Southern Utah

We decided to take advantage of some time off from school and do some exploring in the southwestern corner of Utah. We were graciously lodged in Michelle's grandparents trailer house which made it an even better travel experience (we anticipated staying in the Campry...aka Camry turned into a camper). Some of the highlights were getting to know Megan's new baby Solomon, Michelle almost stepping on a rattlesnake and seeing tons of red rock in great formations and petroglyphs.

Click here to check out our slide show.

We took a few short movies of the snake encounter so take a look!

Rattlesnake Encounter 1

Rattlesnake Encounter 2

Rattlesnake Encounter 3

Rattlesnake Encounter 4

Rattlesnake Encounter 5

Slide Shows from our Latest Trip

The following are links to our slide shows from our last trip. As ususal, click on the gold button marked "View Slide Show" after clicking on the link. Happy viewing!

Philadelphia to Kirtland, Ohio

Chicago and Indianapolis

Vincennes, Indiana to Nauvoo, Illinois

Philedelphia and On

Please forgive us for being slow in making this update. You see, a road trip that we thought would take about one and a half months kept us on the road for about two and a half months instead. With limited internet access on the road we haven't been able to do any updates until now. This turned out to be one of our favorite trips of the year. The Northeast was the highlight since we hit it at the perfect time to see the leaves change. We had fun traveling for about a month with Matthew's brother's family so look for some of them in our pictures (see next entry for slide shows).

Road Trip Map
I have created a map in Google Maps so you can see the basic route we took on this adventure. Click here to check it out. (FYI--It takes a bit to load because of all the stops) Google Maps only allows us to mark a limited number of destinations on the map so it's not fully complete as we put on just under 10,000 miles in the two and a half months of our last trip.


Pennsylvania
While in Pennsylvania we visited quite a bit of Amish country in Lancaster County and the surrounding areas. It was fun seeing Amish people harvesting corn stalks from their fields with horse-drawn harvesting machines. It was like visiting the people of Little House on the Prairie. We also spent a day in Philadelphia seeing the Liberty Bell, surrounding historic sites and learning about Benjamin Franklin.







Boston
In Boston we stayed with Michelle's friend, Michelle DiMartini and got a brief overview of the sites. We climbed to the top of the Bunker Hill Memorial, traced the steps of Paul Revere's famous ride and learned about the "Shot heard round the world." The really fun thing about visiting these old cities was being able to see where the events took place that we learned about as kids. We also visited Walden Pond in Massachusetts where Henry David Thoreau and other famous philosophers have spent their days.


Acadia National Park, Maine and the Adirondacks, New York State
Acadia National Park is extremely beautiful and Maine turned out to be one of our most favorite states of all our travels. It has lots of hills and mountains that reveal pristine lakes and beautiful vegetation. Each valley was breathtaking. We were there at the perfect time as the leaves were beautiful reds, oranges and yellows. What made it even more beautiful was that the forests also have evergreen trees so you get a sharp contrast with the deep green needles--so incredible! We also had fun exploring some of the rocky Atlantic shorelines of the park, catching crabs and other sea critters with our nephews.


Quebec, Canada
We visited both Quebec City and Montreal in Canada. Quebec City was a charming place with great views of the St. Lawrence River wherever you look. We visited the huge waterfall in the middle of town that dumps into the St. Lawrence River. It was pretty but it would also be awesome to go in the winter because a huge ice mound forms right in front of the waterfall and people climb it with ice axes and crampons. Montreal has a nice French colonial feeling. Michelle was most impressed by the city's bank buildings because their architecture is so ornate and rich. Note to anyone who might visit there: parking in the city is terrible and the parking meters (which are impossible to avoid) all cost $3/hour! Canada was fun, but quite expensive!


Palmyra and Niagara Falls, New York
In Palmyra we visited a number of historical sites belonging to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka the LDS Church, aka the Mormon Church). (In case you didn't know and if you still haven't figured it out, that's the church we belong to). It was very interesting to see where the events of Joseph Smith's first vision and restoration of the gospel took place. We visited Niagara Falls next and enjoyed a free ride aboard the Maid of the Mist boat, thanks to Jared's (Matthew's brother) gift of gab. The Maid of the Mist is a big boat that takes you right up to the bottom of the waterfalls. It was pretty cool (and very wet). We walked around on the Canadian side to view the falls from there as well. We were surprised by the $.50 "turn-style fee" that Canada charges to exit the country. Those Canadians really like to nickel and dime you good, or in this case quarter you.


