The continuing journey

I am still working with my primary care doctor and the cardiologists to try to determine what, if anything, is going on with my heart these days. We are pretty certain I have one. It is an ongoing journey of discovery.

Yesterday morning I went to LDS Hospital and had an ultrasound on the carotid arteries in my neck. I will not know the result of the carotid artery study until probably sometime next week, although I did ask the technician who did it what it looked like. He said he was not a doctor and could not really tell me, but he did show me the images and pointed out where it appears there is some plaque built up along the artery walls, more so in the artery on the left side than the right.

Next Wednesday, June 4, I am scheduled to have a cardiac electrophysiological study (ESP) done at Salt Lake Regional Medical Center. That is something similar to the angiogram I had nearly two months ago, but rather than checking out the plumbing of my heart they will be checking on the electrical functions. The procedure is similar in that in both types they go to the heart through an insertion in the groin area. I will be in the hospital much of Wednesday and, if they end up putting in a pacemaker or defribillator or long-term under-the-skin monitor, I will stay overnight. That is the likely scenario.

Someone from the billing office there called me a couple days ago and wanted me to pay upfront my 10 percent of the cost of the ESP procedure. My portion? $1,378. I commented that $13,780 seemed awfully expensive, and she replied that if I go ahead and have the pacemaker put in, which is a likely outcome of the procedure, that will cost another $150,000-something. Wow! And I had been flabergasted that the angiogram I had done at the new Intermountain Medical Center on April 3 had cost more than $5,000 just for the hospital's portion, not counting what the doctor charged.

Another piece of evidence

Typically state songs attach themselves to actual states. Hence, we share one more piece of evidence that there really is a North Dakota.

Anna can attest to the truth of the third line in the third stanza (which we've highlighted in blue): "Sweet the winds above thee blowing." The wind was pretty much blowing the entire time we were in the state, including while she was running the marathon.

North Dakota Hymn
Written by James W. Foley
Composed by Dr. C. S. Putnam

North Dakota, North Dakota,
With thy prairies wide and free,
All thy sons and daughters love thee,
Fairest state from sea to sea;
North Dakota, North Dakota,
Here we pledge ourselves to thee.

Here thy loyal children singing,
Songs of happiness and praise,
Far and long the echoes ringing,
Through the vastness of thy ways;
North Dakota, North Dakota,
We will serve thee all our days.

Onward, onward, onward going,
Light of courage in thine eyes,
Sweet the winds above thee blowing,
Green thy fields and fair thy skies;
North Dakota, North Dakota,
Brave the soul that in thee lies.

God of freedom, all victorious,
Give us Souls serene and strong,
Strength to make the future glorious,
Keep the echo of our song;
North Dakota, North Dakota,
In our hearts forever long.

In search of North Dakota (day 7)

Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah

The Cody Cowboy Village offered only a continental breakfast (compared to the full breakfast offered at the Country Inn & Suites places we had stayed in all the other nights). We ate and packed, filled the car with gas (Pete's Volkswagen Jetta wagon takes diesel), and continued west on what was now combined U.S. routes 14, 16, and 20.

A little ways up the canyon, perhaps eight or ten miles, we went through a long tunnel and stopped at Buffalo Bill Dam and visitor center. The dam was built from 1905 to 1910 on the Shoshone River and at the time of its completion was at 350 feet the highest dam in the world. It was originally called the Shoshone Dam, but was renamed the Buffalo Bill Dam by President Harry S. Truman in the late 1940s.

A while later we had to stop and wait for three buffalo to amble across the road in front of us. We soon entered the east entrance into Yellowstone National Park. The road had just opened a couple weeks earlier, and there was still snow on both sides right up to the edge of the road. In the higher elevations it was higher than our car. This was the first time any of us had been in the eastern portion of the park, and I thought it was a much more dramatic entrance than coming in from the west. After descending from an 8,000-something-foot pass, we had a spectacular view of Yellowstone Lake, which was still mostly covered with ice. Anna read that it is the largest mountain lake in the United States or North America or some such thing.

We continued through the park until we came to Old Faithful. The only animals we saw were herds of buffalo. At Old Faithful we watched the geyser erupt and then fixed noodles for our lunch. There we saw some very large black birds that may have been crows but were really huge.

