Ramblings...: The move

Well - we didn't manage to leave early morning on the 17th as planned. Selling the trailer really set us back a bit. It wasn't until almost 5 that I was able to leave my parents place and head south to pick up my sis in SLC.

I took one last drive through Preston to pick up a few last items I had stored with some friends, and then it was official. I was really leaving.

We didn't get too far that first night, just to Green River, Wyoming - but it was a good start. The next morning we got going for real. Through the rest of Wyoming and into Nebraska - the geography of the land there was beautiful, but there really wasn't much else to see. Luckily, I have a great collection of audio books on my ipod that make time go by much faster. Also luckily, 'Nae did most of the driving (through the whole trip) and gave me lots of time to let the homesickness seep out of me, one hidden tear at a time.

We spent that next night in Grand Island, Nebraska - so we had made some good progress! We had planned for a bit of sightseeing along the way, and even though we had to condense our trip and skip our visit to Mt. Rushmore, we still had some fun stops planned - church history sites where my Dad had served his mission. First stop was Far West, Missouri.

After that, we got directions to Adam Ondi Ahman, so we backtracked and went up there. It is such an astonishingly beautiful place - and it was fun to see the trees my great-uncle had planted again. Such a restful stop. And fun to hear stories from my dad about his mission and what they used to do up there.

After that we headed south again to Liberty Missouri to see the Liberty Jail. Tender place. It was late when we finished up there, but we were determined to make a bit more progress that night so we hit the road again and made it half way across Missouri before calling it a night.

Next day we were off again, this time to Hannibal - Mark Twain's boyhood town, and location of the caves made famous in Tom Sawyer. I had been there before, and wanted to show them to my Dad and sister - so we did a tour and enjoyed the chilly air and flitting bats before heading north again towards Nauvoo, Illinois.

We got there early enough that we were able to go to the temple - it is SO beautiful! Granted, all temples are amazingly gorgeous, but this is one of my favorites.

The rain hit as we were leaving Nauvoo, and stayed with us pretty much constantly throughout the remainder of our trip. It felt wonderfully good, and cleaned my car of all the bugs accumulated through multiple states - but it made visibility a challenge at times! We stayed the night somewhere in Indiana (I think... it all blurs together after a point)

Saturday we made it into Ohio and by that evening we were just in time for dinner with my cousins - we got to see their new home and all their insane renovations. I thought I had done a good job with my place - but wow, they had only been living there for six weeks and had already beat my work all to pieces! I was super impressed - AND they managed to make us dinner. I can't wait to go back for Thanksgiving and see what else they have done.

We took off from there hoping to get a little farther on our way, with luck staying the night in Erie Pennsylvania. What we didn't know was that on weekends, every hotel that is anywhere close to the Great Lakes gets booked SOLID. We had my mum on the internet looking for any sort of hole in the wall place we could stay, calling back and forth between both vehicles. No luck. There was NOTHING for 200 miles or more. It was nearly 2 am when we finally pulled off at a rest stop and decided to call it a night. We went to the Denny's next door, and since it was still Saturday in Idaho - they let my dad have his free Birthday Grand Slam. (We had been watching for a Denny's the entire day so we could celebrate, but had no luck at all - it was very fitting that they should have one right where we gave up for the night.) After eating, we curled up in our vehicles and tried to get a few hours of sleep.

It didn't last very long - we dozed for a few hours, but we were up and gone by 6. Surprisingly we hit Rochester by 9. We hadn't realized how close were were, or we might have tried to go a bit farther and stay there.

We found my house - and my new roommates all pitched in to lend a hand and we had the Uhaul unloaded in the blink of an eye. SO much faster than the two days it took to load the blasted thing - having help makes a huge difference!

My sister was good and went to church with my roommates - Dad and I found a hotel and napped for a while. I don't know how 'Nae did it - I was so stressed and exhausted I felt like puking. Once she was back, and we had gotten a little rest we decided to explore the area a little more. We drove around, and then headed up to Palmyra to see the Smith farm and the Sacred Grove.

Such a beautiful area - so peaceful and serene. As I walked through the Grove, the calm seemed to just soak into me, and the stress of the move just seemed to melt away.