A Memorial Day Trip to Utah

May 24:

Liz and I celebrated the last week of May by taking a little direct flight out to Salt Lake!

We kicked off the trip by standing in line for our rental car but that’s ok, we have a kitty cam now so it was a good time to check on Cornelius and confuse him by talking at him through it. Also, my friend Emily (you know, Mary’s sister?) spotted us in line and said Hey — which was great because it had been ages. And you know what I found out when I got to the counter? I have Premiere status or whatever and could have skipped the line. No one told me! I checked my receipt, it didn’t say I was special. Oh well. Like I said, we got to check on Cornelius.

First Stop after we get the car? Slackwater for some calzones! Next time: we’ll just split a calzone. Next stop? Visiting Doug and getting schooled in a variety of games. The Next Next Stop? We go visit Liz’s college and music friends Lacey and Elijah!

After some conviviality with her pals, I walked a big downtown SLC loop while they continued their catch up fun. No pics but there is a REAL nice public restroom on Temple Square now. Yes, lots of stuff is under contstruction, but the restroom is up and flushin’!

We concluded our day of activities by visiting Jake and Natalie and Ooops I did not get a picture. We visited lots of great people on this trip and, well, did not get a picture of all of them. We were having too much fun!

May 25: A dream come true day! We drove down to Canyonlands and checked off Liz’s final Utah National Park.
When we were nearly there we stopped at this tourist trap jerky shop and got trapped into spending SO much money on chips jerky and candy but, oh well, it was vacation! Ka-Chow!

Our visit to Canyonlands hit a small snag when we found ourselves in a, what was it, hour and twenty minute line to get into the park? But we persevered and then we got to see the canyons and walk around!

May 26: A chill Memorial Day in Highland. Started with a trip to a great Mexican grocery store in Orem to get ingredients for our dinner and then we got kolaches, and then we chilled out by the pool and stuff until we made shader & chorizo tacos and then we went and had a blast at Mission Impossible : Final Reckoning!

May 27: First, I took a Highland walk. A yard guy complimented my Spy t-shirt. Great walk.

And then we headed up to Provo for … a PROVO DAY. First stop? DI! Second stop? Liz’s best college friend Liz’s house and next-door under construction house! Third stop? In n Out with Liz and Liz and Liz’z kidz!

And then? Up to BYU where I met up with College roommate Dan to talk about the book he’s writing while Liz chatted with Tawna. And then after my Dan visit was done I did a quick BYU campus loop. It needs more trees. Badly.

And then? A real, real treat … Don Joaquin’s with my mission companion “Elder” Gomez and his wife. What a joyous reunion! What fun to visit and how nice to have a wife that loves going to Mexico City and talking about Mexico City.

And then … we met up with the Edwards for colonial-themed ice cream and met my nice-in-law-to-be London for the first time and, as usual, there are not photos.

May 28: First - petting the puppies and taking a Highland walk!

Then a Layton trip for fried chicken with the Beans (oops, no photo) and thrifting with the Beans (oops, no photo), a visit with the Pearsons (oops, no photo) and another visit with Doug and Amy (oops, no photo).

May 29: First, a great taco lunch with Cory before heading up to Heber for our first visit to Hawk and Sparrow Brick and Mortar!

And then we drove on down to Ephraim (Ephraim!), checked into our nice hotel (no photo) had a Mexican dinner and enjoyed a great visit to the Manti temple. Wow. If you want to talk about the Manti temple I will talk about the Manti temple!

May 30: Now I sort of forget that the “point” of our Utah trip, or the impetus at least, was that I was speaking at my 3rd Mormon Scholars of the Humanities conference which was being held at Snow College this year. Friday morning I went to the conference while Liz enjoyed her old college stomping grounds and then we met up for a pizza lunch.

And then we went back to Snow and I presented on Arno Schmidt and, honestly, it was a bit of a hit? He’s an interesting guy so the room got interested! I presented, I had my slide show, and then I got to answer plenty of Q’s during the Q&A. Another great thing about the conference? My Freshman English teacher was there! Always awesome to see Paula! When the conference was done we zipped up to Highland for Indian with the Edwards and, yeah, no pictures except for this one of me and Liz.

After Indian we walked to and around Alpine with Kristen and Cory (look! a picture of them! kind of!) and watched a movie in the basement because actually on this trip we watched a lot of movies in the Edwards basement … like, 3, maybe!

May 31: And then, shoot, May was over and our trip was over! One more Highland walk, one more visit to Doug, and then we flew on back to Columbus and our cat (who we had been watching on the kitty cam all week long).

February through May 2025!

This isn’t just a blog about trips, it’s also a blog about what Liz and I do here in Columbus. Let’s get caught up!

February 2: Nice walk around our neighborhood.

