To the Edge of the Earth and Back

Our first weekend back from the storm, we decided to go on a swamp tour and find some alligators. We had to drive a little ways to get out to the real Cajun country, but as soon as we saw these little guys coming out to say hi, we knew we must be in the right place.

Then out came our captain, and we were on our way. He's lovely, right? But he had an awesome accent and had been working out on the swamp for a long time, so he made a really good guide.

Once we got out there, it only took a couple minutes before we spotted our first gator. The captain would throw marshmallows out to lure them up to the boat, and then we they got close he would use the stick so they would come right to us!

 Most of the gators we saw were medium-sized, about 5-6 feet long, and they were very friendly.

 As you can see, Adam was getting pretty into it.

These aren't great pictures, but the captain got some of the gators to jump for the marshmallows, and they could really get out of the water. If you look at all three of these together, it's kind of like a flip book lol.

As part of the swamp tour we also went out to a traditional Cajun village, which is only reachable by boat. As you can see, it was very, uh...nice.

Because of the hurricane, the water was still pretty high and a lot of the houses were still flooded, and this house had water that covered their porch enough to let the river otters in.

After seeing how fun it would be to live out here, this is the house we've started building. Haha, yeah right.

They don't really call these houses though, because most people have a normal house somewhere, else, and then a "camp" out on the swamp where they can do fishing and crabbing and hunting. A lot of people make these camp houses themselves, and try not to invest too much in them because they are frequently ruined. Go figure, huh? During big hurricanes like Katrina, houses this low get completely flooded, like up to the roof.

After the tour, we were going to go explore a national park that has some walkways in the swamp, but it was still closed because of the high water, so we decided to take a little drive to the edge of the earth.

Alright so maybe it wasn't really the edge, but it was as far as we could get! It took a couple hours, but was totally worth it to see this lovely beach! Okay, so maybe it was a terrible, yucky beach with only oil platforms in view, but it was still a fun drive. We saw lots of these tiny little crabs, and a pelican, which is the state bird ( I know you wanted to know that).

But the drive out really was cool, we drove all across that part of Louisiana that looks like a bunch of dots on a map. In real life, it looks like this. A bunch of green dots on the water. Imagine that.

We also passed a lot of these lift bridges, and got stuck waiting for this one to raise to let a boat through.

There were tons of stilt houses too! Especially once we got out past the levees. Most of them kind of looked like mobile homes on 2 x 4s, and we even saw one completely knocked off the stilts and lying sideways in the water. I didn't get a picture, but the power is still out in a lot of these areas, and we saw a couple fan boats that had been rigged with bucket lifts to fix the power lines, so that was pretty cool.

Anyway, we had a fun weekend drive and now we know what it looks like at the end of the road!

Catching up with the Ainges

Well, it seems like we slacked a little bit on the blogging while Adam and I were home for the summer. Mostly we just went to school and worked, but now we've left for our next adventure, so it seems that we have some catching up to do. First of all, for those who don't know still, we are expecting a baby boy on December 9th. We're having a little bit of a hard time picking out a name, but we are so excited for him to get here! Unfortunately, because of the prego situation, I won't be able to stay with Adam the whole time he's doing his internship, but given the current going-ons in New Orleans, I might be happy to leave early!

We left last Wednesday to come out, and moved in on Saturday as scheduled, but on Sunday we were told to evacuate because of Hurricane Isaac, so we packed up and now we're back in Texas. Turns out, being stranded in a hotel is worse than driving across the country. This drive was definitely a little less exciting than the one to Mass. The first day we mostly drove through Indian Reservations, which wasn't too much to see, but was kind of interesting. They have so much empty land that they don't seem to be doing anything with. Most of the residential areas were small mobile-home communities in the middle of nowhere, without any farms or livestock or anything around them, just empty desert. We also saw quite a few guys just walking down the side of the road half-dressed. Then we went to Four Corners, which is on the Navajo land, and was not exactly what I expected. The monument is surrounded by shopping booths where Navajos were selling jewelry and, you guessed it, Navajo Tacos.

The next day we drove to Oklahoma City. The route basically follows the old Route 66, so every time we pulled over somewhere we saw really cute old motels, diners and gas stations. We also saw a lot of run-down, closed-up buildings and billboards that had started to decay and fall apart. It was actually kind of sad to see all the businesses that no longer existed because of the new freeway, but it was really fun to see the ones that are still thriving. One of those is Pops, which is like a little diner/gift store. It's famous for the variety of bottled soda they offer, most of which I had never even heard of before, so of course we got some. Like my Mitt soda?

