Moving to Ohio

We (Grandpa Al and I) have begun the big trek to the East. I've decided to add onto this day by day just in case someone (my family mainly) checks to see if I have added anything. I know, I know...it's been awhile.

Day 1: After spending all weekend at the farm (and not taking any pictures) granpa and I got up and headed out the door at an early hour. Did I say early? I meant early for grandpa. We left at 10:00 am. Unfortunately we forgot to calculate in the time difference. We ended up having to add an extra hour to hour trip and didn't arrive in Butte, Montana until 7:30pm. This was a straight drive all the way through. We covered three states (all though of course not the entire states), Washington, Idaho and Montana.

Day 2: We were headed out by 8:50 this morning. A vast improvement from the 10:00 am the night before. Today we also stopped at the Battle of Little Bighorn, Custer's Last Stance, or however else you want to think of it. As you are probably aware, the battle wasn't actually taking place anymore (that happened a long time ago). I also talked grandpa into making a little detour to Devil's Tower in Wyoming. Turns out, Devil's Tower is the very 1st National Monument. I'm pretty glad I made him stop. I would some day like to actually come back and hike around it. Not just look for a bathroom nearby. I decided today that I think I would like to live in Montana. We arrived in Sundance, WY at 6:30. It is here that the Sundance kid stayed in jail for a period of time and also the town where he
eventually took his name from.

Day 3: Grandpa Al's birthday. He swears he's 50 (I'm not sure if I buy it since my dad is over 50 now...seems fishy). Today we stopped at Mt Rushmore first. Not as big as I thought when I was a kid. But still pretty impressive considering that each face is about 60 feet long. Then afterwards grandpa fell asleep. I decided to take a little side tour through the badlands. I didn't have the heart to tell him that the "butts" where actually called buttes. We are now in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I took a splash down the water slide at our hotel water park and then sat in the hot tub. It was nice.

My trip blog was interupted because I haven't had access to the internet in days. I'll continue from where I left off.

Days 4 and 5: Thursday evening we arrived Nauvoo. We got to watch all the cute senior missionary couples do their little musical "rondevouz in old navuoo" ( I think that's how it is spelled). We also lucked out because we pretty much came after tourist season. The town was empty. When we woke up on Friday grandpa decided he wanted to stay for an extra day. I was pretty happy about that because that meant I could do a lot of the things that I wanted to do there anyway. We watched the new movie about Joseph Smith in the morning and walked around the temple. Then we took a carriage ride all around Nauvoo. In the afternoon we drove to Carthage and were able to go into the Carthage Jail and actually be in the place where Joseph and Hyrum smith were both martyrd. Grandpa and I both didn't feel like we should take pictures there. I also took some time that evening to just walk around. It was really amazing to actually be in the places where the early Saints were and where they struggled so much as they were persecuted and forced out of Illinois before treking to the Utah valley.

Day 6: We finally arrived. Once again I was back to sleeping on an air mattress. We ate dinner at a zum something or other ( A German restaurant in the German Village). It was very good...I had Snitzel with Spatzle (not the dog)...yum. Then I dropped grandpa off at the hotel and we said our goodbyes. It was really nice to be able to spend this week with grandpa Al. Maybe we should do it again....