Catching up on 2012 - January

Now that I'm finished with my posts from Virginia and other east coast adventures, it's now time to get caught up on all the happenings of 2012.  After coming home from Virginia, I got a job at Barnes & Noble in St. George and lived down there for a while.  I absolutely loved working there, but the pay wasn't great and I wasn't getting very many hours.  It was hard to get by on those pay checks, so when I was offered a full-time job at The Blindman, I didn't hesitate.  I moved back to Fountain Green for a while and was driving 60 miles each way for work everyday.  With gas prices the way they are, it was more economical for me to get an apartment.  Plus it's way more fun than living at home!  I moved to Orem and I got really lucky with great roommates and an awesome singles ward.  2012 has been full of fun and exciting events.  Here's a few thing that happened in January :)

Me, my roommates, and Jessica (roommate from SUU) went to Park City for the Sundance Film Festival.  We were determined to meet a celebrity!  Well, we didn't have any luck with that, but it was still so fun to be in Park City during the festival.  We walked up and down main street and had some really good pizza.  I've never been in Park City during Sundance, but I think this might be a yearly event.

Me and Jess getting ready to leave for Park City.  Love her!

A couple weeks after Sundance, two of my roommates and I went to the Brad Paisley concert!! 

Oh. My. Gosh.  I just love him.  Seriously, how amazing is he?!  He was a great performer and he just seems like a great guy in normal life too.  I'm pretty much in love with him.  

Scotty McCreery and The Band Perry were his opening acts and I love them all too, so it was a fantastic concert!   

After Scotty McCreery and The Band Perry, there was a 20 minute wait until Brad Paisley came out.  We were getting a little restless....

Finally!!  AH!

  

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Finally Home :)

We left Cedar pretty early on a Sunday morning so that we could be back in time to go to church with our families.  I almost cried as we pulled into Fountain Green.  I know 4 months isn't that long to be gone, but I just love home so much and was so excited to be there.  I dropped Brittany off at her house then drove down the street to my house.  I hadn't even stopped my car in the driveway before my mom came out the door to give me a hug.  It was nice to know they were excited to see me too.  

That was the week of Thanksgiving, so over the holiday I got to see a lot of family members and everyone was so excited to hear about my adventures and see pictures and everything.  

*So that is the end of all that.  It's appropriate that I finish up now because it was 2 years ago this week that I loaded up my car and headed out there.  That was such a fun time in my life that I will never forget.  I learned so my about our country and about myself, and I'm really grateful for that experience.  For those of you that have actually read all of these, I hope you enjoyed them.  I know it was so long ago, but I still had to update so that I wouldn't forget anything in the years to come.  I'm actually surprised by how much I do still remember.  But now I can finally start posting about stuff that is going on currently in my life (which isn't much).  So thanks everyone for bearing with me while I got caught up.*

Trip home day 6-7. Almost home!

After we gassed up in Amarillo and almost got blown away.... pretty sure a tornado was coming or something because I have never experienced wind like that.... we headed out on the longest leg of our trip.  We were going all the way to Vegas, a 13 hour drive.  Vegas is a little further west than home, but we wanted to stop in St. George and Cedar City to see friends and family before going to Fountain Green.  Since Vegas has cheap places to stay and it's always fun there, we just decided to stop there for the night then head into Utah.  We drove from Texas through New Mexico and Arizona.  Holy moly, that was the most boring/not very pretty drive.  I know there are parts of those states that have really nice things to see, but our route did not have ANY!  We were so glad to get to Vegas.  Seriously, New Mexico would probably be the last state I would ever want to live in!

While driving in Texas we got pulled over.  Apparently it's illegal to just drive in the left lane of the freeway unless you are passing someone.  Is that a law in Utah too?  I don't know, but there was probably only 2 or 3 other cars within a mile of us, so I didn't see why it was a big deal.  I guess having out of state license plates makes you more of a target for getting pulled over too.  No ticket luckily.... the cop could tell that we genuinely didn't know we were doing anything wrong.

This long drive was great for us to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  Part 1 of the last movie was coming out in a few days and we were going to go see it in Cedar City with my sister and my cousins, so we wanted to read the book again before seeing the movie.  We borrowed the book from our friend Cortney in Virginia, with the promise that I would ship it back to her once we got home.  The previous days of travel, we probably got halfway through the book, but in this last day, since there was not much to look at, we finished the whole second half.    We finished the last chapter right as we pulled into Vegas.  It worked out pretty nicely.  Our throats were a little sore from reading out loud for 4 days though.