 We made a couple random stops on the way out just so we could get out of the car and walk around. This was at some historical old town just outside of Dallas. Adam really made himself at home.

We took another two days to get to our apartment in Kenner, LA. Once we left OK, the humidity really hit us. I've never really been somewhere so humid before. Even last semester on the East coast and even D.C. were nothing compared to the South. It just slaps you in the face every time you step outside. And the bugs, ugh. I don't know what kind they are, but we saw tons of these little guys mating everywhere! We'd pull over and they'd land all over the car. 

Driving through Louisiana was crazy. We were just driving on a normal road, with trees all over, and then, all of a sudden, we were in the middle of a swamp! And, we saw our first wild alligator! Too bad he was dead on the side of the highway.  Guess we still need to go on a swamp tour to see some live ones. We also saw quite a few smaller lizards, which made Adam really excited. They just crawl around outside our apartment, and we even spotted one in the chapel. Guess even lizards go to church in Louisiana. Our ward seems really nice, and we have a good mix of other students and locals with cool accents. It looks like a fun place to live, and we can't wait to leave Texas to get back there.

The Long Drive Home

Seeing as we had to drive across the country anyway, we decided to take a little detour down to D.C. After all, who knows when we'll be on the east coast again? (Our excuse for all of our adventures). On the way down, we made sure to go through Amish country, and I have to say I was very excited to see real live Amish people.

We tried driving through Lancaster first, but soon realized that we needed to go more to the countryside to find them, so we drove to Bird-in-Hand and saw tons of them! Those Amish are so cute with their little buggies and hats and suspenders.

Most of the pictures I took were as we drove by, which is why they're kinda fuzzy. They don't like you taking pictures of them though, so I figured I had to do it as we drove so they wouldn't know about it, and then they couldn't be mad at me!

Pennsylvania was beautiful and full of green hills and trees. The more we drove, the more we found there are a lot of green places! Basically Utah and the midwest are just severely lacking. As we drove down the freeway, all we could see were trees everywhere. But then we came around a curve and BAM! D.C. temple right in front of us. Pretty cool to see.

We only had a couple days to see D.C., so we only really got to see the National Mall area, but with all the Smithsonian museums, that still left a lot to see! We spent the whole first day and part of the second looking at museums, and then walked the loop around the mall to see all the monuments, the White House, and the Capitol.

As you can see, D.C. is a little bit sweaty. We Utahns don't fare so well in that kind of humidity, I guess it takes some getting used to.

The best picture we got of the White House was actually taken from the Washington Monument, because when you go up close, you're stuck behind a fence with a bunch of shrubs and can't see much.

At the capitol we stumbled upon a Herman Cain rally, which was surprisingly entertaining. He used some very descriptive words when talking about Obama and liberals. Like, "dumb" lol.

We stayed with Adam's great-aunt Clara while we were there and she was such a great hostess. We would go out to stay with her again right now if we could!

After leaving Virginia, we met some very interesting people in West Virginia. A lot of them looked like this guy...who is sitting on the porch of a gas station. Quite the looker, huh?

Our next tour stop was the Gateway Arch. You ride to the top in what are basically tin cans, which made big guys like Adam feel a little claustrophobic. He had to hunch a little to keep his head from bumping the top.

We ended up with a couple extra hours when we got to Kansas City, MO, so we thought we'd see what they had in Independence. We found the Community of Christ HQ and temple, so we went in to get a little tour. Their beliefs are very interesting when you think about how they are a split from Mormonism and still have the Book of Mormon as scripture.

We also found Liberty jail, which is inside of a visitors' center. This is the actual jail, but it's mostly been rebuilt because it was all made of wood, so it was in pretty bad shape.

Everywhere we went that day, people kept asking if we were there for the temple open house. Being the good Mormons we are, we didn't even know a new temple was open there ;) but we figured we might as well go while we were there, so we drove over and took the tour.

Once we got through Missouri, we were in dreary Kansas, so the rest of our trip was pretty boring, but we finally made it home!

