Maxwell and Gideon (my nephews) joined Douglas and me for our adventurous temple trip over the past three days. Our neighbor, Danny Davis, picked us up at 2:15am on Thursday and he dropped us off at the Salt Lake City Amtrak train station to catch our six-hour train ride to Grand Junction, Colorado.
Once we boarded the train, Douglas and Maxwell immediately started playing games. They must have played 50 games of chess during our trip.
Gideon caught up on some sleep on the train ride.
We arrived at the Grand Junction train station and set off for our late-morning baptisms-for-the-dead appointment at the Grand Junction Temple. I tried multiple times to film and ride at the same time, but it didn't work. I almost crashed multiple times.
We rode 3.5 miles to the temple, stopping halfway there to eat breakfast at McDonald's.
Maxwell and Douglas changed into their church clothes in the waiting room of the temple. Gideon doesn't have a temple recommend yet, so he watched our things in the waiting room while the rest of us were in the baptistry.
Post-baptisms photo in front of the temple doors.
Following our visit to the temple, we rode another two miles to the Grand Junction Airport to pick up a rental car. It was a very hot day!
This is how we felt when we got the rental car. Air-conditioning!
We spent the night at a hotel in Grand Junction.
The next day we drove five hours south to Farmington, New Mexico. We stopped along the way at the Four Corners Monument.
When I initially planned this trip, I included the Monticello, Utah Temple on the itinerary, but last week I received an email and text message from the temple telling me that all temple appointments for this week were canceled due to the presence of a massive fire nearby which, at the time, was the largest fire in the United States. The entire area was on alert and they decided to close the temple until the fire was under control.
We drove through Monticello anyway when I checked the status of the fire that morning and learned that it was 75% contained.
We also drove through Shiprock, New Mexico to meet up with Elder Zander Johnson (pictured far right), our neighbor back home, and the other Elders currently serving in Shiprock.
We bought lunch for them and because we were on a Native American reservation, I ordered a delicious Navajo taco.
With the Shiprock missionaries. Notice their ties? They all make their own ties! I bought five of their Native American-style, handmade ties. So cool!
When we finished our visit with the Shiprock missionaries, we drove to Farmington, NM where we played in the pool at the hotel before going to the temple for our evening baptisms-for-the-dead appointment.
The stained-glass windows at the Farmington, New Mexico Temple are beautiful. A pretty Native-American teal/turquoise/green/aquamarine color was used in the windows, furniture, and even some paintings throughout the temple. The reason I wrote "teal/turquoise/aquamarine" is because we saw some gorgeous chairs in the waiting room and we debated the color of the material. Douglas said teal. Gideon said turquoise, Maxwell said green. We finally settled on aquamarine when we checked with Uncle Google.
The boys were hungry after our temple service. All three wanted different fast food. Douglas wanted McDonald's. Gideon wanted Wendy's. Maxwell wanted Arby's. Because we had the time, I took them to the three different places. As we made our way to the three fast food locations and waited in the drive-through lines, we successfully drove away the spirit of the temple by engaging in a fruitless, but funny, argument over which fast food restaurant is better. Gideon insists Arby's is trash. Ironically, after we arrived back at the hotel and Maxwell had devoured his four roast-beef sliders from Arby's, he vomited (he claims he simply ate too much), thereby giving Gideon another point to add to his "Arby's is trash" argument.
The next morning (Saturday, 18 July) we drove 4 1/2 hours back to Grand Junction, but this time we drove straight north instead of going through Utah. The scenery for the first three hours of the drive was stunning! We drove through the San Juan National Forest and other beautiful mountain areas.
Maxwell and Gideon crossing the street in Ouray, Colorado.
We dropped the rental car off at the Grand Junction Airport and rode our scooters/skateboard six miles (mostly downhill this time! Wahoo!) back to the Amtrak train station. We stopped at Wendy's to fill up before the six-hour train ride back to Salt Lake City.
On the way back to the train station, we took a short pit stop in the shade next to a neighborhood mosque. It's always fun for me to see Arabic.
It was another toasty day, but we all made it without getting too dehydrated.
Here I am with the train conductor (and a photobombing Maxwell) on the way back to Utah. I know this particular conductor from when we were on jury duty together some time ago. He is the reason I found out I could take the train to visit a new temple (Grand Junction).
Gideon and Maxwell got off the train at the Provo station where Sara (my sister and their mother) picked them up.
There are two photos I'm not including in this family-friendly blog post. We learned about a tradition that began long ago. At one point during the train ride to Grand Junction as we were choo-chooing along a river, the conductor came on the speakers to tell us that people rafting down the river often take pleasure in mooning the train. I didn't see any flabby lower cheeks on the ride out, but on the ride back we saw quite a few full moons. I took two pictures for proof. 😂
Another great temple trip in the books!