We left the Old Faithful area about 2:30, continued up to Madison Junction, following alongside the Firehole River, and out the west entrance of the park, following the Madison River. We left Wyoming and entered Montana again before leaving the park. We continued through West Yellowstone on U.S. 20 and soon entered Idaho. We passed through Ashton, St. Anthony, Rexburg, and Rigby to Idaho Falls. As we drove by Rexburg, we saw the new temple that was just dedicated earlier this year.

We rejoined I-15 at Idaho Falls, having come full circle since the beginning of our trip. We were going to stop and see Peter's sister Marta, who had just moved to Idaho Falls on Saturday, but she didn't return their call until we were on the freeway south of Idaho Falls. I called Rachael and told her we would stop in for supper in about an hour and a half to two hours. It took us closer to the hour and a half to reach Malad. Rachael kindly fed us breakfast for supper: pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, that sort of stuff. We helped her with the meal and with the baby. Robert came home from work, hurriedly ate, and went off to a school board meeting concerning his becoming a basketball coach.

After about a two-hour visit, and even toying with the idea of spending the night, we decided to press on home. Just as we were crossing the border from Idaho into Utah, I called Claudia to tell her where we were. She was very excited, since she was expecting us back tomorrow evening.

We arrived in Bountiful about nine o'clock. Peter and Anna dropped me off. They still had to drive home to Salt Lake City. Peter, who had driven the entire 2,700-mile trip, looked very tired.

My calculations, based on Google Maps, is that we drove more than 2,656 miles: the first day 609 miles from Salt Lake City to Billings, the second day 610 miles from Billings to Fargo, the fifth day 577 miles from Fargo to Rapid City, the sixth day 407 miles from Rapid City to Cody, and the seventh day 453 miles from Cody through Yellowstone to home.

Only twice during the entire seven-day trip did we actually eat out, both times in Fargo: the Friday night before the marathon, and Saturday afternoon after the marathon. All the other times we were having breakfast in our motels and fixing our own lunches, dinners, and snacks from food Peter and Anna had brought, and our final supper at Rachael's house in Malad.

Peter and Anna are great traveling companions. In my estimation, as road trips go, it had been a great trip.

In search of North Dakota (day 6)

Monday, May 19, 2008
South Dakota, Wyoming

We began the day with our standard morning routine (eat in the motel, get ready for the day, pack the car, and hit the road). Packing the car always takes a bit of effort—after everything else is in its proper place, Peter then has to add the bicycle rack on the back of the car and secure his bicycle so it doesn't decide to come loose during our travels at high speeds on the highway.

We left Rapid City and drove up into the Black Hills to Mount Rushmore National Monument and spent a couple hours there. We took a scenic loop down toward Custer (it was all scenic, actually) and refueled the car and ate our lunch at a park there. Originally we had planned to go through Jewel Cave, but Anna was still stiff from her marathon and the hiking we did at Mount Rushmore pretty much did her in.

All this area was familiar to me and brought back a flood of pleasant memories from the summer of 2004 when Michael and Shauna and their then four kids, Talmage and Ben, and Claudia and I spent a week here in the Black Hills seeing all these sites and driving through all these various mountains. Ben, who was three years old at the time, referred to the place as Mount Mushmore, but he could proudly recite the names of the four presidents whose images were carved into the mountainside: Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln. That trip had been then-six-year-old Caleb's idea and plan, and we thought he did a good job.

This was Pete and Anna's first visit to Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills.

After fixing our lunch in the park in Custer, we headed west on U.S. 16 into Wyoming and continued through Newcastle until we joined I-90 at Moorcroft. We traveled west on the freeway for nearly a hundred miles. At Buffalo we left the freeway and took U.S. 16 again up and over the Bighorn Mountains toward Worlund, which is in the Bighorn Basin. We went over a summit that was 9,666 feet high. A very scenic drive.

We arrived in Cody, at the western edge of the Bighorn Basin, around 7:30 and stayed at the western end of town at the Cody Cowboy Village, where each unit was a separate cabin. Pete again fixed our supper on his JetBoil, and we ate. The weather had been pleasant, though somewhat windy, but turned cooler after the sun went down. We went and sat for a while in the 35-person hot tub, which felt nice, although I just sat on the edge and put my feet in. Since it was all outside, I didn't care to freeze my entire body after getting out of the warm water and walking back in the night cold to our cabin.

