We left Tuesday, April 1st and drove to Las Vegas to visit cousins on the Palmer side of the family. (That would be my dad's younger brother Mark, his wife Janice, and their three kids Courtney, 18, Ashley, 14, and Ben, 13)
We spent the night at their house and had a great dinner with them. Courtney and her boyfriend were very interested in hearing about Adam's flight training, and Ben got to try on Adam's flight helmet. And, in the grand tradition of April Fool's Day, Ashley and I made smoothies with an extra ingredient for the boys, hot sauce!
Wednesday morning we headed down to Flagstaff for a visit to the Grand Canyon. The drive from Nevada into Arizona was gorgeous! We enjoyed the scenery, and even got to drive over the Hoover Dam. It was amazing to see such an amazing feat of architecture.
Once we arrived at the Grand Canyon we took a helicopter tour of the North Rim. I had never been in a helicopter before so I found it very exciting. Adam enjoyed it too, but probably wished to be at the controls the whole time. The tour was definitely a dream come true. We saw the amazing beauty of the Lord's creation.
After Arizona, we decided to drive as much as we could the next four days. We made it to Amarillo, TX Thursday, then all the way to Little Rock, AR on Friday. Oklahoma and Arkansas were long drives, but also very pretty. Saturday we drove to Knoxville, TN, but not without a fun stop in the middle.
Before we got to Knoxville we stopped in Memphis to visit Elvis Presley's Graceland! Cheesy, yes. But fun, also yes! It was my idea and Adam hesitantly played along. We toured the mansion and the grounds and learned a lot about Elvis. It was really cool and probably one of the most fun days of the trip.
Elvis had some pretty tacky taste....
But, he also had quite a few accomplishments....
The house and grounds were actually very pretty.
After so many long days of travel we were anxious to make it to Jacksonville. It took us nine hours from Knoxville, but was well worth the drive. The Great Smoky Mountains escorted us out of Tennessee and into North Carolina. Since there had been so much rain earlier that week and the night before, the clouds looked breathtaking over the mountains, and little waterfalls flowed from the cliffs around the interstate. What a wonderful treat to make the long day of driving not feel so bad. We were able to arrive in Jacksonville just in time for dinner Sunday night with our dear friends Sam and Kat, who graciously hosted us while we waited to find a house and to get our furniture delivered.
More about our house and the Jacksonville area to come....
