Only One State Away

Found a few more pictures to post before moving on.  This is our sweet Della in Houston.  She loves her Grandma.

 Family Fun Center in Dallas.  Here is Josiah.

Craig and his daughter, Stacie

Craig and his grandson, Josiah.  Notice Josiah is taller - and he's only in fifth grade!!

And yes, I took a turn in the go-carts.

Here is Craig in the dragster.

And here is the video.  Craig came in second place all three runs.

From Dallas, we drove up to Oklahoma City.  There is not really a direct route from Dallas to Albuquerque.  Even though the temple was closed, we found someone to take a picture for us.

We stayed in Oklahoma City for the night because we really didn't want to stay in Amarillo.  Then it was on to Albuquerque.

Here is sweet Ursula, whom I had never met.  She did finally warm to me, but it took the whole time.

Out to dinner with the family.  From left to right:  Owen, my son Austin, Chantel, Ursula, and Soren.

Ursula even let me hold her for one final picture.

The Albuquerque temple was gorgeous inside and out.  So beautiful.

It is even beautiful from the back.

On our trip to Arizona, we passed over the Continental Divide.  I didn't remember that being in New Mexico, but I looked it up and sure enough, it is.  As a matter of fact, there are SEVERAL divides.  The GREAT divide runs from Alaska down through South America.

We also let Sam out of the car.  

All was fine until Sam jumped down into the basement of an abandoned house.  Then we had to resort to shaking the "treats" bag to get him out.  Most of New Mexico looks like this:

But Flagstaff, in northern Arizona, is really beautiful:  forrested, wonderful.  Then, as you proceed south, you drop down into desert.  This is from a roadside overlook.

We decided there is something wrong with my camera.  Maybe just need to upgrade.  This is from my camera.

This is from Craig's.

Got into Phoenix in time to go to the Easter Pageant at the Mesa Temple.  Who knew?  They have been putting on the pageant since 1927.  It was WONDERFUL!!!  There were hundreds of people there.  The chairs went WAY back, and some were sitting on the lawn.

The stage was very large, with lights and sound system.

The characters walked among the audience and posed.  Their costumes were  first class.

These guys look kind of spacey with their white eyes.  LOL

Craig being attacked by Roman soldiers.

It's the Easter story, and so tells the story of the life of Jesus Christ.  Over 400 people in the cast and another 100 behind the scenes.

It depicts Christ's birth, life, and death.

And at the end there is a glorious resurrection.  Spectacular.  Music and sound was excellent.

All this was on the temple grounds.  The Mesa temple was built in the early 1900's.  It was beautiful at night and during the day. 

We went back to the temple the next day.  It was sooooo beautiful inside.  Rich brown colors.  Gorgeous Indian rugs on the walls.  There were so many people there, we couldn't find a parking space.  In the visitor's center is a statue of the Christus.  I love this statue.

And as with all other temples, the grounds around the temple are also beautiful and peaceful.  In fact, there were several groups of people taking family photos and graduation photos.

We travelled across Phoenix to the Phoenix Temple to meet an old friend.  The temple was busy.  Lots of people there.

I took a picture of this outside column.  Cheryl says that this representation of the "Tree of Life" is repeated through the temple.  As you progress through the temple, there are more and more leaves on the tree.  Until at the end, in the Celestial Room, it is covered with leaves.  Cool.

We met friends for lunch.  In back are Cheryl and her husband, Andy.  In front, Kate.  We miss these guys.

Kate drove with us over to the Gilbert Temple.  When we got there we discovered it was closed for the Women's conference.  Drat.

Kate took this picture of us so you could get an idea of the grandeur of this temple.  Next stop Tucson and then home.  We're getting there.

Journeying Home part 2

I wanted to enter New Orleans by going across the Ponchatrain Bridge.  When you drive onto the bridge you see immediately that the Lake is huge!!  You cannot see land in any direction for quite a while.

We estimated that the bridge was about 20 miles long.  There are several turn-arounds along the way in case, oh I don't know, you change your mind??  Or emergency vehicles need to come out and then go back?  Craig was somewhat nervous about being on the bridge.  I wasn't - until he mentioned it.

The water was smooth and clear.  Do you see the blue skies?  By the time we got to New Orleans, it was raining.  Hard.

Then, suddenly it wasn't.

We passed a lot of trees where beads had been thrown just weeks before during Mardi Gras.

The buildings in the French Quarter really are beautiful.

This is the front of the police station.

We walked down Royal Street.  It's much cleaner and nicer than Bourbon Street.

Bourbon Street is pretty sleezy.  Generally not a good place.  We didn't walk far on this street, but instead, found a nice restaurant on the second floor and stopped for dinner.  We were directed up this questionable staircase.

We had a good view of the street and the tourists.  You can see two policemen patrolling on horseback.

You can also see that there were a lot of families there.  The police were just blocking off the street to car traffic, which they do every night about 7.

At one restaurant, you could pick out live crawdads, if that is what you had a hankering for.  YUM!

After dinner, we watched two street performers.  They were excellent.  And funny.  Check out these three clips.

Then just as we were leaving we spotted this hidden gem - a quiet, secluded restaurant.

From New Orleans, we travelled to Baton Rouge for the night.  The next morning we stopped at the temple.

Not to far out of Baton Rouge, you cross the Mississippi River.  Not sure what is responsible for the funky coloring, but I'm sure it's my fault somehow.  It really was a beautiful blue sky.

After you cross the river, you are still in Louisiana - for a LONG time.  But I couldn't resist taking this screen shot of the freeway intersection we went through - because REALLY???   I'm from California and even I though this was ridiculous.  It SAYS Houston, Texas, but that was our destination, not our location.

My son, Chad, and his family live in Houston.  That was our next stop.  We LOVED visiting with them.  Here are two pictures taken as we were waiting for our table at the restaurant.

This is Chad and Caitlin.

And here are their children, Della and Archer.

By this point, Craig was really sick.  He'd been coughing for a few days, but now his throat was so sore he couldn't talk or swallow.  We went to the temple, but Craig just stayed in the outer waiting room.  The temple was beautiful inside, accented with rich dark wood. Again, we have yellow sky.  Sigh.  Maybe it's an exposure kind of thing.

After visiting Urgent Care and getting drugs, we continued on.  Our final stop in Texas was to Dallas.  Craig's daughter, Stacie, lives there.  I took this picture outside her apartment to send back to Indiana - they had snow.  hee hee

Josiah stayed home from school on Monday, Brighton was sick.  We headed for the Family Fun Center for some R & R.

It was the first time I'd even driven the go-carts.  I must admit that it wasn't as fun as it may have looked.  Ten laps was a LONG time.  I would have settled for five, maybe three. 

In this picture you can clearly see that Craig is ahead of his grandson, Josiah.  

Here is Stacie bringing up the rear.

About 1/2 way through, Craig is now in 2nd place.

Craig's favorite activity was the drag racing.  I captured the three races on video, but it was on Craig's phone, and so I won't post them here.  Sorry.

Next blog will include, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona.  Craig is starting to ask, "Are we there yet?" every time we get in the car.  I don't blame him.