In search of North Dakota (day 5)

Sunday, May 18, 2008
North Dakota, South Dakota

We slept in, ate the motel's breakfast, got ready for the day, packed the car, and at a little before ten (our standard departure time) we pulled onto I-29 and headed south down the east side of North Dakota. We stopped at a rest stop half way down South Dakota and fixed lunch. When I-29 intersected with I-90 just before Sioux Falls, we turned west and headed off into the sunset (except that it was still the middle of the afternoon, but it would be sunset by the time we traveled all the way across the state to Rapid City).

As we traveled along I-90 we passed a statue of the World's Largest Steer's Head (they seem to be big on things like that here in the Dakotas), the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder (who wrote the Little House on the Prairie books), the Corn Palace in Mitchell, and a statue of what we presumed to be the World's Largest Prairie Dog. Much of the way we listened to the recording of Nicholas Evans's book The Divide.

Midway across South Dakota we stopped at an impressive rest stop that was a Lewis and Clark interpretive museum and that had a scenic overlook of the Missouri River at the spot where two centuries ago the Corps of Discovery encamped on the west bank of the Missouri both going to (in 1804) and returning from (1806) their legendary trip to the Pacific.

Father west we exited the freeway at the east entrance to Badlands National Park and took the scenic loop through the park. Very impressive. Besides the incredible layered rock formations, we saw multitudes of prairie dogs and a couple of antelope feeding.

We rejoined the freeway at Wall and continued west. Though enticed by signs advertising it all the way across the state (and even some as we headed south on I-29 before getting on I-90), we did not stop at the famous Wall Drug.

Just before reaching Rapid City at sunset (we were now back in the Mountain time zone, and it was about 8:30), a dark thunderstorm with violent winds rocked our car and put some raindrops on our windshield). We stayed at our third Country Inn and Suites, were we fixed a late supper in our room.

In search of North Dakota (day 4)

Saturday, May 17, 2008
North Dakota

Race day. We were up early, ate a quick breakfast, and like pretty much everyone else in town, it seemed, we were off to the Fargodome, where the marathon was to begin. Traffic was slow, but we arrived and parked a half hour before race time.

The race began at eight o'clock. It was the first marathon I've been to that began with the singing of "O Canada" and "The Star-Spangled Banner" and the saying of a prayer. Anna was among the thousands of runners in the race, Peter on his bicycle, and I on the spectator shuttle bus. It was a gorgeous day. There was no or little wind at first, but it picked up midway through the race.

The shuttle bus was not at all what it was cracked up to be. There were no signs as to where it was supposed to stop, so I asked where to find it and was told it would stop on the west side of the Fargodome. No one else was there, and after waiting for a period of time, I circled back around the Fargodome and was told the bus stopped on the south side. Even though it was scheduled to come every fifteen minutes, I waited with a handful of other people for nearly forty-five minutes before it actually showed up. By then I calculated that Anna would already have passed mile seven, the first of two stops the shuttle was scheduled to make, so I and several others stayed on and went to the second stop at mile twenty-one. The bus driver did not seem to know for sure where he was supposed to be going and let us off many blocks from where the runners would pass by.

About four of us—a lady from central Illinois, a lady from somewhere in Minnesota, a young black kid, and I—had really bonded by now, as we made our way to the race site, leaving us feeling like we should exchange Christmas cards or something. Our spectator site was in a beautiful spot—a golf course on one side, the Red River on the other. Anna finally ran by, I displayed one of my signs, and actually ran beside her for a dozen yards or so.

I then walked back to where the shuttle bus had said it would return. The friendly black kid said he'd been waiting there for forty-five minutes and nothing had come. I concluded that if I wanted to see Anna cross the finish line, I'd better walk back the nearly two miles to the Fargodome. I did, and she finished shortly thereafter.

Most of the race course was in Fargo, but a portion of it was in Moorehead, so Anna actually ran in both North Dakota and Minnesota.

Anna's time was four hours and sixteen minutes, not as fast as she had wanted, so she could qualify for Boston, but respectable nonetheless. Her ankle, which had been causing her such grief the past couple months, did not bother her at all. She was 168th out of 504 women in the marathon, 666th out of all 1,440 people who finished, and second out of four people here from Utah. Peter thought we should have carpooled or something.

