Utah!

I'll let you know that the original draft of this post, even when it was unfinished, was super long. So I decided to re-write it, to shorten it a bit. Here we go:

We flew to Utah to visit our family and go to the family reunion. It was pretty awesome, I want to move out there to live.

We got to the airport a good hour early and had plenty of spare time, so we got some Cinnabons. As we were eating them and enjoying there wonderful, gooey deliciousness, we saw a lady with hair exactly like Kate's from John and Kate Plus 8. We didn't think too much of it, though, because there must be a million of people walking around with her hairstyle.

Once our airplane started to board, we went and sat at our gate. Sure enough, there was the Kate-hairstyle lady. Except it wasn't just her hair. It was everything. She was standing there with her arms crossed like Kate, surrounded by lots of luggage like Kate would be, and she had a scowl on her face that was a perfect replica of Kate's. It was weird, man.

The plane was teeny-tiny. There were two seats on one side and one on the other, and you had to crouch because the ceiling was so low. It was a very cramped hour ride there. My feet fell asleep.

Our lay-over at the airport was three, three-and-a-half, hours long. We looked at the shops for a laptop sleeve to fit my oddly-sized computer (no success), had lunch, and I found an outlet to plug Roger into so I could get some homework done.

The next plane was bigger, but not gigantic. It had two rows, both with three seats in it. We were stuck at the back, right next to the lavatory, so we were smelling perfumed blue toilet juice the whole way.

We got to Utah okay, and went to Gramma's, where we had lunch with Matt and Aunt Susan. I got to meet little Anna for the first time!

The next morning, we rolled out of bed and headed on over to the Gillespie's house, to visit and help pack if we could. We didn't really help much, but we said our hello's and chatted a bit then headed back over to Gramma's.

We packed up our things and headed out to our family reunion site, a drive that was supposed to be three hours to Junction. We took a detour through a town to see some house that Mum's grandma talked about when Mum was little. We got back on the Interstate and continued on our way.

It was a very nice drive, I didn't have to do anything except look out the window to keep myself occupied. Unlike South Carolina, where the trees block all the view, Utah is very open. I got to see all the mountains, plains, and other sorts of landscape that constantly changed the whole ride there.

Gramma knew that we were supposed to go past this town called Penguitch, not through it. We were also told to look for a sign that said, "Big Rock Candy Mountain" to tell us where to turn off. So we drove past Penguitch and we were looking for Big Rock Candy Mountain or some other sign telling us to turn. And we kept driving. "Surely it'll be just down the road." "Oh, it can't be too far." "Do you think we passed it? No, I don't think so, it must be just a little ways further." etc, etc.

We drove for an extra 45 minutes until we decided that must've missed something, so Mum pulled out her cellphone to call someone or look up a map. No service. Great. We pulled off the road into a rest area (except we couldn't see it) hoping to find a map or something. Luckily, we hit a little pocket of phone service so Mum was able to look up a map on her phone. The turnoff was right past Penguitch. Over 45 minutes away. We were on our way to Denver the way we were going.

So we turned ourselves around and we finally got to where we were going. Big Rock Candy Mountain didn't look at all like rock candy, more like chocolate and vanilla ice cream (there really wasn't a big sign that said, "Big Rock Candy Mountain," at least not one that we would've seen). We got to Junction, though a little later than we expected, and drove to our location.

Where we were staying was an old courthouse, remodeled to host family reunions. I'm sorry that I don't have any pictures or videos, oh how I wish I got some. The place was awesome! It was gigantic, though still not big enough for everyone to have a bedroom. A lot of people had to stay in the living room area, but McKenzie and I stayed in...

...the library! It was amazing. There were tons of books, a very nice chess table (which I'm sorry to say we didn't use), and a cool-looking loft. We weren't allowed in the loft, the people in the house apparently don't want people up there, but Lizzie and Ally went up there anyway. It got really hot at night, though

So the reunion was wonderful, we were able to become re-acquainted with our family. We did quite a lot of things (listed in no particular order):

• panning for gold
• koob
• shooting skeets
• playing the board game Oodles
• koob
• eating way more than the serving size
• boating/tubing on the lake
• Pooh sticks
• playing the board game Ticket to Ride: Europe
• koob
• photo scavenger hunt
• koob
• and much, much more

As you can see, koob was mentioned quite a bit on that list. Koob is a game that we played on the lawn of the courthouse, and we played it pretty much all day, every day, at least if we weren't doing something else. It's a traditional viking game in which you have to knock down blocks by throwing sticks. It's more fun than it sounds. It's way, way fun. Look on McKenzie's blog for a more detailed description.

It was nice to see the family, I had to re-meet most of them. They're all cool people out there, and scarily smart. To see Harrison wasn't all that strange for me. He's just like he's always been, but a little more well-fed maybe. And even after seeing him, I don't miss him any more. He's just my brother that happens to be across the country.

It was sad to say goodbye to everyone, but we had to leave by eleven on the last morning. Since it was Free National Parks Day, a bunch of us got together and went to Bryce Canyon. McKenzie and I road with Lizzie, Ally, Kirsten, Ian, and Paula. Once we got there, there really wasn't much to see. Sure enough, though, we looked at all the different prospectives of the canyon and got all hot and sweaty. The BkE trio took a hike down the canyon to look at the "Cave of Mysteries" or something like that.

The rest of us left to Penguitch to get something to eat. We were going to eat at Subway, but then they decided they'd rather eat at a local drive-in. So we went there and I had a chicken sammich and a chocolate milkshake. It was good.

We said our goodbyes and headed to Cedar (this time with Mum and Gramma) to see all Mum's locations of childhood memories. She insisted on showing us the picture in the university that had her in it. We then drove around and saw a few places, like her old friends', the Wheelers, house (it's huge!). After that we visited Lindsay (I hope I spelt that right) and her family. It was nice to see them, too. Her newborn is tiny.

We drove by and looked at Mum's childhood home and then headed back to Gramma's house. Once we got there, we went to Aunt Sue's house and played a good game of Bang with them. The outlaws won (hooray!)!

The next day, we went to the family party at Aunt Sue's house. We ate a delicious meal and played a few good games of koob. We went back inside and played a giant game of Bang while the adults played Puerto Rico. The outlaws won again by killing me, the sheriff. After that, some more koob was played while I tried to walk on the giant rolling barrel/tube thing that they had in their yard. I failed terribly at it.

The next day, we went to Logan to visit Harrison at his place of residence. BkE is nice, on a college student's level, though we weren't allowed in the door at the bottom of the stairs. I wonder what's in there...

We took Harrison shopping for athletic shoes and to Old Navy, where he got some pants and I got some sunglasses. I hope they'll do well for marching season. While we were driving through town, McKenzie and I bugged Harrison by asking him if he'd applied to the many businesses around town. Turns out he has applied to most, just not all. Come on Harry, if you want a job you'll have to open-minded!

We chatted with him a while at his home and saw the garden they were growing, but it grew time for us to leave. We had to get back to Gramma's in time to see Singing in the Rain.

It was a nice play, with real rain onstage! It was kind of like in-the-round, just missing a side, so it was a nice experience.

That was our last night, so the next morning we got up, went to Lizzie, Ally, Kirsten, Zach, Ian, and Paula's house to get my glasses and mp3 player (which I had left in their Suburban), and drove to the airport.

We had a pretty normal flight home, and we got to the house and were greeted warmly by Rosie and half-heartedly by Pim. It's been kind of unexciting since.

It took me awhile to write this, I know. I've been doing it in parts. I started the super-long version while driving home from the reunion, but I couldn't use that- it was too long! I might be behind on my posts for a while.