KS, TX & AZ trip

I’ve been asked to write about our great 2 ½ weeks trip that we just took. All together it was a marvelous time. The main purpose was to witness Laurisa’s wedding, see Tricia and Alan, plus visiting Alan and Peggy and my sister Gina and her husband John.
We left on Thursday, April 30. We drove to Denver, CO, enjoying the beautiful scenery which reminded us of our mission in Woodland Park, CO. The pine trees were so beautiful. The next day we drove to Manhattan, KS, and arrived at Alan and Peggy’s new house. It is right across from the other one they had rented. This is a much nicer one; it has a basement family room plus a bedroom and bath for Will and upstairs, three more bedrooms and a bathroom. The living room is large, reminiscent of their living room in their old Provo home. We enjoyed our time with them. Alan and Peggy graciously gave up their bed to us; so kind of them. We weren’t able to see Lauren and Ross because they were visiting in Houston, TX. We went to church with them and enjoyed their Gospel Doctrine teacher very much. He was an LDS Chaplain at Ft. Riley.
Monday, May 4 (my mother’s birthday) we drove to Oklahoma City to spend the night. We saw signs advertising a Cowboy Museum. It was located fairly close to our motel so we thought we would check it out. It was a great place to visit and we only saw part of it. There was a huge room in which they had built a frontier town. It had a saloon, blacksmith shop, stables, hotel, newspaper office, doctor’s office, and a mercantile store. It was most interesting. They also had galleries with lovely paintings and many bronzes by Remington and Russell. They also had cowboy movie memorabilia. They showed little excerpts of cowboy movies, from silent film days to the present. They also had a huge room with pictures and items from cowboy movie stars from silent films to today. John Wayne had a huge selection. There were pictures of John Wayne, Roy Rogers, Tom Mix, Tom Selleck, Glen Ford, Walter Brennan, Gene Autry, and so many more with saddles, boots, gloves and other items. It was a worthwhile place to visit.
As we were about to leave, I got a call on my little cell phone. It was Lauren! She had called her Dad and he asked her where she was. When she replied she was in Oklahoma City, he told her that we were there and gave her my cell phone number. It was great to hear from her.. We told her where our motel was and they came by. It was fun to see her, Ross and little Ethan. What a darling little boy, so smiley and happy. We walked across the motel parking lot to a Waffle House and had supper together. I’m so glad we were able to see them since we didn’t get to in Manhattan.
Tuesday, May 5, we drove on down to Austin, TX. It is always great to get to Tricia and Alan’s house. We have our own room with our own bathroom. Wednesday, May 6th, we went to the San Antonio Temple for Laurisa to take out her endowments. David, her fiancé, his parents and brother Daniel (who looks a lot like David and who is leaving for Argentina to serve his mission very soon) and Tannie and Jillian and I can’t remember who else was there. The temple is very beautiful with lots of stained glass and beautiful murals in the endowment room.
Thursday, the 7th, Leon had to buy a new camera as the old one just quit. We went to Target and got a nice one. Alan arrived that evening to photograph the wedding. Friday, the 8th, the Christoffersons came and spent the night, along with their daughter and baby. Laurisa also had a friend from BYU there. Laurisa, friend, Alex, and Daniel, David’s brother, all slept on couches. Tricia’s house lends itself to housing many people. David slept at Russell’s house.
Saturday the 9th, quite early, we all left for the temple. It takes about 1 hour and 10 minutes for the trip. Elder Christofferson, of the Quorum of the Twelve and David’s uncle, performed the sealing. It was very special. Tannie and Dan, Trent and Cinthya, Russell and Jillian, Alex and his fianceé Rachel, Alan’s sister Janna and husband, Ryan and Leslie Barlow,
David’s parents, brother and sister, were all there. Tricia had arranged for babysitters to watch all the little ones while we were in the temple. James and Lonna Barlow had planned on being there but Gwen pinched her finger in the car door and they had to take her to the E.R. She was o.k. And they joined us at the restaurant. Alan took lots of pictures and it was fun watching him work and his patter. After the sealing we all went to an Italian restaurant for a nice meal.
Tricia had lots of friends to help with decorating and serving for the reception. The whole driveway had small white poles with white tulle lining the driveway with luminarias also lighting the way. Some young boys had the fun job of keeping the little candles lighted in the paper sacks. There was a dance floor with lights overhead, also more lights where the arch and wedding line stood. The tables were beautifully decorated as were also the backs of the chairs. A string quartet, Tricia’s friends, played for an hour; very enjoyable. There was also a DJ with more music. It was a very lovely affair.
Sunday morning, David and Laurisa came and opened gifts. Leon and I watched for a while and then Alex, Rachel, Leon and I went to Sacrament Meeting. People started leaving Sunday: Alan, all the Christoffersons, and Laurisa’s friend. It was nice to have it quiet again.
Monday, the 11th, Tricia, Alan, Leon and I drove to Corpus Christi for a mini vacation. We visited the USS Lexington, an aircraft carrier. They are always fun to visit and so huge! We found a good Mexican restaurant, then dropped Leon off at the motel and Tricia, Alan and I drove out on Padre Island. We walked down to the beach and waded in the Gulf of Mexico. The water was warm and it was a lovely experience. I really miss the beach, living in Utah, so this was special.
The next morning we drove along the shore, seeing the Gulf on one side and lovely homes on the other. We then went to a great museum. They have the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria; full-sized replicas of Columbus’s ships. They were built by the Spanish government in 1992 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the sailing to America. The ships had sailed around the world and finally wound up in Corpus Christi. The Niña is floating by a pier but the other two are in dry dock. We were able to go aboard the Pinta. They are so small to sail across the large ocean! We were told that at one time the Pinta and Santa Maria were in the water and a barge ran into them causing damage. Spain still owned the ships at that time and they had to have people from Spain come and repair them.
Wednesday the 13th was a quiet day with Tricia getting her house back in order. She and I sat in the spa for a while; the pool was still a little cold for me. We always enjoy being at their home.
Thursday, 14th we drove to Van Horn, TX and spent the night and drove next morning to Mesa, AZ to visit Gina and John. They have a lovely condo and are very hospitable. Saturday, They drove us to Phoenix to visit Bill Farnsworth, an old missionary friend from Uruguay. He had been the first mission secretary. He and his wife Ella are special people and it was great to visit with them. They have lived all over the world; he was an executive in a large bank. They lived in Uruguay, Brazil, London, California and I don’t know where else. He was from the Colonies in Mexico.
That afternoon, we were able to go visit Robyn, Rob, and their family. They have a nice home with a pool. She is a ball of fire, so fun to visit with. They plan on going back to live in Hawaii in a few years.
Sunday, we went to the Spanish Ward, as Gina and John are assigned there to help out. It was nice to hear Spanish spoken. Gina wasn’t feeling to well, so we left after Sacrament Meeting. She felt better in the afternoon so we went and visited Melanie and Boyd. They also have a lovely home. It was good to visit them and hear about their lodge in Heber, AZ. also about their kids. That evening we drove to Phoenix and visited Kevin and Marian. Also a lovely home. Their kids are great and we enjoyed visiting with all of them. Erica and Andrea both had spent time at the Jerusalem Center and we had fun talking about places we all had visited. Erica has graduated from BYU and is working in a law office; not her father’s. Andrea is still going to school at BYU and Kyle is a junior in high school.
Monday, we started home, planning on stopping on the way to spend the night but we kept right on going. We were ready to be home. Leon had been very good about stopping frequently and walking for his leg so I don’t think he had any problems with it. It is lovely to be home in our own bed.