This was Anna's eighth marathon. She has now run in five states: Alaska, California, Utah, Idaho, and now North Dakota.

In search of North Dakota (day 3)

Friday, May 16, 2008
North Dakota, Minnesota

North Dakota, we learned from our atlas, is the forty-eighth most populous state in the country. Only Vermont and Wyoming have fewer people. Fargo is North Dakota's biggest city.

Today was a quiet, non-travel day. After sleeping in and then eating a late breakfast at the motel, Peter had to take part in a conference call for his work. After he did that, we then packed a light lunch of fruit and peanut-butter-and-jam sandwiches and headed out to explore the city. We decided we liked Fargo.

As a part of our drive, we crossed the Red River of the North, the border between North Dakota and Minnesota, and visited a part of Fargo's sister city, Moorehead, Minnesota. We came back across a different bridge and parked along Broadway in downtown Fargo and walked through downtown until we came to a large park near the river. We ate our lunch at a picnic table shaded by large trees. The day was warm and windy.

While Peter walked back to get the car, Anna and I walked across a low foot bridge that spanned the Red River. It was only a foot or two above the surface of the water. Midway across the bridge, standing somewhere between North Dakota on the west bank and Minnesota on the east, we called home to Utah to talk to Mom. We walked on down the Minnesota side to a little waterfall and then returned to our picnic table to await Peter's return.

The Red River, contrary to what I had supposed, flows north into Canada and empties eventually into Lake Winnipeg.

We drove next to the Fargodome, where Anna picked up her race packet for tomorrow morning's marathon and I bought a five-dollar ticket to ride the spectator shuttle bus. Peter will be on his bicycle. We scoped out the last few miles of the marathon route and returned to the motel and took naps. And I read the entire May 19 issue of U.S. News & World Report. I typically take two or even three days to read an issue.

It was very windy by this evening as we went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant, Grazies, so Anna could bulk up on carbohydrates. Our waitress, a student at North Dakota State University, will be helping with the marathon tomorrow and said she'd see Anna at mile twenty-five. We have found people here in North Dakota to be particularly friendly.

We returned to the motel, and Anna and I played a game of Bananagrams, a Scrabble-like tile game. Anna won.

Late in the evening, beginning here at 9:50 Central daylight time, the Jazz and the Lakers played game six of their playoff in Salt Lake City. I watched the miserable first quarter or so, then turned off the TV in my room and went to sleep. Peter and Anna saw it through to the end. I did not learn until the next morning that game six became the last game. The Jazz lost on their home court and thus ended their season.

In search of North Dakota (day 2)

Thursday, May 15, 2008
Montana, North Dakota

Today was to be the big day, the day of discovery, to settle once and for all whether there really is a place such as North Dakota or whether—like the Loch Ness monster, the land of Oz, or the Bermuda Triangle—it is a thing of fantasy, of make believe, of wishful thinking.

After a good night's sleep, and sleeping in a little, Anna and I used the treadmills in the motel's exercise room. Peter went to the pool. We ate from the motel's full hot breakfast selections, packed our things, loaded the car, and were on the road again by about a quarter to ten.

East of Billings, as we now traveled along I-94, we started listening to a CD of interesting half-hour episodes of This American Life, an NPR radio show. While listening, as we traveled along through eastern Montana, Peter driving, Anna in the front passenger seat, I right behind her, I started feeling very nauseous, then broke out into a cold sweat, got very dizzy, and felt exceedingly sick. Here we were out in the middle of nowhere, and I was feeling awful. I did not know if it were some reaction to the two Imodium pills I had taken just as we were leaving Billings or if it were car sickness (which I have never before suffered) or whatever illness has been plaguing me the past couple days. Whatever the reason, I was very, very sick. So I slouched down into my seat and tried sleeping it off. I do not know how long I slept, but after some miles I felt a little better, and we stopped at a rest area somewhere before Glendive to take a bathroom break and to eat our lunch. I reverted to my safer diet of banana, applesauce, and water.

For at least the last hundred miles yesterday on I-90 before we reached Billings, and again today on I-94 until we crossed the river a final time at Glendive, the freeway paralleled the course of the Yellowstone River as it coursed its way east and north toward its confluence with the Missouri River in northeastern Montana. We crossed it a number of times, so sometimes it was to our left, at other times off to the right of us.