February 9: Liz sang at the Columbus Art Museum but it looks like I just have pictures of the art.

February 15: Belated Valentine’s because Liz had a big gig the night before…we have a tradition now, burgers and milkshakes for Valentine’s. This year: Burgers at Johnie’s Tavern, shakes at Graeter’s, and then Paddington 3 to wrap it up.

February 16: Reorganization of the ward, reorganization of the bishopric, but we’re not leaving either.

February 20: Liz had a gig at an indoor amusement park attached to a quiet mall.

February 21: Hibachi with Anne!

February 25, March 9, March 18: Walks in our neighborhood. We look at the cats in the other houses and say “Ooh, a kitty! Cornelius would not like them.”

April 3: Liz played the opening of a new community center!

April 10: We had a fun time cleaning floor mats at the car wash!

April 22: Neighborhood walk!

April 24 & 25: Liz had a jazz gig and a benefit gig.

April 26: Liz cooks a roast and then we go on a Metropark walk and visit a nature center and the bison!

April 30: Oh wow it’s my birthday! Waffle House for breakfast, Fiery Kitchen for dinner, perfect day!

May 3: Walk around our neighborhood.

May 7: Walk around … a neighborhood that looks Just. Like. Ours! But isn’t.

May 10: A visit to Glacier Ridge metro park!

May 11: Another Liz gig at the art museum followed by visiting kittens at the Gardners!

Next time … another travel post!

The Great Columbus to California Roadtrip

Over Christmas Liz got to thinking, and a plan was born.
Over Spring break, the plan was hatched when one Friday after work we hopped in the Tiguan and drove to St Louis and then a bit beyond…

Woke up real early the next morning and drove all the way to Flagstaff Arizona, blasting through Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico along the way. I had imagined taking a lot of photos on the road, turned out I mostly just got pictures of gas stations.

After a whole day of relentless driving we stopped for dinner at the Frontier restaurant in Albuquerque, a local treasure Liz’s colleague Mr. Mike had recommended. Our table-filling Tex Mex order really hit the spot and gave us the fuel needed for another four hours in the car.

Sunday morning, up and at ‘em once more with California in our crosshairs!

And next thing we knew we were in San Marino, enjoying the Sunday dinner of champions, having just driven across most of the country!

Since we were in California that meant we were on vacation! Grandma drove us over the the Langham to have a walk around and an explore. All these years and so many different names for that hotel and this was my first visit! Seemed like a pretty nice place.

And from the Langham we walked some Pasadena/San Marino streets that I did not know up to a turtle pond that we know well and then on up to a Hawaiian/Indonesian take out place by Grandma’s that I had heard was rather good and guess what? It was!

Monday was a workday of sorts for me, so Liz went over to her sister’s house after we all enjoyed Homestate for breakfast and, when I was free from the bonds of an honest day’s labor, I enjoyed a little steak supper with Grandma.

After Tuesday’s workday I had a little Big Boy lunch with famed Californian Collin before picking sister Emily up from the airport.

That evening I was reunited with my dear Liz and guess what? It was our anniversary! Our second anniversary and our third March 25th as husband and wife. We gave each other gifts, ate Argentine meats, pastas, and vegetables, and paid our Cal Tech turtle friends another visit.

Wednesday. Now here’s something big. Liz, Emily and I went to Universal Studios! We saw the Harry Potter stuff, we saw the Nintendo stuff, we saw the Simpsons and the Jurassic Park and Waterworld and everything else! And our tram broke down during the King Kong attraction. Woof that wore us out.

After Universal we had Yang Chow with Grandma (not picture) and the next morning we had Yang’s Kitchen for breakfast again and that IS pictured:

Then Collin gave us and Christina and her kids a VIP tour of the Disney Animation Studio before we enjoyed and evening and a morning in Santa Clarita.

And then on Friday we were back in San Marino sorting through treasures, loaded up the ‘Guan, and then Grandma was like “g’wan get outta here!” and we were back on the road, driving all the way to Albuquerque in a single afternoon! ( just kidding of course she didn't say that she said “goodbye I love you come back soon” and we said “goodbye we love you we’ll be back soon!”)

And on Saturday morning we woke up and drove from Albaqurque to the same hotel an hour or so outside of St Louis that we had stayed in a week before (with a stop for onion burgers and corn dogs in Oklahoma on the way!)

Sunday…woke up outside of St. Louis like we had before and stopped at the St. Louis arch like we did before. But this time we lived it up and went inside, it was great!

We also found ourselves stopping in Carey, Illinois, a small town that is home to many biggest things in the world.

Some Indiana traffic took the wind out of our sails but eventually we got home to a cat that was very glad to see us.

All in all, we were surprised by how easy it was to go to California and back. You just get in the car and go!