Emmi will be leaving for deployment on December 1st. She will be gone for 6 months or longer. She didn't want to leave her car parked for 6 months without being driven once in a while so she asked her mom and I if we would fly out to Atlanta and then drive back with her. She can leave the car here while she is deployed. Annie and I left on Friday, November 12. I will add in here that there is a turkey that I bought from Jamie a couple years ago. The turkey was to raise money for the girls dance. The idea of the turkey was that you would write what you were thankful for and put a feather for each thing in his tail. Well, somehow this turkey got resurrected and has become a thing between Andrew and Emmi. So Annie decided to sneak the turkey out of the house and bring it along on the trip so that Emmi could send pictures of the turkey during our drive home. You know, kind of like Flat Stanley.
Here are the pictures at the Salt Lake International Airport before we boarded the plane. This is the turkey on the baggage belt.
Here he is having lunch with Annie and I at Cafe Rio before boarding the plane.
Strapped in and ready for take off!
Lynda Ann and I in our seats. It was a Boeing 707. Two seats on each side and 4 in the middle. We were in the two seats on the side, which was perfect! We watch a movie all the way to Atlanta.
Now this is the great picture. Lynda Ann and I waited until everyone has exited the plane. As we walked up to exit one of the pilots was just coming back to also leave the plane. Annie asked him if it would be possible to take a picture of the turkey in cockpit. The pilot said, "Sure, follow me." He took us to the cockpit and we were able to take a picture! We couldn't believe how nice he was about our stupid request.
Emmi was waiting for us and our journey across the states began. Our first night we drove to Jasper, Georgia and spent the night there. Annie spotted this car in the motel parking lot and we had a good laugh. They have a lawn mower strapped on the top of their car!! It was worth taking a picture.
The turkey (who at this time still remains nameless) is ready for a good nights sleep along with the rest of us.
Picture the next morning as we were getting ready to head out on our long journey.
We reached New Albany, Tennessee where we stopped for lunch at the Cracker Barrell and of course the turkey was with us.
We did a little bit of shopping in the store and bought a couple things. We had to have our masks on and so did the turkey!
Just a photo bomb here!
Cute picture of Emmi and the beloved Turkey!
Emmi found out that there was a Crumbl Cookies not too far from where we were so we made a little detour to get some delicious cookies for the trip!
Emmi's car heater broke a few days before we arrived for the trip and she didn't have the time to get it fixed but also wanted to have Quan fix it so we drove across the country in a cold car. It was in the 40's most of the time so we had to make a stop at a Costco to buy each of us a blanket to wrap around us while traveling. Of course the turkey was cold and need to be wrapped up as well.
We made a pit stop in Russellville and got some scratch cards. Sadly none of us won anything.
We made it to Oklahoma in the evening about 7:00 p.m. Annie had researched where the the Oklahoma City National Memorial was. We drove into the city, parked and walked around the memorial. It was very solemn and beautiful. I took a few pictures but pictures are never the same as being there and you can never feel the impact of what happened from a picture. I'm so happy that Lynda Ann thought about having us take the time to visit it.
You should read about it so that you understand the times and what they stand for.
The empty chairs are representative of all the people who lost their lives when the building was bombed. As you walk around you can see part of the structure of what is left of the building.
After we left there we went to the Texas Roadhouse for a delicious steak dinner.
This is one of the places that we stayed.
We made it to Moab Sunday night. We got up this morning and toured a little bit of Moab. None of us had ever been there. This is a picture of balancing rock.
Some more pictures of Moab.
A picture of Shiprock.
The turkey dressed up with Christmas decorations.
I just realized these pictures are out of order. We drove to Four Corners on Sunday. We arrived there at 4:30 and found out it closed at 4:45.
Emmi doing push ups on the four states.
State of Utah - the best of all!!
This is just a fun picture of the shadow of Emmi's car on the hill side as we were traveling along.
A fun Mexican place we ate at in Moab.
A couple more pictures at Four Corners. Funny thing about this picture. Emmi was sick of this stupid turkey and did not want it in the picture so she tossed it off to the side for the picture. When we saw it we immediately notice that the guy who took the picture had included the turkey! We just couldn't get away from that silly turkey.
Finally one without the turkey.
We were so excited to finally see Welcome to Utah. We had to pull over and take a picture.
Another random picture out of order of a place where we stayed in Texas. The funny thing about this picture is that Annie set the turkey under that star to take the picture. She didn't know that her phone was on live. As she took the picture a little pit of wind came up and the turkey fell forward off the sign. Very funny.
We made a stop in Provo to see Mallory at work. Exciting for the two sisters to see each other.
All said and done, it was a fun trip. We were blessed as we traveled. We had prayer each morning as we began the day. We were blessed with safety throughout the trip. We saw lots of great sights and had fun conversations as we traveled. I was grateful to have the three days with Emmi and Lynda Ann. Grateful to be home safe and now to look forward to spending some time with Emmi before she leaves on deployment. Welcome home Emmi!
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