For a number of years members of our family have doubted the existence of North Dakota. As we came to the border between Montana and North Dakota, we pulled off to the side of the road to take pictures of the Welcome to North Dakota sign to serve as evidence to the skeptics back home that there really is such a place. Unless, of course, it is all a part of a vast hoax (similar to that depicted in the Truman Show), but if it is it's on a rather grand scale because we spent a good part of the day driving across some 350 miles of it.

The first exit in North Dakota was to a town called Beach, seemingly an odd name for a spot in the center of the continent so removed from any beaches. We stopped there to refuel the car.

Later in the afternoon, as we continued across the state on I-94, we saw a humongous statue of a cow on a hilltop near New Salem, learning later from a brochure at a rest stop that it was Salem Sue, the World's Largest Holstein Cow. We are not making this up.

We also passed Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the Badlands of western North Dakota and in the middle of the state crossed the Missouri River just before driving through the state capital at Bismarck. Somewhere in the eastern half of the state we saw a huge statue of a buffalo, rivaling our friendly holstein further west, although we cannot verify if it is the World's Largest Buffalo.

Across the last part of Montana and continuing across most of North Dakota we were listening on CD to an audio book entitled Divide.

We reached Fargo this evening around eight o'clock Central daylight time, having crossed from the Mountain to Central time zone somewhere in western North Dakota (although sooner than the map in our atlas showed we would). We found the Country Inn & Suites and checked into the two-room suite that will be our home for the next three nights. We fixed black beans, Spanish rice, and tamales for our supper in our motel room and watched an episode of Lost and the ten o'clock news.

With North Dakota today, I have now been in forty-five of the fifty states. With the prospect of going into Minnesota tomorrow, which is just across the river from Fargo, that will make forty-six. Not counting my imminent visit to Minnesota, I have not yet been in Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, or Wisconsin.

In search of North Dakota (day 1)

Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Utah, Idaho, Montana

Our road trip began this morning at ten minutes to ten when we pulled onto northbound I-15 at Bountiful. We had planned to leave at eight, but Pete and Anna called from Salt Lake to say they were running at least an hour behind. After they picked me up, and said our goodbyes, we had to stop at Dick's Market to buy some Imodium. I had had a nasty case of diarrhea during the night, and continuing that on a long car ride was not a happy prospect.

Peter drove the entire day. An hour and a half into the trip, we stopped in Malad to visit Rachael and the girls for a few moments and take a potty break. Robert, the small town doctor, was actually home from work because he too was having diarrhea out both ends. Doctors are not supposed to get sick.

We headed back to the freeway, driving on the road north of Malad that has the boot fence, and continued north on I-15 through the Marsh Valley (where we turn off every summer to go to Lava Hot Springs), past Pocatello, Blackfoot, Idaho Falls, into a part of Idaho I am not at all familiar with. I'd been this way only once before, years ago, when as a college student after my mission a group of us drove all the way up to Lethbridge, Alberta, over a long weekend. Oh, the crazy things college kids do.

We stopped in Spencer, Idaho, a tiny little down that bills itself as the Opal Capital of the World, to use the restrooms in the shabby little store and eat our lunch in the car. A brisk, cold wind was blowing from the north or northwest. My diarrhea had not recurred on the trip, but to play it safe I was limiting myself to applesauce, bananas, and water.

We crossed into Montana and continued north on I-15 until it intersected with I-90 just west of Butte. What we saw of western Montana, north along I-15 from the 6,800-plus-foot-high Monida Pass at the Montana-Idaho border to near Butte, and then east along I-90 from Butte to Billings, was a very scenic drive.

It was overcast much of the day and actually rained off and on. Forty-some miles west of Billings, our destination for the day, we saw a double rainbow and took that as a good omen for our trip.

We reached Billings about seven-thirty this evening and checked into our room at the Country Inn & Suites. After unloading the car, we fixed supper in our room, some kind of pasta. I was finally ready to eat real food and had the salad I passed on in Spencer when Pete and Anna ate theirs. I also had a little of the pasta.

Then we watched game 5 of the Jazz-Lakers playoff series being played in Los Angeles. The Lakers won, something like 111 to 106, so the series is now three to two as it shifts back to Salt Lake City on Friday night.

