Trip Out West - Part 6 Mississippi and Home

Day 10
Sunday, 31 July, we went to church at the Orange Grove Ward. Matt is bishop and he had early meetings so we went with Vanessa and the kids in the van. You will note in the picture of their building that it is much like most of the newer buildings in the church and would seem at home in Utah - with one notable exception. The large, covered drop-off and pick-up are in front of the door. We don't even have those in South Carolina, and I will tell, there is a very good reason it is there. I will let you figure out what the reason is!

Gulfport Stake Center

I ended up leading the music in Sacrament meeting. The usual chorister had a family emergency and wasn't there. After church we had sandwiches waiting for the bishop to get home. Supper was a lentil crockpot soup that was really good.

Day 11

Monday, Matthew was off. Our "get the oil changed or I will kill you" light came on while we were crossing Louisiana, so Matt and I went over to the Honda dealer that morning to get that taken care of. Took a little longer than we hoped but what the heck. After that we had to swing by the hospital to pick up a car of one of his ward members who was having surgery and take it to the member's house.

We then took everyone to the Biloxi Visitor Center, located on the beach right across the street from the Biloxi lighthouse. It is sort of a combination Visitor's Bureau and museum. It was really well done and I probably could have spent a little more time there. It was built on the site of an old mansion that did not survive Hurricane Katrina, and was built to resemble a coastal mansion house.  The lighthouse did survive the hurricane - a little battered but still there.

Boys in front of model of lighthouse

Nathan is hiding behind Nani because the sun is too hot.

Lighthouse from one of the windows

From the visitors center, we went for the lunch buffet at Beau Rivage hotel and casino there in Biloxi. Monday is military half price for the buffet. 

Buffet line

Biloxi beach from Beau Rivage parking deck.
Nice beach, but water is a little sketchy

 After lunch we went to see The Secret Life of Pets. It was not what I expected but was pretty fun.

Day 12

Since I am writing this, and this is what I did, this is what is in the blog. JoAnne can add to it later if she wants, or you can check out Vanessa's blog The Turek Family - Back to School link at the top of the page. I got up and on the road back to Rock Hill by 7am. I had to get home in time to pick up the dogs before the vet closed at 6pm, and I had a time zone change working against me. Trip home was uneventful - even going through downtown Atlanta was boring. JoAnne stayed in Biloxi until Friday when she flew home from Gulfport to Charlotte, getting in around 9:30 pm. What a great trip, but as usual, too short. Now back to work to pay for it!

Add states Alabama and Georgia.

GT

Trip Out West - Part 5 Heading to Mississippi

Day 8
We got up early again on Friday morning to start the trip back east. We stopped for gas on the way out of town. We drove past Boulder City and across the bridge at Hoover Dam. We did stop at this one overlook of the Colorado River below the dam on the road towards Kingman Arizona.

We stopped for breakfast in Kingman at McDonalds. It was not very good. The high point of our drive home was getting gas in Flagstaff. That is to say the elevation is above 7,000 feet and was the highest point on our drive home.

Mt Humphreys from Flagstaff

As we approached Gallop, New Mexico, JoAnne just happened to check traffic on her phone. (What kind of traffic do you expect in Gallop?)  We are glad she did. There had been a MAJOR accident on I-40 between Gallop and Grants, New Mexico and the eastbound lanes were closed! But she found we could exit the freeway a couple of exits before the accident site and drive down old US 66 (as in "Get your kicks on Route 66") and we pretty much blew past the several miles to stopped traffic on the interstate. We hit Albuquerque just at the start of rush hour and didn't have any real problems getting through town.

We stopped to eat and get gas around Moriarty, New Mexico. We had pretty good pizza there. There were some pretty good thunderstorms  from Albuquerque to around the Texas state line and the temperature when we stopped was abou 57 according to the car thermometer. We stopped for the night at the Best Western Plus Red River Inn in Clarendon, Texas. We kind of lucked out. JoAnne had accidently reserved a room for the night before (Thursday) which they had as a no-show. Fortunately they had a room for us that may have been the nicest room we stayed in on the trip.

Day 9

Saturday, we were on the road early again, so we didn't find out if the breakfast at the RR Inn was any good.  We did find the Pecan Shed in Henrietta Texas down the road a piece that had everything pecans. We got a decadent pecan roll to share and a drink. JoAnne picked up some other pecan stuff while we were there.

No worries getting through Dallas, although the drivers there are almost as crazy as they are in Salt Lake.  I planned it so we needed gas about the time we got to Buc-ees in Terrell Texas. To say that Buc-ees is just another gas station is like saying Texas is just another state. Their bathrooms are as big as many gas stations.  We gassed up and picked up some candied jalapenos for me.