We got to our hotel at around 7:30 and all we did was watch TV until 8, then go to sleep.... I know, we were such party animals in Vegas. lol.  But it was a long day and we were super tired.  The next day we just walked up and down the strip and the only thing we really wanted to do was see the Bellagio fountains.  That's my favorite part of Vegas.  We got to the fountains around 12:30 thinking that there was a show every 15 minutes like usual.  We waited forever and nothing happened!  We kept thinking, "Okay they're going to start at 1", "okay, they're going to start at 1:30..."  Finally at 2:00 there was an announcement that the first performance would be at 2:30.  We waited at those fountains for 2 hours!  But it was worth it (almost) because the first performance is a double show.  They do the fountain show for the National Anthem, plus the regular show, so we got to see 2 songs.  It felt good to just chill and relax though after long driving days.

We left Vegas in the afternoon and arrived in St. George to stay with my sister for the night.  It was so good to see a family member.  The next day we went to Cedar City and stayed the night there.  I got to see old roommates and friends from SUU, and we saw the Harry Potter movie with my cousins.  We were almost home, and couldn't wait to get to Fountain Green the next day!

Trip home day 5

We left Arkansas and drove through Oklahoma.  For once, Brittany drove!  It was a miracle.  Brittany has this problem that as soon as we get into the car, she falls asleep.  So the fact that she drove 6 or 7 of the 9 hours was great :)  I slept through most of Oklahoma (It's not super exciting) until we got to Checota, which is the hometown of Carrie Underwood.  I love Carrie Underwood and she has a whole song about Checota, so we had to stop there.  If you listen to the lyrics she talks about places in the town.  It was way cool to see the "Sonic and the grocery store" and all the places from the song.  I had my camera ready in case she was home visiting her family and just happened to be at the store at the same time we went in to get lunch. haha.  I knew it was unlikely, but I can still dream right?

We continued into Texas and stopped in Amarillo for the night.  I actually really liked Amarillo.  We found a cute western store that we went in and tried on boots and hats, and then we ate dinner at Texas Roadhouse.... in Texas!  whoa!  ;)  The sunset was so amazing and I thought of the song "Amarillo Sky" by Jason Aldean.

Trip home Day 3-4

Days 1 and 2 were both spent in North Carolina.  After leaving NC we drove through South Carolina and Georgia.  We got to Atlanta around midnight so we couldn't really stop to do anything, so we just drove around a little.  It was a little scary to be there that late.  There were quite a few homeless people all over the city.  We did get a picture of the Coca-Cola factory.

We continued to drive through the night, stopping at a church in Birmingham, Alabama for a quick nap.  As morning came, we passed Tupelo, Mississippi which is the hometown of Elvis Presley (love him!)

We kept driving through Northern Mississippi and upward to Memphis, Tennesee.  I was really excited to go to Memphis for some reason.  I really wanted to see Graceland, and I've just heard it's a cool city.  All over the eastern states there are Waffle Houses so Britt and I definitely wanted to eat at one of those before our trip was over.  We got to Memphis at around 8 in the morning, so we just typed in 'Waffle House' in the GPS and went to the closest one.  Now I hope no one is offended by this, but we were the only white people in the whole restaurant.  When we walked in the doors, everyone was staring at us like, "what are these girls doing in here?"  We ate our breakfast, which wasn't anything special, but it was pretty good, then we went to the motel we were planning on staying at.  All I can say is thank goodness we didn't pre-pay for that place because it was SCARY!  We got out of there in a flash.  We drove around a little trying to find another place that was in our budget, but everything else seemed even worse!  Since it was still early in the day and we weren't super tired, we just decided that we would keep driving a little and stop in Little Rock, Arkansas for the night.

First we had to see Elvis country though  :)  I love Elvis and we really wanted to see Graceland, but admission to the house was about $35 dollars each, plus $10 for parking, so we didn't quite think it was worth it.  We tried to drive around and see if we could just see the outside of the house, but it's so surrounded by trees that you can't see anything.  We found some cool gift shops to get some souvenirs though before heading west to Little Rock for the night.

Not much to say about Arkansas, except that there are lots of Wal-Marts. haha.  Wal-Mart started in Arkansas, so they are all over the place.  It was a nice, safe place to stay.  When we got to Little Rock, I called my mom and she had talked to a friend at work who went on his mission to Memphis.  When she told him that we were in Memphis, the first thing he said was, "tell them to get out". haha.  I'm sure it's not all bad and there are very nice places that we didn't get to experience, but we were glad to be a little closer to home anyway.  Instead of a 12 hour drive to Amarillo it was 9, so that was nice.

One Tree Hill fans... Be very jealous! :)

So, it's not exactly on the way to Utah, but I just couldn't leave the east coast without seeing where One Tree Hill is filmed, in Wilmington, North Carolina.  Anyone that knows me, knows that's one of my favorite shows, and I was not about to be that close to Wilmington and not take the opportunity to go there.  Since we knew we were taking a southern route home, we planned it so we would head straight south from Shenandoah to Wilmington, then start heading east through South Carolina and Georgia.  So it wasn't completely out of the way. haha.  