Rome!

We next drove to Rome! How exciting to visit that city. We unloaded our luggage and then dropped off the car. We then walked back. We walked all the rest of the time in Rome and saw so many wonderful. Our bed and breakfast place was on Via Cavour, the same street as the church that has the statue of Moses by Michelangelo. The one with the horns. It was very plain inside but loved seeing that statue.
Our room overlooked the street and that was so entertaining. Cars were parked every which way, double parked, triple parked and even on the sidewalk. at right angles, or at any angle, to the curb. People would walk down the middle of the street, two and three abreast, ignoring traffic. Our room has a shower in the corner with the toilet down the hall.
We saw the Spanish Steps but I was disappointed. Pictures always show them with flowers and clean. There were no flowers, it was dirty and tons of people. We walked across town along the Tiber river and saw Castello de Sant Angelo of Tosca fame (she jumped from it at the end of the opera); it was built as Emperor Hadrian’s Mausoleum. We then walked to St. Peter’s Square. Pictures can’t do it justice, it is huge!!! Inside the Basilica is truly beautiful, also huge. Lots of beautiful marble, gold, paintings and statues. We were able to see the "Pieta", just beautiful.
Walking back to the hotel we would look down in a vacant lot and see Roman ruins below ground level. We saw the huge white monument to Victor Emmanuel II "Altare della Patria" It looks like a big wedding cake.
Next day we visited the church "St. Peter in Chains" built to house the chains that bound St. Peter. It is famous for the tomb of Pope Julian II for whom Michelangelo did so much work. We then walked to the Colosseum. What a thrill to see and walk about it. We paid the extra fee and went up higher. I saw a little piece of brick and picked it up as a memento. What things occurred here years ago: duels, battles, hurts, etc. We truly enjoyed this. We walked to the Trevi Fountain in a drizzle. It was bigger than I had thought and so beautiful. I was surprised to see that it is surrounded by buildings and not in a big open space. We went to the Pantheon but it had closed about 45 minutes earlier. We had wanted to go to the Forum but with the rain coming down and having seen a lot of other ruins along the streets we didn’t feel too disappointed, just a little.
Bus tickets are sold in the tobacco shops so we bought two for in the morning. We thought it might be too far to walk to the train station with all our luggage. We really don’t have that much: two small suitcases, a garment bag and a carry-on bag.
The next morning our landlady gave us an early breakfast at 7:30 a.m. consisting of bread, butter, jam and grapefruit juice. We caught the bus about 7:50 a.m. arriving at the train station around 8:00 a.m. It took a long time to find where to buy tickets to get to the airport. The tickets cost L5,000 each and I now only have L4,000 left; everything worked out just right. It took about 45 minutes to get to the Leonardo da Vinci airport. There were guards with submachine guns patrolling and occasionally stopping and looking into luggage if you are Arabic. We were not stopped. It was a nice big airport. We boarded the plane about 10:30 a.m.
We enjoyed seeing the Cape Cod Hook from the air as we flew into Kennedy Airport in New York. It was great understanding every one. We had a few hour wait but customs did not check our luggage. We went all through Europe and back into the U.S. and no one checked the luggage; that really surprised me. Tricia and Rob met us at the SLC airport about 10:00 p.m. It was good to see them and be back but we had had a marvelous time, an unforgetable time, for which we are very grateful. It has been a wonderful 20 days and we still can’t quite believe all we’ve seen and that our kids made it possible.