Caves, Coolness, and Camping

Day 4 (July 24, 2010)

When we woke up in the morning, we went into the caves. It was so weird. It was totally warm outside and the second we hit the caves, we cooled down a ton. It was super dark in the caves and kinda creepy, but I was glad to be with 3 big, strong men. Once we got deep enough into the cave, I started slipping on ice... yes, ICE! Can you believe it? The middle of summer and there's ice just a few hundred yards into the cave! I mean, that's so amazing! This is how the people lived back in the day, before houses and air conditioning and running water. It reminds me of Mexico and the cenotes. I mean, these natural things are amazing. The world has them everywhere. And then, on this same day we drove up to Yellowstone and spent 3 days looking at so many more wonderful natural wonders of the world. Wow, this world is truly amazing. And to think... the Celestial kingdom will be even better. Actually, the Telestial kingdom (the lowest kingdom of heaven) is going to even be so much more beautiful and amazing than this earth. WOW! God is so good.

After admiring the caves for an hour or so, we packed up our stuff and hit the road for Yellowstone. Our first stop inside of Yellowstone National Park was Celestine Pool. It was very cool. If you don't think so, then you're a fool. Okay, I'm done. Anyway, it was awesome for real. It's like this big huge, steaming, clear, blue pool in the middle of nowhere. I don't get it. How does that happen? Well, it does, and I'm just glad I got to see it and experience it in my life.

The next stop was the Old Faithful Inn. We didn't actually see Old Faithful... just the inn. But they had delicious ice cream! And the building was cool. There were all these weird stairs going up in different directions. And you can see them all from down below. But they don't let people up to the top anymore, I guess it's a fire hazard. But we got to go up to the second floor and sit on a cool bench to eat our ice cream and admire the structure. But Mikey totally missed out. He decided to sleep in the car and when he woke up later and found out we ate ice cream without him... he was upset. *giggle* Oh, the anger of a fat man :-) I love you, Mikey!

We decided to keep the site seeing short this day, so after the Inn we headed to our camp to set up the tent and start dinner. We decided to follow the directions on the tent bag this time and the tent turned out much more stable. It was great!

Road Trip

Wow! It's taken me long enough to finish writing about Boston, huh? I can't believe what a procrastinator I am. It's awful. Anyway, I guess my next project should be to write about the next trip I took, which was a road trip to Yellowstone.

A couple of weeks after I got back from Boston, I wanted to go up to Idaho to pick up Chris from school at BYU-Idaho. He doesn't have a car so I wanted to drive up and help him get his stuff back home to California. Chris and I figured we might as well make a trip out of it, so we decided to go to Yellowstone, which is only 2 hours from Rexburg (where he goes to school). I'm not a big camper, but I figured it would be fun if I had some people with me who knew what they were doing. So I tried to round up some campers. Nobody can commit to anything these day, so it ended up just being Me, Chris, Mikey (my cousin's son), and Dennis (the famed and wonderful non-blood family member). Since Dennis lives in Utah, it was just Mikey and me for the road trip up there.

Day 1

The drive wasn't very eventful, but it wasn't bad either. We made it to Utah in a day and stayed with Dennis. We slept good that night. Day 2. In the morning, Mikey and I visited with some friends I have up in Utah (like Rebekah, my roomie from Mexico). Then Mikey and I drove the Alpine Loop with Alyssa (one of my other roommates in Mexico). The drive was beautiful, I had never seen it in the summer. Only in the fall when all the leaves are their different colors.

That night, we went to Salt Lake City with Alyssa, Courtney Roberts, and Lauren and Caity (two sisters who live in Provo and used to be my neighbors at the Bountiful Court). We had fun and saw one of the visitor's centers, but didn't get to stay for long.

Day 3

On day 3, we woke up and packed Dennis's truck up with all our camping gear and headed for Idaho to pick up Chris. The drive seemed long, especially with Dennis driving. It's funny watching him drive. He's normally such a calm, laid-back person. But when it comes to his car and driving, he's a whole new man. You'll see later about how he does with dirt in his car. In the meantime, I will tell you that he has road rage. He doesn't yell, but he calls names. I can't even tell you how many times I heard someone called a "dillhole" during this trip.

