Misheru

Here are a lot of pictures from my trip to my parents, with more to come. After our breakneck pace through Utah, we slid into Nampa, Idaho with no problems and collapsed in my brother Nick’s house (not pictured). We spent two nights there visiting, and Ben loved my brother’s huge fishtanks (Nemo) and I spent the evenings staying up late and watching movies with my brother, the first time in a long time I have had such a chance. We went on to my parents’ house for 9 more days, and my dad took the week off in honor of the occasion. We spent one entire day working on my truck, and here is a list of things fixed: window, door handle, tailgate, all four brakes, bearing seals, right rear axle seal, starter. Thanks, dad. I have to take some credit — he did precisely half of the brake work, and I did the other half (after he showed me how) so that I would learn the skill. Then, to the pictures: the first set is of a torturous fishing trip (I despise fishing) at Swan Falls, a hydro-electric dam with a reservoir. It is a bird refuge, so I thought I might see an eagle or something, but mostly I was hot, hungry and irritated that all I could see were seagulls. Ben had fun, though, as did everyone else (I think). The second set of water pictures are of Payette Lake in McCall, Idaho, which is where Marti and I spent our honeymoon (it was much, much colder in January, and the lake was frozen over then). The lake was still very, very cold though, I might add, but it is still so pure that homeowners pump their drinking water from its center (they try not to think of tourists dipping their feet in it, I’m sure). It was a nice trip, and ended with a dinner at my aunt Theresa’s house. I also enjoyed running St. Luke’s Women’s Fitness 5K race, and I finished in good time despite dire predictions from certain family members (”You don’t look like you can run, but I guess the pipes are clean”) . I enjoyed my stay, and seeing old friends. “Make new friends, but keep the old — for one is silver, and the other gold.”

Utah is an interesting place. I decided to drive right through it, mostly, as I found the Mormon billboards somewhat disconcerting. “Discount Missionary Clothing” (for my mental image, please see missionary family below) and “Guess what, Elder?” (not sure what this means). I saw many, many bumper stickers referring to the U.N. as a one-world takeover to precede Armageddon, and I decided I armageddon myself right out of Utah (couldn’t resist the pun, sorry). Ben didn’t like the Utah trip, either. After 11 hours trying to get across, his comment was, “No more truck, mama. Go home now.” Poor guy!

Well, here are the Grand Canyon pictures, finally. Sorry for the wait, but I have been in the land without fast internet. Ben and I enjoyed the Grand Canyon and were, as all people seem to be, awed by the vastness of the canyon. We hung around to see the sunset, and of course I had to pull over to glass out any large raptors I saw, so it was slow going around the canyon on the scenic highway. I have a great picture of a family of vultures, but I had a technical problem uploading so I will have to add that in later. The pictures are chronological, starting with our first view and ending with the sunset on the Colorado River on the eastern side of the canyon. I decided, along with about 100,000 other tourists, to try to go to the northeastern side of the canyon and stay in one of the motels in a little town near the Navajo Nation. Every motel/hotel was booked for miles, so we drove for four hours before finding a tiny motel that was about to close, and both of us collapsed, exhausted, into bed. We awoke to find we were at the head of the Colorado, right where it enters the Grand Canyon, and it was beautiful. I couldn’t have chosen a better place to stay. It was called Marble Canyon, and we enjoyed a giant breakfast of biscuits and sausage gravy (although it should have been called gravy sausage, as it consisted of giant chunks of sausage graced with a bit of gravy) before heading on up through Utah. I will tell you, we didn’t take any pictures going through Utah, because we were pretty exhausted after tramping around the grand canyon and didn’t even stop at Bryce Canyon (a shame, but Ben was napping as we passed). We spent a whopping 11 hours on the road and ended up backtracking for an hour, because again all the hotels north of Salt Lake were completely full. Lesson learned: find good hotel at 6 p.m., stay.

Day One: Having frantically packed all morning, we made it out of Tucson at 1:30 p.m. — basically ahead of schedule. Other than a slight problem getting off on the freeway going south instead of north 60 miles north of Phoenix and travelling the wrong way for a while, we made it. Ben slept through Phoenix, as you can see, and after seeing some truly gorgeous scenery and a breathtaking sunset, we rolled into Flagstaff at 7:30 p.m. Tomorrow, the Grand Canyon! I have never seen it before.

These are from the trip I took last month, to Portland. Pictured are Asia, oldest daughter of Steve and Sheleen, and then Lily, their youngest (there are only two!). Next is Steve and Sheleen and the girls, in their “We are a missionary family” pose. Steve really isn’t trying to choke Lily, I promise. Next is a picture of myself, Sheleen, and Christina — we’ve been friends now for 10 years, so I guess we’re called old friends. Last is a picture of Steve posing, and he made some very un-Missionary comments when I asked to take his picture. There are dozens more adorable pics of the girls, and also of Chloe, Christina’s daughter, who isn’t pictured (yet). I will get the others up as soon as I can, I promise!