Milwaukee and Chicago
In Milwaukee we enjoyed spending time with Jodee and David Luke. Jodee took us down to Chicago for a day and showed us the sights. We took a free tour of the downtown area offered at the public library and learned a lot about the architecture. Chicago was a lot more artistic than Michelle anticipated, it being her first visit to the Windy City. While in Milwaukee we toured the Harley-Davidson Power Train plant. We were able to see how they put the engines together. We asked them when they were going to give out free motorcycle samples, but they didn't seem to be very amused by the question.


Indiana
The main attraction of Indiana for us was visiting Matthew's extended family. In Indianapolis we stayed with Matthew's cousin, Jennifer. There we also visited the Indy 500 Racetrack museum, the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the war memorials downtown. After that we headed down to Vincennes where Matthew's dad grew up. We stayed in the house where Matthew's grandparents lived and visited the places that were landmarks for family history. It was really nice for Michelle to meet Matthews relatives since it was her first time visiting.

Back on the Road...East Coast

After one week in Lake Powell with Michelle's family we headed out to Bethesda, MD for Michelle's regular medical check up at the National Institutes of Health. After four painful needle sticks and a gamut of tests everything is looking up. We have been spending the last week seeing the sights of the Washington, D.C. area; here are some of our favorite things we've seen:

National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport
This is the lesser known companion to the Air and Space Museum on the Mall in Washington, D.C. It's collection is housed in an airplane hanger and it is packed to the brim with planes, engines and spacecraft. Some of its more notable pieces are the Enola Gay (which dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima), the last remaining NASA space shuttle Enterprise, and one of the last remaining of the Concord jets. We recommend taking the tour to get more background info about the craft because the plaques appear to be written by engineers.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Though the brochure says it should take you 1.5 to 2 hours to see the permanent exhibit we were there for six hours. We learned a lot about World War II and the events leading up to it in addition to the tragedy of the holocaust. The exhibit is very well done and doesn't play off of shock value. They do a nice job of telling the story and letting the events speak for themselves. It was an exhausting day but powerful as well.

Manasses National Battlefield Park
This is the site of a few Civil War battles. It was interesting to see the largely-unchanged countryside where the battle took place. This site offers a walking tour to various plaques located throughout the field. It was very educational and provided good insight into what happened there.

National Zoological Park
The zoo in D.C. is great and it's free. Matthew really likes the Amazonia building. It contains an ecosystem recreation complete with fish, sting rays, birds, monkeys and a whole array of Amazon plant life all living together in one humidity controlled room. Michelle's favorite part is the Bird House. Here we were able to see a kiwi bird, New Zealand's national symbol, which is very rare because they are only active at night and they blend in really well in a dark space. This zoo is known for it pandas. When we were here two years ago a baby panda had just been born. We saw it last week and it had grown a lot!

U.S. Capitol Building Tour
The tour through the capitol building is something you have to get tickets for so we hadn't done it on our previous visits. As it turns out, tickets are easy to get if you show up on a day when there aren't a billion tourists roaming around D.C. The tour was interesting. They take you through the rotunda, give you historical tidbits about the building and the artwork it contains, show you through part of the House of Representatives wing and then let you look around it unrestricted areas on your own. We learned that each state is allowed to place two statues in the building. We found both a Wyoming's statues (Esther Hobart Morris--a gal from Wyoming who was the nation's first female justice of the peace, and Chief Washakie, a Shoshone Indian chief who wanted to make peace with white men) but we were only able to find one Idaho statue that being of Senator George Laird Shoup.

We've found that September is a great time to visit Washington, D.C. because it's out of the tourist high season. It's much easier to enjoy the great museums and sites without the feeling of being in the midst of a stampede. We haven't taken any pictures here because we felt it unnecessary to document things that are already in a museum so please use your imagination for now and make the trip out here to see it for yourself when you can!

Yellowstone to Glacier National Park

Just back from a tour through Idaho, Wyoming and Montana--here are some pictures and videos of our trip.

Yellowstone-Glacier Slideshow

Deer on Jenny Lake in Teton Nat'l Park

Boiling mud in Yellowstone Nat'l Park

Geyser in Yellowstone Nat'l Park

Geyser in Yellowstone Nat'l Park 2

Bison greets us in our Camery (commentary by Michelle's Mom, Michelle & Matthew)

Pictures from Rocky Mountain National Park

Click on the following link to view pictures of us in Rocky Mountain National Park!

Rocky Mountain National Park

Colorado, Southern Utah, and a little New Mexico

We just got back from a road trip through Colorado, Southern Utah, a bit of New Mexico and Southern Wyoming. Some of the highlights were Canyonlands National Park, Mesa Verde National Park, Chaco Canyon National Historical Site and Rocky Mountain National Park. The following link is a slide show with captions to share our great experience.

Four Corners Roadtrip