As we were driving behind a truck (that was driving just a little too slow), Dennis said, "Have you ever had a smudge on your windshield and used it as a laser to blow up the stupid people in front of you?"

I had to hold back a laugh since I was mad at him at the moment and didn't want him to know that he made me smile. But I was holding back my laugh for 5 minutes.

Finally, we got to Rexburg and packed up the back of Dennis's truck with all of Chris's stuff, since he was moving out of his apartment. Then we hit Walmart for food and last minute camping supplies. Because it was late, and we didn't have reservations for Yellowstone till the next day, we drove out into the middle of nowhere to camp for the night. Chris wanted to show us these ice caves, so we camped right near them so we could see them in the morning.

That night, we set up our tent for the 1st time. It was wobbly and we just knew we must had done something wrong, but we dealt with it since it was only for one night.

Day 11 (Final Day... and Possibly the Best Day)

This day was a great day to end the trip! It was inspirational and happy and full of fun times. The first thing we did was go to Boston Commons. It's a park where they have the Swan Boats. The kids had been wanting to go on these boats the whole trip. We would have gone earlier, but we went earlier and they were closed, plus we wanted to wait so the kids could go with their friends from the group. The Swan Boats are pretty cool. Very relaxing. They fill up each boat and then there's a "driver." I guess you could call him that, but the driver dude basically pedals for the whole boat (more than 10 people). Yeah, all the drivers had  nice legs. I'd like that job.

After that we headed to see Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower. It was cool to see all of that, but the best part of  the day was the Celebration U.S.A. performance. I don't know if you could really call it a performance. They all lined up in a shady spot in the grass near the Mayflower to sing their songs. They didn't put their costumes on because of the heat (and I think partly because they figured nobody would watch except for all of us family members that were around). Lots of the parents were upset because it wasn't a real performance. They paid all this money to have some guys come set up a big speaker system, but really just were just singing for the passerby.

Well, as the parents clapped loudly and tried to be a good audience, the kids sang and danced and did their thing. Then, something quite amazing happened. The group was singing their medley of all the songs of each branch of the military. And within their medley, they have words of thanks that they give to all of the men and women serving this country. Whenever I hear them sing this particular song, I always feel goosebumps, but this time was especially special (can I say that?). First of all, because during the song, our audience became larger and larger, and second, because after the song was over, a young man came over to our group to ask about them. Paula (the leader) told him about who we are and he said, with tears, that he had been down the road, looking at Plymouth Rock, when he heard a group of children thanking him for his service to this country. So he came over and saw the group singing. It made him so happy to know that people actually appreciate what he does. He is a member of the Marines and was so pleased to see us performing (even if it was just for a small audience). It may have been small, but if it made a difference for just one man, then I think it was worth the effort.

After that, Paula decided to tell her story to our small audience about how and why she started this Celebration group. She grew up in Holland during World War II and in the midst of this awful war, the Americans came and dropped food to the people in Holland, to Paula's family. From then on, Paula felt great love for America and all that it stands for. Her family moved to the United States. Paula eventually became a substitute teacher. One day, as the kids were saying the Pledge of Allegiance, she asked them, "What does indivisible mean?" Most of the kids said that it means you can't see it. And that is when Paula decided to help American children understand the meaning of freedom, unity, and all of the things that this country stands for.

Big Guns

Jelly fish in the water by the ship

July 6th was a hot day. I know, I know... I always say that. But this day was especially hot. Today we went to see the U.S.S. Constitution, which is a boat. It's a U.S. Navy boat. An old one. On the bottom level of the boat (or a guess a better word would be ship) are 24 pound long guns. Now, I'm not quite sure what that means, but they looked like cannons to me. One of the navy guys said that they are only called cannons on land, but on the ship they are called guns. And each one weighs as much as a small SUV.

After the ship, we went to... the State Capitol Building, I think. We entered in the General Hooker Entrance. Now, I still have no idea what this means, but it was funny so I took a picture with it. I thought prostitution was illegal in Massachusetts, but they have an entrance just for the hookers in their very own State Capitol Building.

Fulfilled a Life Goal!