I called Mom on my cell just after we entered Montana this afternoon. And again this evening from our motel room in Billings, but she did not answer, so I left a simple voice message.

Trip to Nauvoo

One of our favorite places to visit is Nauvoo, Illinois, an incredible place of beauty and history and spiritual refreshment. The city served as headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for a brief period in the early 1840s and over the past half century has been restored to allow modern visitors to imagine and experience and feel what it must have been like to be there when Joseph and Emma and thousands of others of our spiritual forebears walked its well-planned streets. Today a magnificent temple of the Lord overlooks the city and the wide sweep of the Mississippi River as it bends around the city, reminiscent of the first temple started by the Prophet Joseph and finished under the direction of Brother Brigham, his prophetic successor.

Through the years members of our family have made various pilgrimages to Nauvoo and Carthage and the kindred historical sites scatted across northern and western Missouri and the pioneer trail that headed westward across Iowa, Nebraska, and Wyoming to the Great Basin in the Rocky Mountains that today is Utah. The best way to experience these sites is a road trip, and what follows is my account of our most recent road trip, taken a year ago now, adapted from the account originally published in the May 21, 2007, issue of the Family Journal. For some of the travelers in our party, those who had recently married into our family, it was a first time to experience this trip.

On Friday evening, May 4, we left on our grand adventure to the Midwest. Talmage, Louise, Paul, Eliza, and Peter traveled in our minivan. Chris, Camilla, Sam, Claudia, and I traveled in a rented minivan. The rental was Robert’s Mother’s Day gift to Claudia. Camilla had graduated that morning from the University of Utah with a bachelor’s degree in teaching French. More than 7,000 graduates received de­grees. President Thomas S. Monson, an alumnus of the University, was given an honorary doctor’s degree and was the commencement speaker.

It was raining as we left Bountiful, and rained or snowed off and on all the way to Rawlins, Wyoming, where we spent the night in two adjoin­ing rooms in the Trave­Lodge.

There was snow all over the ground when we woke up Saturday morning, but the roads were clear. We continued east on I-80 through the rest of Wyoming and into Nebraska. In the mountains between Laramie and Cheyenne, we drove through a blizzard, and that was pretty scary.

Somewhere near the Wyoming–Nebraska border, we suddenly came upon a stretch of highway where hail had covered the road for a mile or so, and we saw all kinds of cars off the road, a couple upside down. And that was pretty scary too.

At Kimball, Nebraska, we stopped for lunch at a Runza drive-in, which are dotted across Nebraska and the fringes of neighboring states, famous for their Runza burgers. We kept en­countering thunder­storms off and on all across Nebraska with threats of tornado warn­ings nearby. Just before we reached Lincoln the rains dumped down so hard that our windshield wipers on their fastest speed weren’t enough to allow us to see the road. The freeway traffic slowed to about 30 miles per hour.

At Lincoln we exited I–80 and took Nebraska highway 2 heading southeast toward Nebraska City, where we crossed the Missouri River for the first time into Iowa. After a few miles, we entered Mis­souri, where we stopped for supper at a Subway in Rock Port. We arrived in Kansas City about 9:30 or 10:00, where we stayed with Jim and Arlette Fedor. Jim used to live in our ward in Bountiful and now works in Kansas City as a graphics artist or designer or some such thing for Hallmark. Arlette works for the U.S. Postal Service as a mail carrier.

The GPS unit Cade had loaned us, which Mom nicknamed Helen, was very helpful in getting us to unknown destinations, although a few times it tried to lead us astray.

We attended church with the Fedors Sunday morning. It was the first time we had ever heard announced in a sacrament meeting what to do if tornado sirens went off during church. We were supposed to gather in the north hallway. We thought that was going to be one crowded hall­way with a whole ward huddled in it.

In the late afternoon we visited the visitors’ center at the temple site in Independence. The heavy rains continued. Then we drove to Liberty and visited the visitors’ center at the Liberty Jail. That is always a moving experience and increases our appreciation for what the Prophet Joseph Smith had to suffer there.

We had a delightful stay at the Fedors and greatly appreciated their hospitality.