We stopped to eat somewhere between Shreveport and Monroe Louisiana, made our traditional pit stop at the Mississippi welcome center that overlooks the Mississippi river in Vicksburg, then on to Jackson, and Hattiesburg. We got to Tradition Mississippi in time to read bedtime stories to Joshua and a tightly wound Nathan before they went to bed. (Note: I said to bed, not to sleep!)

Add New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi to the state list

Trip Out West - Part 4 Las Vegas

Day 7
The title of this is a little misleading, as none of us actually took any pictures in Las Vegas. But more about that later.

We got up bright and early on Thursday morning in order to beat any traffic while leaving Salt Lake. Must have been early enough since we didn't have any issues.

We wanted to take the time to visit the recently dedicated Provo City Center temple. This was the former Provo Tabernacle that was gutted to the bare outside walls in a fire back in December of 2010. The building was completely rebuilt as a temple, which is a story in itself.

Building after the fire

We got to Provo around 8 am which was a great time for the early morning sunlight. Here are some of the pictures we took.

Proof we were there

We drove on down to Cedar City were we visited the campus of Southern Utah University and saw the new Shakespeare theater. I think I like the old one better, but I haven't seen a show in the new one. Then we went to see the Cedar City Temple that is under construction. It is going to be awesome. Maybe not Provo City Center awesome, but awesome none the less.

Cedar City Temple from I-15 north of town

Southern Utah Art Museum
Lots of paintings of S Utah
Plus a photo gallery of the Utah Parks Company
Where my Grandpa Turek and dad used to work

New Shakespeare theatre

Trying to look inside

Chick-fil-A at SUU!!!

Temple

We tried to go to Cafe Rio, but it was really busy and the line was not moving so we decided to go to the one in St George instead. We did get gas in Cedar.

We drove to Jason and Sherri's house (where dad lives) and visited for a short while. Then we all went over to the Viking chapel where all of my brothers and sisters met us. We had dinner together and just visited - which is to say no one bothered to take pictures :-(.  After that we went over to Mike and Kelly's house along with dad, and visited some more. Thanks for letting us stay over!!!

Add Arizona and Nevada to states visted

Trip Out West - Part 3 Downtown Salt Lake

Day 5
On Tuesday, Peter had the day off. We all wanted to go to the temple together while we were there. But which temple? Jordan River was closed, so that left Draper, Oquirrh Mountain, and Salt Lake City. We chose the Salt Lake Temple. Jessi and Peter had been there before (they live in the Salt Lake Temple district), but none of the rest of us had. After morning exercises we headed downtown. We aimed for the 10 am session, but we were just a little late for that, so we did some looking around at Deseret Books to kill some time. There were some things we needed to pick up there anyway. We made it to the 11 am session. We all had family names to do. I think we all really enjoyed the session although I was a little distracted taking in all the things to see in the Salt Lake temple (wood work, metal work, paintings, etc). I am glad we had Peter and Jessi to follow around. I could have gotten lost. The session seemed to be a little shorter there.

 After the session, we went back to Deseret and picked up all the things we needed there. Then we went to Gateway Mall for lunch at Toucanos Brazilian Grill and to see the new Star Trek movie.

Toucanos serves "CHURRASCO (shoe-HAS-ko) style dining, where fresh meats and vegetables are grilled and brought directly to your table by our meat servers. While your Tucanos Cue remains green side up, our meat servers will continue to bring fresh selection of meats and vegetables to your table. When you have finished or would like a break, simply turn your Tucanos Cue red side up and our meat servers will skip your table." I have been to Rio de Janeiro and their churrasco compares very favorably with what I had in Brazil. And the prices for lunch were very reasonable. (The grilled pineapple was really good!). The meal comes with a very good salad bar. Best part is I just found out there is a Toucanos in Greenville!

After eating, we had some time to kill. We were in a mall so you can guess what we did. Peter and I went on ahead to Barnes and Noble to kill time before the movie Star Trek Beyond started. We really enjoyed the movie, but afterwards we apparently had not had enough shopping, so...  There were some good deals at Lucky Brand Jeans so we spent some time there saving money.

By the time we got home, the 100 degree heat and the shopping had worn me out.

Day 6

Jessi and Peter both had to work on Wednesday. We took Kira's stuff to her apartment and helped her get it organized. After that we went to chick-fil-A for breakfast and discovered the sandwiches we ordered were free on that day at all the Utah Chick-fil-A locations.  JoAnne and I got some laundry done and started repacking for the trip to Vegas and then home. Jessi was able to work from home that afternoon, so we were able to go to Cafe Zupas for lunch. I also logged into work and did a couple of things. We fixed crock pot pork carnitas for supper, and other 21-day fix recipe. All the 21-day fix recipes we tried were good. 

Moving Kira's stuff into her appartment

View from Kira's driveway

JoAnne took time to water the garden at Jessi and Peter's house