Today we went to Concord. There, we saw Louisa May Alcott's house. For those of you who are uneducated, Alcott is the lady who wrote Little Women. Just kidding. I didn't know who she was at first either. Okay, so I'm not kidding. We really did go to her house. But I am kidding about you being uneducated if you didn't know who she was. The house was... cool. Well, actually it was hot, but I guess it was cool, figuratively speaking. Maybe cool isn't the word. It was, interesting maybe. Milder than interesting actually. Anyway, there wasn't enough room for some of us to take the tour (since we went with the huge celebration group), but I hung out in the shop and outside on a bench. And it was quite hot out. And humid too. Not quite as bad as Mexico. Nothing too exciting happened, but I did watch a mosquito bite my leg... as if I didn't have enough bites already from Mexico.

Next we went to the Minute Man National Park. This is where the Shot Heard Around the World was. It's what they call the first shot fired of the Revolutionary War. The location of the park is where the first battle was. There was also a very nice little river running through the area. Concord River. We saw some guy kayaking in it.

Okay, our next stop was the "Nubble" Lighthouse in Maine. Yes, we got to go to a whole different state this day! That's just one more state off my list (I have to get to them all before I die). On the way to Maine, we drove past Walden Pond. Yes, that is THE Walden Pond of Henry David Thoreau. But let me warn you. Walden Pond is not a pond! It's a freaking lake! The thing is huge! I always imagined Walden Pond to be small. Like maybe 30 feet wide. 100 at most. But no, this was definitely a lake. I looked at a map on my cell phone and saw that there was a lake called Suntaug Lake, just a few miles from Walden Pond and Suntaug LAKE is about half the size of Walden Pond. Weird.

Okay, so we made it to the lighthouse. All I can say is that it was beautiful! I thought of my Aunt Pam, who passed away years ago. But she loved lighthouses. She would have loved it. It was right on the beach and this area of beautiful rocks. There was also a small puddle of water in the rocks where I'm sure the ocean water makes it up to during high tide. But since it wasn't high tide, all the rocks were dry, but in this little puddle of water was like its own little world. It was so cool. It was like its own little ecosystem with miniature animals in their miniature homes.

 

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at Pine Grove Cemetery in New Hampshire. I wanted to visit something in New Hampshire so I could cross that state off my list. And to cross a state off my list I have to actually do something there, not just drive through it. So we stopped at this awesome little cemetery. It looked old. And it was! I found a tombstone from the 1600s.

Independence Day

The 4th of July has always been one of my favorite holidays. I dunno what it is, but I just love it. I think it's because everybody just seems so united on Independence day. Everyone is friendly and happy. I've never spent the holiday outside of my home town, Anaheim... until this year, that is. It was such a wonderful experience and I'm so glad I was able to go. The girls performed in another parade. The one in Boston that ends at Faneuil Hall. The girls then performed again in Faneuil Hall for the mayor and everyone else in there. The man who sang the National Anthem was amazing!!!

We went to lunch afterward at McCormic & Schmick's.After that I shopped a little with Mom.

Me with a purple motorcycle!


In Faneuil Hall


Me, the singer, and Emily getting his autograph

Day 7... The Salem Witch Museum

Okay, so the whole reason we all came to Boston was because Emily, Grace, and Katie were performing in a patriotic group. It's called Celebration U.S.A. and they were invited to perform on the 4th of July in Boston. We (as a family) decided to come to Boston a few days early. Well today was the first day that the big Celebration group arrived.

We decided to meet them all in Salem to go to the Salem Witch Museum. On the way there, in the car, Emily randomly yelled, "HOOTERS!!!!" I admit it's quite a delicious restaurant, but I didn't realize Emily loved it so much. So random. Then, Kelly noticed a place called Bunghole Liquors. I think we all peed our pants laughing. We are so immature.



So, the museum, it's a tiny museum and quite strange. I learned a little about witches, and stereotypes... nothing too special. Afterward we went to The Lobster Shanty which is a dive from that television show that Kelly watches.

After that we met the kids' group at the Gloucester House restaurant and hung out. The kids practiced a little and then went off to do a parade in the city of Gloucester.