Wells' Blessing and Road Trip

On Thursday I flew to Dallas in two hours. On Friday I took Misa and Wells to the airport for a flight to Salt Lake. Then John, Caroline, Elliot, Mei, and I spent two days driving back to Salt Lake. We did this so John's family would have their van for the week they're here, so they wouldn't have to buy six airline tickets, and I like road trips.Caroline is ready to go.

Elliot is ready to go.

Mei is excited to go.

Twenty movies in the leopard bag should be plenty.

Google said the quickest route was through Oklahoma City, Denver, and Wyoming, so I thought we could stop and see the Austins in OKC. I told Jamie we were coming. But then Weatherundrground.com said Wyoming would be snowy and windy. So we decided to take the south route thorough Amarillo and Albuquerque. So I told Jamie we weren't coming. Then Misa mentioned that we could go to OKC and still take I-40 west through Amarillo and Albuquerque. So we thought maybe we'd go to OKC. But then Google said that would take a lot longer. So we decided not to go to Austins'. Then, at noon on Friday, when we left Dallas, my Garmin GPS said the OKC-t0-Amarillo route was two hours shorter than Google had said. So we called Jamie at the last minute and said we were coming.

After losing a half hour or so in a Dallas traffic jam and more time in other slow traffic and a missed toll-road exit, we got to Austins', zoomed to the Thai Stop across the street, ate, said good-bye, and got back on the road about 6:20.

This is about eight hours into the drive, with only 16 more hours to go.

We debated driving straight through but decided that if the Garmin were correct, we had time to sleep, so we stopped in a place called Tucumcari, New Mexico, and got two rooms at Motel 6 for $60 total.

John asked Caroline if she wanted to sleep in the bed with snoring Grandpa or sleep with the other two kids in the bed in his room. She chose the tree kids over snoring Grandpa. Then we offered the extra bed to Elliot, and he liked that idea. Standing by the bed, he said, "This is the first time I ever had my own bed in a hotel."

Then Caroline came in and said, "Grandpa, I changed my mind. I'd like to sleep in this bed." I told her she'd have to work it out with Elliot. He agreed to let her sleep there, too. Then Mei decided she wanted to sleep with them.

I told them that if all three were going to sleep in the same bed they'd have to back into John's room. No, they wanted the bed in my room. I said, "Okay, then your dad and I will change rooms." That was okay with them. So we ended up completely switching rooms. I didn't understand the logic, but everyone seemed happy.

Just south of Moab we stopped at this arch (I think it's called Wilson Arch) near Hole 'N the Rock and hiked up to it. Other than driving, stopping for gas and potty breaks, and one sit-down lunch of meatball sandwiches at Subway in Cortez, this was our only vacationing.

On Sunday John blessed Wells in Misa's parents' ward.

Four generations. Me, John with Wells, my dad, and Elliot.

John's family: John with Wells, Misa, Caroline, Elliot, and Mei.

Wells with Sara and Jared's baby, Annabelle. They were born in January one day and 1,400 miles apart. This is the first time they've been together.