July 3

After that long ordeal yesterday, we enjoyed today with Gwen and Mike, Kim and Tommy. We all slept in (except poor Mike, who had to go to work). It was warm when we got up and I particularly enjoyed basking in the sun. We had a good swim in the afternoon. For dinner, we went to a pizza place called the "Organ Stop." It was Awesome. In the center of the place was a Wurlitzer Theater Organ; the kind that used to be played with silent movies. I'd never seen anything like this! The organ was attached to a whole drum set, cat puppets, exotic drums, gongs, xylophones, and one of "OOooga" old-fashioned car horns. We heard the organist play selections from The Little Mermaid (complete with floating bubbles from the ceiling), Phantom of the Opera, Beauty and the Beast, The Beatles, and some I couldn't even name. Dawna was enthralled and even ate some pizza. Kim and I danced heartily and toured the many pieces of the Organ.

On the way home, we stopped by the Mesa temple and enjoyed the citrus trees (whose fruit apparently makes "Holy Juice" according to Gwen), the intricate cactus garden, and the reflection ponds around the temple. All in all, a great day.

To Arizona

So, for my side of the family, Jon, Dawna, and I apparently slipped off the edge of the earth. Although it feels like that considering the amount of traveling I've been doing, that's not actually the case. Last weekend, we were in Payson, enjoying a Luau/Graduation Pig Roast at the Howell residence. We were there for 2.5 days and then set off for Arizona.

The drive to Arizona was quite exciting. We were delayed by two major accidents. The first we passed on the shoulder and it was no big deal. The second, however, had the entire highway closed. It looked like we were just going to have to wait an hour or two while they cleared it all away, but we noticed as the minutes passed that several cars appeared to be off-roading about 100 ft. from the highway... well, since there was nothing else to do, we decided to see if we couldn't find out where these people were going. We found a turn off onto a dirt road about 50 ft. away from where we were stopped. As the belly of our little Honda Civic was tickled by sage brush, dirt, and rocks, we saw a lonely little house... we figured this was some hermit's driveway that was suddenly being substituted for the highway. It worked out perfectly, however; in about 10 minute's time, we were back on the highway past the wreckage.

It was about 1:30am when we reached Flagstaff, AZ. There was construction. Some stupid-head didn't know how to place detour signs to the freeway entrance. We went in a complete circle around the Flagstaff Mall following the detour signs, only to end up on a dirt PATH blocked off with cones... which was about 25 ft. away from where we started the detour... and then we just decided to follow all the trailers and campers and eventually found our way to I-40.

We arrived at Gwen and Mike's house... which is beautiful, by the way; very happily situated between corn fields, cow pastures, and a swimming pool in their own back yard; adorned with an award-winning 1970 Monte Carlo and classic Ford truck. But the adventure doesn't quite end here. It was 3:17am when we finally arrived there and unloaded the car. We were so tired that our toothbrushes were still in the car when we remembered to brush our teeth. Jon and I trekked out to the car one more time... and upon our attempt to return to the house, discovered that we were locked out... and so we spend the next 25 min. giving our gracious host and hostess a bad impression of their guests as we tapped on their window and rang the doorbell incessantly to try to get back in... nevertheless, we finally did... and went to bed. It was a fun trip.