A Whale of a Rock

You can't go to Massachusetts and not stop by the Plimouth Plantation. It was just like you would expect. Log cabins, dirt floors, and people with funny accents. We went with some friends (Josie and Taylor) to check it out. 

 After visiting with the pilgrims and learning all about their struggles to survive, we stopped by the Native American camp around the corner. It didn't take long for us to realize that it was a miracle that any pilgrims survived and that if we had to go back in time we would sprint to the Indian camp. They had huge structures built in an oval shape, a fire in the middle, and animal skins for warmth and comfort. They even had a separate summer homes for when it was hot outside. As you can see from the picture we even got to try out the canoes. We didn't get far and you can tell Jenn has no idea what she is doing (look how she is holding that oar...what is it a guitar?)

Drum roll please....ta-da!!!

Plymouth Rock! I know, I know...pretty amazing. This is picture is really close to actual size. When I was a kid in history class, I always pictured something more similar to pride rock from the Lion King. Not even remotely close. They have it gated off, not because it needs to be protected, but because if they didn't some toddler might pick it up and throw it into the ocean. Or maybe it would get really windy and blow away. Unbelievable right? I knew you would like it.  

After the rock we had the opportunity to board the Mayflower 2. We spoke with a crew member that insisted on calling me Angus because I was tall. He said that we were made of wax and somehow that was what made me so tall. I wish I could remember the details, I think he may have been on to something. 

 The next stop was Cape Cod. We originally had planned to stop at some beach along the way but ended up at the very tip of the cape. One more advantage of off-season travel: No Traffic. Most people said that it could take hours to make it to the end but we did it in less than 2. I saw my first live whale (from a distance using some strange woman's binoculars thanks to Taylor). The beach was beautiful and there were very few people. Too bad the water was so cold or we could have enjoyed a nice swim. I guess it never really warms up though.

 On the way home we drove through Provincetown. It wasn't until later that we found out it is the homosexual capital of the Northeast. Apparently we missed something...although there were a lot of subarus. 

 The next big adventure was New York. We were pretty nervous about where to stay and how to get around. We stayed for 3 three nights in a cheap hotel in Brooklyn. This was after weeks of searching for closer/nicer hotels. It was almost impossible to find rooms for cheaper than $250/night and that was a little more than we wanted to spend, so we decided we'd stay farther away and take the subway. After I got off work on Thursday and a little tired/frazzled from New York driving we arrived at our hotel. We stayed across the street from an abandoned building (or at least it look that way..there were probably some homeless people crashing there). The hotel was small but surprisingly clean. 

 We used the subway everywhere we went. What a great deal! It was like $30 bucks per person for unlimited use for 7 days. We definitely got our money's worth. There were a few funny ads on the subway, the one above reminded me of my dad. The first day we stopped by the today show. It was very exciting to see Al and Ann in person. I don't think we got to be on TV though. We didn't wake up in time to beat the crowds. 

 Here we are at the Statue of Liberty. We didn't get to go up, it was under construction (sort of a theme for our travels).

Again, more construction at the 9/11 Memorial. Still, it was very neat and helped put in perspective the number lives lost and the impact it had on the area and the world. 

 Time square was crazy. So many people and so many lights. We tried to eat close by but everything was at least 3 times more than normal. We stopped by the M&M store, Hershey's, and a few other places. Central Park, FAO Schwartz, and Coney Island were a couple other stops. 

It has always been a dream of Jenn's to go to a show on Broadway so, we went to see Mary Poppins. It wasn't exactly what we were expecting because it was so different from the movie, but it was a very good show, and the Bert was awesome. The only problem was the seats were all about 6 inches from each other...not a lot of leg room. It was really enjoyable though. 

Me and Jenn at the Top of the Rock (roof of the 30 Rockefeller building).The building in the back is the Empire State Building. 

One of the last things we did while in the Boston area was go on a whale watch. It was the first trip of the season and so we were lucky the see whales. They weren't very active but we did see 4 humpback whales. It was hard to believe that something that big was swimming around us. 

You can tell in the picture below from our rosy cheeks and watering eyes that it was cold and windy out on the sea. Luckily we didn't get sea sick though. It was sad to see those around us throwing up over the side of the boat. Of course, before we headed back home to start packing for the trip home the next week, we stopped by Mike's for some cannoli and a lobster tail. Jenn wouldn't have it any other way.