Saturday
We went to the John Johnson Farm and got a tour. I loved being able to visit again. I also ran into two of my girls from my group that week. We also went to Historic Kirtland, but we only had time for a tour of the Newel K. Whitney Store. We then went to a musical that the Kirtland Stake put on, called "This is Kirtland!" Four of my girls also were there, so we got a picture outside of the church afterwards. (Aren't we cute?)
We also made a stop at the Kirtland temple and watched the video and looked around the grounds.
We then headed to Cleveland to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. My tiredness definitely hit me halfway through. But it was cool. Then we hit Wal-mart to buy some groceries and hung out in our hotel the rest of the night.
Sunday
Woke up, had the free continental breakfast at the hotel (we made sure we only stayed in hotels that had free wi-fi and free breakfasts), then left and headed to Cleveland to go to a YSA branch we had found. It was in the smallest church building I've ever seen. The chapel was half-sized. There were no pews on the side, and it wasn't super deep, either. And apparently, they even have Sunday School just in the chapel because there aren't a lot of available rooms. It was just super tiny. And there was a security camera monitoring the building and lot. (It was in a kind of sketchy part of town.) Partway through the meeting, I came to the realization that it was the branch I would've attended if I had ended up going to Case Western for grad school. But I heard back from BYU before I ever finished my application there. Weird. After church, we drove to our next hotel and hung out for the rest of the day.
Monday
Day one of Cedar Point. It was definitely draining, since it did get pretty hot and humid, and I'm just not used to humidity. We went on lots of rides and also saw two different shows. One show had extreme sports- roller skaters, scooters, bikers, and gymnasts. It was crazy. A couple of the athletes had even won medals in the X Games. And then we saw an ice skating show with Snoopy and Friends. It was so nice to get in some air conditioning for that!
After the park, we took a quick dip in the pool to cool off. The pool was FREEZING, though. And then we hung out in our room. Cuz we're cool like that.
Tuesday
Day two of Cedar Point. We made sure we hit the rest of the roller coasters that we hadn't hit yet, including Top Thrill Dragster. That was an amazing ride. Two hours of waiting for 17 seconds of amazingness. You basically go straight up and straight down 420 feet at 120 mph... with nothing holding you in but a seat belt and lap bar. I totally would've waited in the line to go again, but the ride was having difficulties and kept stopping and mechanics had to keep looking at it. We felt lucky to have gotten on it, because pretty soon after we got off, it seemed to shut down for at least an hour.
It was actually the day of breaking-down rides. Several rides shut down for a while due to some sort of issues. But we were able to go to every roller coaster in the park, plus some other rides. We left the park a bit early since we were drained (it was supposedly cooler than Monday, but it felt so much worse... I even got slightly sunburned) and because we couldn't get on the rides we wanted to anymore.
Wednesday
Left the hotel and traveled to Nauvoo. I read two books on the way and started a third.
We got to Nauvoo, and most of the places to tour were closing, but Julie and I managed to see the Cultural Hall and the Scovil Bakery. We then just wandered around Nauvoo a bit and ended up at the Visitor's Center, which was still open. We met up with Sara there, who had been having dinner with a family friend.
All three of us then bought some custard at Annie's Custard and wandered around the Nauvoo temple, before heading down to the Nauvoo Pageant. It was amazing. I'm so grateful I was able to see it. I also got to meet up with my friend Melanie, who is performing in the pageant this summer, briefly afterward.
We then collapsed at our hotel.
Thursday
Continued our journeys. We made a stop at the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, which was cool. I wish we had more time to explore other parts of the city, but maybe some other time.
We also stopped at Sara's brother's house for dinner and that was nice. I also got nominated to drive through Kansas, since I didn't have to sit through Nebraska on the way out like they did (thank you, airplanes). We stopped in the middle of Kansas (Hays, to be exact) for the night.
Friday
Drove 12 hours. I started off the day, driving through the not-so-pretty part of Kansas. Once we traded off, I napped some of the rest of the way. And read. And tried to talk on the phone to a friend.
So... states visited (or at least driven through) on this trip: Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, and Utah. Definitely quite the adventure. And many different license plates were seen (I probably would've seen even more if I hadn't been reading so much.) :-)
And now I'm home. And I leave again tomorrow for another week of EFY, and then a family reunion and possibly a family vacation after that. I've never been gone so much from my home base as I have this summer. I've loving these adventures, but it will also be nice to settle back down. Which means I also need to figure out my life and what I need to do once EFY and vacations are over. Yikes. Wish me luck!
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