"Mini"-Road Trip

Well, our "mini"-road trip turned out to be bigger than I really expected, but we had an immaculate time, as Dar would say. Our trip began on Thursday morning (July 17) by heading out to Hertz Car Rental here in Poughkeepsie to pick up our temporary transportation. With much persuasion, I finally got Darwin to agree to get a Navigation system so we wouldn't be lost our entire trip. We ended up getting a pretty sweet deal on our car, having only paid $144 for 3 days, plus the navigation system & bumper-to-bumper insurance for our trip. We thought it was hilarious though when we walked out to our assigned car and it had a Utah license plate! What are the chances of that?! Haha.

The navigation system was a complete and total life-saver! We decided to call it our Liahona (for those of you who don't know what a Liahona is, it's a type of compass used by a Prophet named Lehi in the Book of Mormon) and nick-named it "Leah" for short, particularly because a woman's voice is used for the navigation. We liked "Leah" so much that we decided when we're rich and famous we want to buy a "Leah" for our own car. Half the fun of the whole trip was just being on the road together, enjoying the experience. Dar & I really do love road trips together & we're looking forward to driving out to Oregon in a few weeks with Dar's family!

So, back to our adventure. We left Pougkeepsie about 9:30 ish Thursday morning to drive out to Hershey, Pennsylvania. We didn't do a whole lot there, but did explore the Chocolate World Factory. Admittedly, Darwin was a little disappointed that we didn't get to see the actual factory and that we didn't get to see the real making of the chocolate, but he liked it anyway. It was tempting to buy a bunch of chocolate there, until you remember you can buy the exact same thing at Wal-Mart for a lot cheaper, so we refrained from blowing all our money on the yummy chocolate and goodies.

Here's us with a picture of a Kit-Kat candy bar character guy, who is a real person trying to be a statue. It was pretty funny that he was trying so hard not to move, so we got a picture with him :) I loved being there and felt almost as excited as the Willy Wonka factory winners who got to spend a day in his factory! Okay, maybe not quite that excited, but it was great to be there and take Darwin to the factory for his first time.

After our little trip to the Hershey Factory, we headed back towards northern Pennsylvania to meet up with another friend of Darwin's from Disney World, Aron Wright. It was so great for me to meet him and for Darwin to see a good friend again. They haven't seen each other since 2003, so it was a nice time for them to catch up. Unfortunately neither one of us remembered to pull out our camera to get a picture with Aron & Darwin together, but it was great to see him! And thanks for the Iraqi money, Aron! We're going to frame it when we get home and hang onto it! Thanks for thinking of us! Following our wonderful visit with Aron we drove another hour north to find our hotel, and pulled in at about 12:30am.

July 18: After snoozing for about 6 hours we were up and ready to go again. The sweet guy at the hotel was concerned that we didn't get enough sleep, but we were off on our way to Amesbury, Massachusetts to meet up with Rinalda, a lady Darwin knew in the first area of his mission to Fortaleza, Brazil. She lives with her husband, Anderson, and daughter Melissa, in Amesbury. Trying to find their apartment was the first time our "Leah" messed up an address, and because they live so close to the border, when we had to make a U-turn we ended up in New Hampshire twice, taking our total of states visted that day to 5: Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire; all in one day! Suh-wheat!

It was fun to meet yet another person Darwin knows from his mission. Rinalda, your family is beautiful and it was so fun for us to come visit and spend some time with you!

Following our visit with Rinalda and her family we headed down to Cambridge, Massachusetts where we would be staying the night with one of my former coworkers, Kristen Mills, and her family. They were great to let us stay with them. The Mills' just moved to Cambridge July 1, so that Kristen's husband, Jad, can attend law school at Harvard University. They took us on a tour of Harvard University and told us some of the history of the school.

This is Dar touching the foot of a statue on the Harvard University grounds. The reason he's making this face is because it's rumored that if you rub the foot (which you can see is a different color than the rest of the statue because so many people have touched it) it will give you good luck. But, it is also rumored that some silly boys have urinated on the foot of the statue as well (although we were trying to figure out how they were able to urinate on something so high). Haha. So Darwin is trying to be lucky while completely disgusted at the same time :) It was really fun to be on the campus of such an aged and well known University. Good luck with law school, Jad!

July 19: Saturday was the final day of our "mini"-road trip, but was pretty jam-packed and we were both exhausted by the end of it. We had the privilege of spending the day in Boston, Massachusetts, touring the city and engulfing ourselves in its history. It was the first experience for both of us to ride on a subway train, and it was pretty sweet.

We did the Freedom Trail, if any of you are familiar with the area, and saw some pretty incredible sites, but we don't want to bore you with all the details of the day ;). One of my favorite things we saw was an amazing cemetery. It was the confirmation of the stereotypical cemetery of the time period. In that particular cemetery several well-known historic figures were buried, such as: Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and possibly the infamous Mrs. Goose. But the thing that fascinated me the most were the tomb stones. Many of them had a skull at the top of them with angel wings coming out of the skull, or cross bones. Others had "grim reaper" type creatures, and others had angel faces with wings coming out.

Some of the tomb stones were practically buried in the ground so far you could only see the top of it. The cemetery was definitely very fascinating. It was probably one of my favorite stops of the trail. Not to mention how cool it was to see the grave of Paul Revere and John Hancock.

One of Dar's favorite things was going to see the U.S.S. Constitution again. He visited it just out of 4th grade when his family took a trip around the United States. For those who don't know, the U.S.S. Constitution is a war ship from the Revolutionary War.

We also got to tour the U.S.S. Cassin Young, a World War II battle ship. It was neat to walk around both ships and to see the living and working quarters of the men who worked and lived on them. We were also surprised to see jelly fish all over the place around both ships. I guess we're just not use to ever seeing jelly fish in the water in Utah :)

Visiting the ships was the last thing we did on the Freedom Trail and we headed back to Cambridge after that. My very favorite thing of the whole day was being able to see my favorite twins the whole world. Sarah Loiacono & Rebecca Loiacono Green. We became very good friends when I lived in NY in 8th grade, and have remained good friends ever since. It was truly a blessing to be able to see them again, and even though it was a short visit, we had a great time together catching up on things.

Me, Rebecca, & Sarah

We met up with them to eat at a really great Italian restaurant in Boston, and Darwin was in heaven with his sea food platter; he usually doesn't get the opportunity to eat sea food because I don't like it so he tries not to eat it around me. However he decided to take advantage of being on the coast and splurge on this particular occasion with some fresh Boston lobster, muscles, clams, shrimp, scallops, calamari (squid), and I think halibut.

It was a wonderful trip, and a great opportunity to check off some states, see some wonderful sites, and spend some time with some great people. We're glad we were able to meet up with everyone we were planning to see, and to see the sites we wanted to visit. Thanks to everyone for making the effort to see us while we're in the area. We love you all, and thanks to Jad & Kristen for letting us crash at your place for a night, it was great to see you all & hope to have you all come visit us in Utah!

Jad, Konrad, Kristen, & me (with my incredibly perfect posture :) haha)