On Monday morning we returned to Independence to visit the Community of Christ temple. The building is interesting, but it surely has a different spirit than our Church sites. We then headed north to Far West and visited the temple site there. We tried to continue north on the same road, but a few miles north Shoal Creek had overflowed its banks and completely covered the road as a result of the rains all weekend. So we had to backtrack south and further east to travel on to Adam-ondi-Ahman.

At Adam-ondi-Ahman we encoun­tered a turtle that tried to terrorize Eliza.

Adam-ondi-Ahman is a beautiful, peaceful place. After visiting the sites where scenes from the beginning of the earth occurred and other events from the ending of the earth will yet occur, we drove to James­port, where we ate at an Amish restaurant that was quite good. We bought two pies, an apple and a gooseberry to eat when we were in Nauvoo. (It was the first time any of us had ever had gooseberry, and we decided we didn’t like it all that much.)

After we crossed over the Mississippi River into Illinois, we drove the fourteen miles up the scenic river road to Nauvoo as the sun was setting off to the west. The Nauvoo Illinois Temple was very impres­sive as we drove into town. We had a room in the Nauvoo Inn and Suites that accommodated all ten of us. That evening we watched the first game of the Utah Jazz and Golden State Warriors on the TV in our motel room. The Jazz won.

On Tuesday morning we began our visit to Nauvoo with a horse-drawn wagon tour of the historic sites. That gave us a good overview of what to see. (This was the first time that Louise, Chris, or Paul had ever been to Nauvoo or to any of the other Church history sites we were see­ing on the trip.)

The sites we saw on Tuesday included the garden with the women’s statues, the Scovill Bakery, the Family Living Center, the Cultural Hall, the blacksmith shop, and the brick-making place. In the evening all of us (except Chris, Camilla, and Sam) went to see “Rendezvous in Nauvoo,” put on in the Cultural Hall by the missionary couples in Nauvoo. After the show, we walked down the Trail of Hope as the sun was setting over the Mississippi. Back in our motel we watched the movie Second-Hand Lion that Talmage and Louise had brought on a DVD.

Wednesday morning Mom and I went through a session in the Nauvoo Temple. David Wright, who used to work with me at Church headquarters, is the recorder of the temple, and he took us up into the bell tower after the session. Mom only went half way up. I went all the way up, where I could see a gorgeous, panoramic view in all directions, including west across the Mississippi into Iowa, and east across the prairie fields of western Illinois. At noon Talmage, Louise, Chris, Camilla, Paul, Eliza, and I did a session, and Mom stayed in the motel with Sam and Peter. We did not see David this time, and the others did not get the tour of the rest of the temple. Afterward we got lunch at Zions Mercan­tile.

That afternoon we visited the Brown­ing home and gun shop, the post office, John Taylor’s home and print shop, and the drug store. We ate dinner at the Thyme and Seasons restaurant in our motel. We took pictures of the temple and watched game 2 of the Jazz–Warriors series. The Jazz won again.

Thursday morning we checked out of our room and visited the Smith family cemetery, the Prophet Joseph’s Red Brick Store, the Seventies Hall, the school, took a carriage ride to Inspiration Point, and ended up at the Land and Records Office, where Paul found information about ancestors who had lived in Nauvoo.

Thursday afternoon we drove to Carthage and visited the jail there where the Prophet Joseph and his brother Hyrum were martyred. We ate a late lunch at the nearby Dairy Queen and then drove across the state of Iowa to Council Bluffs, where we stayed in a Quality Inn and Suites. What took the pioneers months to cross Iowa in the late winter and early spring of 1846, after they were forced to leave Nauvoo, took us only hours by car.

Friday morning Talmage, Louise, Chris, Camilla, Paul, and Eliza went through a session in the Winter Quarters Nebraska Temple. Mom and I tended Sam and Peter and arrived at the temple about the time they finished their session. We went through the Winter Quarters Visitors’ Center and then crossed the Missouri River back over to the Iowa side to visit the Kanes­ville Tabernacle in Council Bluffs, where Brigham Young was first sustained as President of the Church.

We ate at another Runza and then spent the next six or seven hours driving across Nebraska to Scottsbluff. We stayed in a Comfort Inn and got a late supper from a Sonic drive-in, one of the few places we could find still open. About twenty miles before arriving in Scottsbluff, we saw Chimney Rock, an important landmark along the pioneer trail. It was lit up with floodlights so we could see it in the dark.

