To Syracuse!!! Our Trip Across the Country.

Greg and I had a great summer and had lots of fun and worked hard to renew our relationship one last time before moving across the country to Syracuse NY for school. We had decided to leave on Thursday the 4th, but we had not figured out what to do with our car situation. We owned 2 cars that would not make it to Syracuse and that most likely would have blown up the moment we got here. So Thursday, we agreed to get a new car, in UT and then tow it to NY. We found a 2004 Volvo cxi that will be good for kids, incase we ever have any, and good in the snow with its 4-wheel drive. Once we had the car and the budget truck was all packed up, we were ready to be on our way.
The first day of our travels we only got to about Cheyenne Wyoming. The truck was so full of stuff that it could barely make it up the hills going 30 mph. While we were headed up Parleys Canyon we were going about 25mph and I though to my self, “this is going to be a long trip.” Luckily, once the road flattened out, we were traveling about 60mph which was much more comforting. That night we slept in the back of our new car. It saved money but it was not the most comfortable bed ever.
The second day we met at Dave and Dahlias place in Omaha NE. The fed us dinner and we played games together for the last time for a while. It was cool seeing what they have done to there place, it was very nice.


Day 3 was to be Nauvoo. It seemed it took us forever to get there because there isn’t a main highway that goes down into that area of Illinois. We also get lost and finally bought a map which came in handy many times after that. We barely made it in time to make the last tour of the Carthage jail where Joseph Smith was martyred. It was very interesting seeing the jail as the tour guide told the story of Joseph’s last hours. There was a special spirit there that I will not forget.

This is the room that Joseph Smith spent his last hours in and the window he fell out of when he was shot and killed.

After the tour we went to see the Mississippi river while the sun was setting. Absolutely beautiful!

And then we parked someplace in Nauvoo for the night. We slept in the back of our new car that night to…but it was so miserable. It was sooo hot and humid even at night time and if we rolled the windows down the mesquitos would swarm in and we would get eaten alive. Not the best idea I guess. That night wasn’t worth saving a couple of bucks on a hotel room. Not at all!

Nauvoo was very interesting to walk through. Greg and I went on a carriage ride around the town while they told stories of the early saints, then we walked around some of the old restored houses in historic Nauvoo. We knew that there were LDS sites and RLDS sites in Nauvoo, but we didn’t realize that we had switched from LDS to RLDS when we walked in to the building where the first relief society was held. We should have caught on when they were selling stuff in the bottom floor of the building and when the lady at the register didn’t have a missionary badge on…but we didn’t. Greg picked up a bible with both the King James version and the Inspired version of Joseph smith side by side and started asking questions about it. As he was talking to the lady at the cash register he asked, “so the RLDS people could have added some bull-crap in the joseph smith version.” Suddenly the lady got all offended and said, “well for one thing, you are speaking with a member of the RLDS church!” oops! How embarrassing.

After enjoying Nauvoo, we drove to Chicago and enjoyed a Hampton inn. Yay. A shower and a comfortable bed.
In Chicago we ditched the budget truck and took our car into down town. We sent to the very top of the tallest building in the USA and the second tallest building in the world formerly called the Sears Tower, now called the Willis Tower. It was so high! It was like looking at the city from an airplane. So cool. Later that day we arrived in Cleveland OH and stayed with our friends from BYU Whitney and Danny Hall. It was also good to see them and to hang out for a while.

Day 6 we went to see the Kirkland Temple and the Whitney store. It was very interesting hearing the RLDS version of the history that took place there and seeing how there priesthood line is different than ours. The sites were also very cool to see.

Day 7 We went early in the morning to Niagara Falls. We had heard that the Canada side of the falls is way better, which it is, so we left the truck once again and amazingly got into Canada and back into the USA with only our drivers licenses, and a bit of time. The falls was so beautiful and really amazing. Its just memorizing watching tons and tons of water falling so rapidly. Wow!
That evening we made it to our new home in Syracuse. We had enough time to dig out our mattress and a few other things, and hit the hay, and thus end our exciting trip across the country with a new start and a new chapter of life in the great NY!