Trip update from Spencer

Dear Spencer, Emily and Mary,

 A thousand words is worth one picture!! Isn’t that the way it goes? I loved your word picture and almost felt like we were there with you. When we remember our trips with half a dozen or more children in non A/C cars in the summer to enjoy seeing long stretches of highway with broken parts on our "beasts" as well, it certainly brings back memories best forgotten. Not to diminish your "adventures," but to sum it all up, we were young, but then that is also how we got old. Ordinarily I should be about 50 years old, but those trips added years so I am nearing 100!

The good thing was that the kids had fun and love to tell the stories to this day about how they slept on Church lawns with the sprinkler going off a couple of times during the night, the bears that almost got us, the suffocating hot breezes in the back seat and kids who kept touching each other. They liked counting utility poles or car licenses and singing Mrs. O' Leary and Here's to Utah 14 times. Just try going back east and staying in KOA campgrounds with millions of mosquitoes and all of their relatives eating you alive! Now that is fun and joy!
 We really are glad that you got to go and see that huge hole in the ground that we have heard about. We stick to pot holes, but I know it was grand from the pictures.
 Yes, Dale and Jayne are a hoot! They are off the beaten path so love to have company. They treated us royally and we are still grateful that they put up with us.
 Happy Conference watching. I loved Pres. Monson's talk! Made me cry though  Love Grandma

On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 1:33 PM, SpencerJ McConkie  > wrote:

Hey out there,

It’s been a while since Emily and I sent out an update—at least a written update. Hopefully you all got several of the pictures that we sent out this past week from our trip to St. George, Grand Canyon, Phoenix/Mesa, etc. Because summer is so busy with so much happening at home and work, Emily and I try to travel during “off” times. It works better for us and helps avoid crowds and traffic.

We left a Tuesday Morning and stopped in at Gma/Gpa Stout’s house to pick up a goodie basket she had prepared for Jayne’s family. We continued on to St. George and stayed with Stan and Amy McConkie at their home for the night. As most of you are well aware, travelling with child(ren) is quite different from travelling w/o them, so Em and I wanted to break our drive up a bit to better accommodate mary and keep her on our good side.

We left St. George Wednesday morning and drove to the South rim of the grand canyon. We spent the rest of the afternoon stopping at overlooks and enjoying the amazing natural beauty of that gorgeous part of the world. We chose to stay at a hotel just south of the canyon so that we could be there for sunset and sunrise the next morning. Some of the pictures we sent out showed majestic views from the canyon as the sun set and came back up the following day. Pretty spectacular view! Our plan worked pretty well at avoiding crowds as there were much fewer people there than there would have been if we’d gone mid summer—although none of the Asian or Europeans got the memo about this being “off season.” There were soooo many people from Europe and Asia at the canyon (much like last year when we went to Zions and the year before when we went to Bryce Canyon). It’s a shame that people travel 10,000 miles to see sites that we never drive 4 hours to see!

About 2 o’clock on Thursday we continued our journey southward towards Phoenix. Mary had about 50 million toys in the back seat, snacks, drinks, and candy galore (anything to keep her pacified), and a mini dvd player for her to view her little people movies. All in all she did quite well over the journey but did get antsy after several hours of being strapped in like an astronaut. It’s amazing how many gas stations and rest stops overlook the necessity of baby changing stations (most the time we stop it’s for Mary anyway). If you need tips for changing babies on the ground at Maverick Gas Station or in (or on) the trunk of the car in some remote place along I-15 or Highway 89, we can give you tips.

We made it to Jayne and Dales home in Mesa, AZ on Thursday evening about 6 pm. We doubt they would have let us stay with them but for the fact that we brought mary as a bargaining chip. We told them that we’d let Mary chase and annoy their dog all around the house and throw banana slop all over their kitchen if they’d let us stay for a few days. They seemed to think that was a fair deal (I credit myself for sly bargaining techniques) and welcomed us in with open arms. In all seriousness, it was a pleasure to stay with the Macpherson’s and have the opportunity to get to know some of their family better.

Jayne said we could go swimming in the pool out back, but it didn’t take a Certified Pool Operator to know that green water and fair skinned Utah people don’t mix well. The chemical balance was messed up and an algae explosion had occurred the week before we arrived. With so much to do and see, however, there probably wouldn’t have been time for swimming anyway.  We visited Queen Creek and Tempe (both areas where Emily served) and also went to the mission home/office. We chatted with a Senior Sister Missionary in the mission office who said everybody was at zone conference in another city. We saw Uncle Oscar’s picture on the wall from when he was mission president there in the 70’s sometime.

Dale took me to a Diamondback’s baseball game in Phoenix. It’s a beautiful domed ball park and was a good game and fun company. Dale showed me where I could buy a $250 jersey (the same one you can buy at WalMart for $40) and a life sized bobble head for $450. I almost bought the bobble head for Emily for Christmas (I’m always looking) but Dale fortunately talked me out of it—not to mention trying to hide a life-sized bobble head from Emily all the way home! The night of the game Emily went to Women’s conference with Jayne and Anna while Sarah and Allison (two youngest daughters) watched Mary-kins and Anna’s baby. We had fun staying up late hearing stories about Germany and Korea, playing Guitar Hero, watching Glenn Beck, and eating “authentic” Mexican/Pakistani food.

We started for home on Monday morning making out way up through Page, AZ and stopped in at Glenn Canyon Dam—a site to behold. Mary was getting restless about the time we hit Cedar City (and the muffler pipe on the car had broken and sounded like continuous thunder). We stopped in at a hotel in Cedar City and took Mary swimming at about 9pm—she loves to swim. The following morning we woke up and made our way back to SLC, better people for having made the journey.   

Happy conference,

Spencer and Emily