Utah - This is the place...

...at least the place where we have (finally) arrived!

Whew, what a trip! Mom, the girls and I got up early on Wednesday morning and took off. We stayed Northwest of Dallas the first night, Albuquerque the second night, and arrived here in Southern Utah last night at about 7:30. Bestroute and Mapquest both gave us an estimated time of 27 hours, but it took us closer to 30. We drove a little over 8 hours the first day and 11 hours each of the other two days. Of course, this is also traveling with children which means more frequent and longer stops.

It was really windy all the way through Texas and up until Albuquerque. That might have slowed us down too, or at least didn't help our gas mileage at all!

We also took a little detour yesterday and went through the Navajo and Hopi nations. That was the first time I'd ever been there and it was really interesting. We went to the villages of Walpi and Oraibi (Oraibi has been continuously inhabited since 1100 AD) and they were fascinating to see the houses built right on top (and on the edges!) of the mesas. We went to the Hopi museum and had Hopi tacos at the restaurant there. You are asked not to take pictures, so I don't have anything to post, but if you are interested in these places you should google it!

Our next stop was at Navajo Bridge near Lee's Ferry, where we stopped and let the girls buy a necklace and bracelet. I have a picture of them on the bridge holding up their jewelry - I'll have to post when I locate the cable I need to hook up to my mom's computer (they don't have wireless).

Finally, we stopped at my mom's favorite place on earth, Jacob Lake (north of the north rim Grand Canyon). We had ice cream there and went on a Kaibab Squirrel hunt while we ate our ice cream. Didn't see anything. Finally, we made our way across the border and the girls had a screaming frenzy for awhile, they were so excited.

My mom and dad's place looks great - I'll have to take some pictures and do a post about that. They've changed their yard around since I've been here and started doing box gardening. It looks great, and like something I might try to do myself.

After 1700+ miles, about 10 movies on the DVD player, and who knows how much money in gas, this is what we have learned:

1. Texas is big (even when you driving through the "little" part of the state).
2. Do not open doors on the interstate (yes, Ashlyn actually thought she'd try this!).
3. Watch for wild dogs on the highway through the Hopi nation (we had to swerve to miss one).
4. My girls actually get along pretty well (we had very few fights or irritations).
5. We all suffer from tb (tired bum) and sf (stinky feet). This is what Morgan named them.
6. The Gardner family will be flying on long trips from now on. I think by the time you add everything up it's really not saving much money to drive! I'm not excited to think about turning around and doing it again in a few weeks! Maybe I'll sell the car while I'm here and fly home. There's a thought.

We are excited to see all of our friends and family over the next few weeks. We miss Doug, and I'm thinking it was pretty silly of us to do this for such a long time without him. I'm feeling really badly now about leaving him alone all this time! But he is staying really busy with work and church (now he won't have me to nag him about it so he can have all his late-night church meetings he wants and travel all over for his job without me whining!) and hopefully he'll get it out of his system, lol!

Doug will fly into Vegas on the 28th and spend a week with us. My brother Ryan is blessing his new baby Holden on the 6th of July, and we'll probably take off right after that so Doug can get back to work early that following week. I'll post a couple of pictures once I get my setup.