opportunity to see my beloved friend Carolyn - a 3 hours visit flew by and again, was over too soon before we needed to hit the road again. This time we made it as far as Beaver, Utah (no we didn't need new tires) where we stayed the night. The next day was the long press home.

All in all a great trip and I even took a few photos!

Montana

The Newlyweds at Home

Yosemite

Star Valley in Wyoming

Sunset over Idaho

At home in Providence, UT

Carolyn!

Southern Utah

Being the bad blogger that I am, I regret to say I am even a worse photographer. I will now add a few notes about our Boston trip and a few pitiful pictures:

We left LA on 9/25 flying redeye on Virgin America (great airline) nonstop to Boston. We arrived around 6 AM Boston time and I made sure to take a couple of benadryls on the plane and sleep as much as possible. We drove immediately to Nick and Jamie's place (which was only minutes away) and fell upon the air mattress they had so thoughtfully prepared for us to snooze a few more hours until we had to return to the airport to pick up Skyler and Sarah who were arriving around 10 AM. I was awakened to the delightful sight of my favorite baby! A quick hug and kiss and we were off; getting lost through the "big dig" but somehow managing to get back to the airport where we picked up an almost tearful Skyler who was so thrilled and delighted to be back in his mission. Poor Sarah was a very tired trooper. We immediately took off for parts west, to head to Skyler's first area and one of his two favorites, North Adams. The drive on the Old Mohawk Trail, through Pioneer Valley and the Berkshires was delightful. The leaves were turning, and while we didn't have the full fluorescents yet, there was much color, beauty and charm. The town of North Adams was equally charming. We walked around a bit, saw the tiny little building where the North Adams Branch meets, and then got to have a very nice visit with the Greenhalghs, one of those special families that not only took good care of our boy, but was kind enough to drop us a line several times while he was with them. After a nice visit, we headed back to Boston - tried to catch a burger in Cambridge but were too late - then dropped S&S over at Nick and Jamie's then Martin and I headed to our hotel in Braintree.

On Sunday, we picked everyone up at Nick and Jamie's and made the drive to Skyler's favorite area, Nashua, NH to attend church and meet and greet. It was obvious immediately how excited the members of this ward were to see Skyler. It was also obvious that this was a very special ward, with members who were clearly close to each other. It reminded me of the "old days" in the Calabasas Ward. A real family feeling there. It was fun to watch Skyler so warmly and excitedly greeted. After the block we drove through incredibly beautiful country to go to the home of the Bentall family who had arranged to have a dinner and open house in Skyler's honor. We had a wonderful opportunity to sit and visit with people from the Nashua ward,and hear glowing reports of Skyler's (and his companion's) work there. Jamie and I both agreed that we could move there in a heartbeat, the area was so lovely and the people so warm and friendly and comfortable.

Monday was Freedom Trail day with S&S and Jamie & Andrew. It was extremely helpful to have Skyler who knew his way around so well and we marched at a pretty quick pace all over Boston. This was our first visit to this city and it is truly a beautiful city. I love history and it was so fun to be pretty much in one of the birthplaces of our country! We toured Paul Revere's house, visited Faneuil Hall (scene of many debates),the Old North Church, The Old State House and the site of the Boston Massacre, saw Old Ironsides, and visited Bunker Hill. We saw the gravestones of some of our country's forefathers, of Mother Goose, and of the woman rumored to have been the inspiration for Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter. That night we went to Fenway Park to watch the Red Sox (without Jamie and the baby) and were rained out in the 7th evening!

Tuesday was the day S&S flew home, but we spent the first part of the day in Cambridge and got to enjoy a burger at Mr. Bartley's Burger Cottage. The burgers, sweet potato fries and onion rings were worth the effort and we were introduced to the deliciousness of lime and raspberry rickeys. Cambridge was one of Skyler's areas and he enjoyed showing us around a bit, before we had to take the newlyweds to the airport for the flight home and back to the books.

Wednesday Martin and I drove around Quincy for a bit. We saw the beautiful Old House/Peacefield home of John and Abigail Adams, and also saw the homes in which John Adams and John Quincy Adams were born (those two are about 75 feet apart from each other). We didn't go on the interior tours and unfortunately the photos we took were actually on video. Peacefield is beautiful! We found a fun down home place to eat brunch in and then headed over to Nick and Jamie's to spend the rest of our day trying to help her get the last of the boxes unpacked and do a little heavy lifting for her while Nick was in school (and of course it didn't hurt that we got to hang out with Andrew!)

Thursday was spent driving south from Boston, first to Scituate on the coast where we visited an old lighthouse and site of the "lighthouse army of two" young girls who chased away a British warship during the War of 1812 by playing a fife and drum. We had another delicious brunch there and continued on our way south to Plymouth. We saw Plymouth Rock, the sarcophagus where many pilgrims' bones are interred, toured the very excellent Pilgrim Hall Museum, and finally the Mayflower II. After Plymouth, we continued on our southern course - the beauty and history of everywhere we went was more than apparent. I was fortunate to have an application on my iPhone that I used to look up many of the quaint towns we traveled through and every one of them was loaded with history straight out of the textbooks. We made our way as far south as Sandwich, located in Cape Cod, before we began to turn our trip around but not before we stopped at a roadside farm store and bought apples, honey and cranberry bread. Our way back north we tracked a bit westward and went through Wareham and into the old town of Carver where we delighted in seeing a few cranberry bogs. We were two weeks too early for the cranberry festivals but the bogs are truly a beautiful sight. Cranberries are Massachusetts' number one agricultural crop.

Friday we picked up Jamie and Andrew and headed north, this time to Salem. Salem has devoted itself to the history of its witch trials and I can only imagine what a fun place it is come Halloween. We went through the Salem Witch Museum which is mostly a series of dioramas with audio tape explaining the events that took place in 1692 when a handful of bored teenage girls got caught up in hysteria to which they many years later confessed their wrong-doing (but not before 20 people died and more suffered). The more fascinating part of Salem was driving around and looking at the VERY old homes that are privately owned and occupied. The Corwin home is the only house that still stands with direct connections to the trials (and it is an attraction), but everywhere you look in that historic district is remarkable. We left Salem to head back to Boston where we picked up Nick - and after letting him do some visual assessments on us for homework - introduced him to the deliciousness that is Mr. Bartley's Burgers in Cambridge.

Saturday morning we headed over to Nick and Jamie's for Andrew's birthday party! Jamie planned a delicious brunch with friends of theirs from church. I manned the waffle iron and Martin helped with the hash browns. A good time was had by all, and the requisite chocolate frosting photos were taken of the birthday boy! We spent the rest of the day lazing around the house, listening to conference on the internet and just generally enjoying spending time together as a family. Pizza completed our evening!

Our last day in Boston was spent with all of us headed to the Old State House, the one site on the Freedom Trail we agreed we would like to revisit and go through the museum there. After touring those exhibits, we headed over to the North End and had a delicious Italian lunch. We left Nick, Jamie and Andrew to find their way home on the T and Martin and I headed to the airport and flew back home!

I have an odd photo or two to share and this will have to do - hopefully Sarah will share some of what she took! To see B-day photos, please check out Jamie's blog. If I can ever figure out how to post videos I'll add more later.

Peacefield (Home of John and Abigail Adams)