Can I just say that I love North Carolina?  Not just Wilmington, which was beautiful, but the whole state.  We passed through Durham, where Duke University is, and the capitol city of Raleigh.  North Carolina is definitely a place that I could spend a lot of time in.... and probably even live in.  But like I said, Wilmington was such a pretty town.  It lies on the Cape Fear River and is just a few miles away from the ocean.  There are so many old houses and churches and other buildings, and our visit there turned into much more than we expected.

We checked into the hotel on Friday evening and decided to order some pizza and map out our game plan for Saturday.  We ordered Papa John's online and right when we clicked the "order" button, the internet cut out.  So we tried ordering again and 20 minutes later our pizza arrived.  Well, a few minutes after that, there was another knock at the door and another pizza.  Apparently, the first order did go through so we had pizza for quite a few meals. lol. 

I found a website where a super-fan of One Tree Hill had compiled all the addresses of filming locations for the show.  All the exterior shots are filmed at actual houses (that people really live in) and other buildings, so we wrote down all the addresses and on Saturday we drove to them all.  I kept hoping that we would run into one of the actors somewhere.  I took my camera everywhere with me, just in case we came across someone at Wal-Mart or a gas station or something.  Seriously, I would just die if I could meet James Lafferty.  We never had any luck with that, but I did run my first ever red light because I was paying more attention to the sidewalks instead of the road.  No other cars were even around, so no one was hurt.  Luckily there were no cops around either.

Lucas's house

Peyton's House

Brooke's House

Tric

Tree Hill High School.  Not really....haha.  It's actually Cape Fear Community College.

We walked up and down the river walk to find this exact table.  

Clothes Over Bro's/Karen's Cafe  :)

We saw all these way cool places and I really wanted to see the river court, but there was a tri-athlon going on in Wilmington that day and the finish line was in the same park as the court, so they wouldn't let us drive our car over there.  We had to drive to the other side of the river and park our car, then ride a ferry over.  But because of the inconvenience for all the tourists and people involved with the race, the Battleship North Carolina was letting people on for free.  It's an actual battleship used in WWII, and now sits in the Cape Fear River.  They let people on to walk through the ship and we were glad we were able to do that (especially for free!)  My grandpa was in the navy and experienced ship-life, so it was cool to see some of the things he got to experience.

It doesn't look super huge, but it was actually really big!

Because of the tri-athlon, there were so many people at the river court.  So we just decided to come back the next day.  We got to meet some cool people though who had husbands/brothers/etc. running in the race. People came from all over the country to participate.  The swimming part of the tri-athlon is in the ocean and part of the running is along the beach, so it sounded pretty cool.  Not that I would ever do it.  : \

The next day was Sunday and we found a church to go to in the morning.  Everyone was so nice and welcoming.  I love that about the church.... you feel loved anywhere you go.  After church we got some tacos at Taco Bell and took them to the river court to eat.  That's right.  I ate lunch on the river court  :)  I'm glad we went when there were no people so that we could just spend time and not worry about the crowds.  So many of my favorite One Tree Hill moments are on the river court.  I seriously almost cried when we got there.... almost. haha.

People thought we were a little crazy for going that far out of our way to stop in Wilmington.  Well, when we were at the river court another group of girls showed up that were from Australia.  Now I don't seem so crazy, do I?  lol.  Even if I am a little overly crazy about the show, I'm glad I got to see "Tree Hill".  

Heading Home

The end of our season at Shenandoah came to an end.  We packed up our stuff into the car and headed back to Utah.  It was a little bittersweet because we loved it there.  We had so much fun and were able to meet so many great people, but we were excited to get home and see our families.  We started our trip home the 2nd week in November and we planned it out to be home 2 days before Thanksgiving.

The car was stuffed full!

Goodbye Loft Mountain :(

Sadie and I drove to Virginia on I-70 pretty much the whole way, which goes across mostly middle states.  Since it was getting late in the year and little cold, Britt and I decided it would be fun to take a more Southern route on the way home.  I wanted to see states that I hadn't seen yet, and we didn't want to run into any snow storms.

There was one place we wanted to see before we got out of the state of Virginia (well, way more than one, but we just didn't have time for them all.)  This spot was right on the way, so we were excited we would get to see it.  

Appomattox was the place where the Robert E. Lee surrendered the Civil War.  I know I've said it before, but I love actually being able to see the places that these great historical moments took place at.  It's amazing to me that I saw the actual desk where Robert E. Lee sat and signed the papers that said the Union had won the war.

Appomattox Courthouse, which is where I always thought the surrender took place, but it actually happened inside this house (below), the Wilmer McLean house, which is just down the street from the courthouse.

It was a quick stop, but it was so cool to see such an important place in our country's history.