Road Trip- July 2002

After Jim and Leslie were married July 5, 2002 in Phoenix, AZ Daniel and I went on a road trip. We drove 4 to 5 hours a day and were gone for about 3weeks. Our trip began on the I-10 freeway going thru Tucson, AZ, then we stopped in White Sands, NM, continued thru El Paso, TX, and over to San Antonio where Daniel served his 2 year LDS mission. As we drove out of western TX and into central and eastern Texas I was so impressed as to how green it was.

We stayed at a campground on the outskirts of San Antonio. We did not want to lose our campsite, so we left our car there and rode the bus into town to have dinner. The bus ride was quite an adventure; we were definitely not in our comfort zone. Once we got into San Antonio we went on a boat ride thru the River Walk and had a nice TexMex dinner. The next day Daniel drove me around some of his areas. We had dinner with the Durnin family that Daniel met while teaching the Gospel in San Antonio. We went to HEB, the local grocery store at which Daniel and his companions use to shop.

Then, we went down to Padre Island for a romantic stay on the beach. It was quite an adventure. First off, I told Daniel before we went to Padre Island we should fill up on gas. Daniel insisted we were fine. Well, come to find out, our campsite was further than Daniel thought. So we were FREAKing out thinking we were not going to make it back to Corpus Christi for gas. That was FUN! While we were in Corpus Christi we decided to get dinner. Meals don't come much more fried than what we had that night. So we headed back to Padre Island for our romantic night. It was too late and dark to set up our tent on the beach so we decided to sleep inside the 4 Runner (which we borrowed from my parents). We moved all the luggage into the front of the car and set up our bed. By then we were sweating to death and suffocating from the humidity. When we finally laid down, it was obvious we were being eaten alive by mosquitos. So we lit a candle to kill the bugs. Then we realized that it might be poisoning us, so we rolled down the windows. We thought we should roll up the windows, blow out the candle and hope the bugs would just go away. By 2am I said "Daniel are you awake?" He said "Yes!" So I said, "Let's go get a hotel room!!" So we moved our luggage into the back of the 4Runner and headed for a hotel. As soon as we got into Corpus Christi we found a hotel, showered, and went to bed. So much for our ROMANTIC evening. The next morning we went back to the beach for a swim but there was a man-o-war (i.e., jelly fish) warning so I would not get in the water. Daniel, however, enjoyed the warm water while talking to a retired minister.

While in Texas we went to 6 flags amusement park. That was a lot of fun. We went on the fastest craziest roller coaster- Psycho- in the rain. I don't recommend it. Besides the fact that it is highly dangerous, when the rain hits your face at 60mph, it hurts!

Next we went to Houston and visited with one of my college roommates, Daniela Kolb (Harding). We also did a temple session in Houston (but Daniel contests that we ever did a session there. We both agree, however, that we did a temple session in Nauvoo, Illinois).

Then we drove on up to Oklahoma City to visit Aaron and Georgina and their family. After that we took HWY 44 to St. Louis to visit Tony and Eve and their kids. Next we drove up to Chicago and visited with Valerie and Mike and their kids.

Then we drove thru Navuoo and Nebraska where we visited my best friend Leslie Douglas's parents near Lincoln, NE. While at Ron and Jan's house, we went out with Ron to see his farmland and duck pond. Daniel had a single shot at hitting a "blue rock", i.e., a clay pigeon. I knew Daniel was good at pretty much everything he did, but I will admit I was nervous to see him shoot. I wanted Daniel to look good for Ron and Jan. Well, he only had one chance to hit the the blue rock and he did it. I was very proud!

The next day we went to the Badlands and took a tour of Mount Rushmore. That is my favorite National Park. I was very impressed. The bad part was our night camping in the Badlands. It seemed like the buffalo were standing outside our tent moaning. It was scary. Apparently, they were very far away, but because of the flat land their noises traveled.

We spent a day or two in Yellowstone Park and then went down to Bear Lake were we ended our tour of the middle of America (we missed Kansas and Colorado).
Daniel and I had a great trip. It was nice for us to spend some time together not worrying about classes. We created a lot of great memories. I will try to upload more pictures later. The picture above is from Sturgis, SD, hog heaven. Yes- there were a lot of motorcycles.