Saturday morning we visited Scott’s Bluff National Monument. The Oregon Trail, the California Trail, the Mormon Trail, and the Pony Express all passed through this area. We then drove to Casper, Wyoming, where we stopped for lunch at a JB’s restaurant. We drove another hour and came to Independence Rock, another important landmark along the pioneer trail. Everyone (except Mom and Sam) climbed to the top. We then went a few miles further and stopped at the Mormon Handcart Visitors’ Center, where we saw Devil’s Gate and Martin’s Cove. Everyone (except Mom and Sam) took handcarts and went up to the cove. A rattlesnake terrorized Eliza.

Saturday night we arrived again at Rawlins (where we had stayed the first night of the trip) and stayed in a dump of a motel, an old, dirty, bug-infested Econo­Lodge in the wrong part of town. Actual­ly, we decided everywhere in Rawlins was the wrong part of town. We ordered in pizza from the local Pizza Hut for a late supper.

We arose early Sunday morning (which was Mother’s Day) and got out of town as quickly as we could (even before the motel opened its free breakfast). Four hours later we arrived in Bountiful.

This little account outlines basically what we did and saw. It does not capture the feelings we had or the associ­ations we enjoyed or the things we learned. Perhaps some of the travelers’ blogs will add that dimension. From my perspective, it was one of the nicest vacations we’ve ever taken.

The trip was over, but the memories will linger for a long, long time.

Trip to Hurricane

Early Saturday morning, but not as early as we had originally planned, Claudia and I pulled out of our driveway and headed south on I-15 for four hours. That took us all the way to southern Utah, where we took the Hurricane exit and headed a few miles east to Kay and Karen's new house in a new subdivision of Hurricane. It had been a pleasant drive. I like early morning drives when it is still dark and you get to see the eastern sky come alive with light and the car is quiet and Claudia is asleep in the passenger seat. Actually, the car wasn't quiet the first couple of hours because I was listening to a radio talk show that finally faded into static somewhere in the middle of Utah. Then it was quiet.

We reached Kay and Karen's house at 10 o'clock. Kay on his cell phone guided us on our cell phone to where he was standing in his driveway as we turned onto his street. Karen was not home. She was off watching a grandson participate in a skate boarding competition. She returned shortly, and they gave us a tour of their new home. They had moved just the previous Saturday. And, though they were mostly in, the garage was still full of boxes and they could not remember where they had put some things.

They have a lovely home with spectacular views out their large back windows.

Before Karen arrived, I helped Kay pull out his new computer desk in his new office to plug all the different parts together and to their power source. We got everything working except he couldn't get his printer to actually print.

For lunch we drove to Springdale, which is at the entrance into Zion National Park, and ate in a restaurant called Wildcat Willie's (which used to be called Bumbleberries the last time they had been there and was famous for its bumbleberry pie). We enjoyed the generous portions of good food and the gracious hospitality. And they still sell the bumbleberry pie, so we bought a whole pie to eat later. We then wandered through some of the little shops along the main street that runs through Springdale. And a little petting zoo where we saw reindeer and buffalo and such animals.

We drove back to Hurricane and stopped at the movie theater to see the recently released movie Emma Smith: My Story. I had bought lunch for the four of us. Kay bought the movie tickets. The story is Emma's version of the key events of the Restoration as seen through her eyes as the wife and confidant of the Prophet Joseph. We thoroughly enjoyed the movie and highly recommend it to any of you readers out there.

We spent the evening visiting, watching a PBS special on elephants and Lawrence Welk and a baseball game, eating a delicious stew that Karen had made, and our bumbleberry pie. We were pretty beat. Not only had we gotten up at 5:00 in the morning, but we went to bed late the night before because Dale and LeAnn were down from Nampa for the weekend and spent Friday night at our house, and as is our custom we were up late visiting.

This morning we slept in, enjoyed a leisure morning visiting, and went to their new ward for fast and testimony meeting. They live in a very large, growing ward, and it was very crowded. The ward will probably be divided by late summer or early fall, but Kay and Karen by then will be on their mission in Peru.

After the sacrament meeting, we bid them farewell and headed north for home. We arrived in Bountiful a little after 4:30. It had been a profitable trip. We had a delightful visit with Kay and Karen before they take off for two years and got to be the first house guests in their new home.