Archive for the 'Trips' Category

This one was quite interesting. This was the first geocache of the morning. This was also Christopher’s first geocache. My family had only three tickets for the Saturday morning session of General Conference so it was decided that Christopher and I would go geocaching in the vicinity of Temple Square while Dawn and my grandparents attended the conference. This was probably my favorite cache of the day. This cache is located behind some apartments just to the east of the Conference Center.

On our way there Christopher asked me if it was fun being a missionary. I told him that it was a lot of work, but that you get to do a lot of things you would never have a chance to do otherwise. Just as I was saying this we came upon a group of about twenty Elders standing in front of one of the apartment buildings. I walked up to them and asked if I might ask them all a question. I told them that this young man here would like to know if it’s fun being a missionary. All together they started cheering that it was great! There was one senior Elder who said that it is fun, “even at my age!”

We walked past the missionaries and into the parking lot they were standing in front of. The GPS pointed right up a steep embankment with a fence at the top. Christopher was considering climbing it, but I convinced him that there was probably a much better way. We walked back out of the parking lot and a little further up the street found a walkway between two buildings. behind the northern building we found what looked to be a small fenced-off park. This was the Kimball cemetary. Heber C. Kimball is buried there along with many of his family members and descendants.

When we arrived there were a few muggles looking at the monument in the center of the tiny plot. While we were waiting Christopher pointed out the “No Dogs Allowed” sign. I wondered aloud if anyone had realized that dogs can’t read. In the back corner we found the cache. Christopher got a kick out of the old rusty Altoids container that the loot was hidden in. The logbook was a little damp, but still signable. I took out of it a Yankee Stadium keychain and put in the Keeping An Eye On You travel bug that I got at the meetup on the last Wednesday in March. It was tough getting all the things back in the container, but Christopher got them all in. It still wanted to pop back open, so he wedged a couple of rocks in on top of the container when he hid it again.

My brother, Christopher, just turned twelve and was ordained a Deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood. He lives within 10 minutes of the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, so we, his family, felt it appropriate that he actually attend the first Priesthood Session of conference that he will hear. As it turns out, my Grandfather has never attended General Conference in person. We, his family, have decided that he should attend General Conference in person at least once in his lifetime. To both of these ends I took a flight from Palomar Airport in Carlsbad to LAX and then another flight from LAX to Las Vegas. Tomorrow we will drive up to Salt Lake City.

The terminal at Palomar is incredibly tiny. It made for a somewhat different experience than what I am used to in pre-flight passenger screening and boarding. There was only one metal detector, and it was at the end of a narrow hallway. It all seemed somewhat strange in that everything felt less formal than at larger airports, but some of the proceedures felt oddly out of place. My favorite instruction was not to go near the outer fence surrounding the runway or else you’d have to go through the metal detector again.

Each flight was very short. The first was only in the air twenty-five minutes, and the second was around forty. They served drinks on the flight from LAX to Las Vegas, but the stewardesses were still cleaning up when the Captain anounced that we were beginning out descent and he instructed the crew to be seated.

After I arrived in Las Vegas my Grandfather took me directly to the Bishop’s Storehouse where he and Grandmother volunteer twice a week helping people fill food orders and restocking as necessary. It really is a lot of work, but it was fun to work with my Grandfather again. I stayed there for three or four hours until Grandmother arrived and drove me back to their house. I’ve only had about two and a half hours of sleep, and I feel as though I may fall out of my chair, I’m so tired.

I took Grandfather geocaching in the afternoon. Then after Grandmother got back from getting her hair done we ate at In-N-Out Burger for dinner. Finally, we came home and I collapsed from exhaustion went to bed.

This is my first cache outside of California! Before I left for Las Vegas I looked for the closest cache to my Grandparents’ house, and this was it. I wanted to show my Grandfather how it worked, so I asked if he wanted to come along. I think he really enjoyed himself. I spent all of my time scrounging around in the dirt and he decided to look up… and there it was! I think he had a good time, and he “gets it.” The really random thing is that even though the name of the cache refers to the library it is hidden near, it is more easily accessable from, and in actuality on the property of the church building my Grandparents attend church at every week.

I was so excited that I forgot to take my camera along, so no pictures.

My Dad, my half-brother Matthew, Krissy, and I went to the San Diego Zoo today. I hadn’t been there since I was in grade school. That was when our school got banned from returning because some kids got caught stealing stuff in one of the gift shops. The thing I remember most from that day was spitting from the Skyfari and trying to hit the tiger pen. We were mad that the designers of the tiger’s enclosure had made the most comfortable spot for the tiger to rest as for away from the viewing glass as possible and he was out of view the entire time we were there.

Today was better, although the food was disappointing. It tasted like school cafeteria food, but cost as much as a pretty good restaurant. I know that was imitation cheese, you guys. Why be so cheap?

There were enough interesting things to see that it was worth it. There was the peacock that wasn’t in its cage, the amazing floating trashcan lid, and the monkey that would never stop moving. There were also a couple of huge snakes, but all I could a get a picture of was the glare off the glass on the cage.

If I go again, I’ll bring my own food. It was a lot of fun, and even though it’s a bit pricey at least I know I’m helping to keep the place running. Living so close to attractions like this is great, and I take it for granted too often.

When visiting in Las Vegas at the Fremont Street Experience I was amazed by the hourly spectacle of light and sound projected onto the world’s largest video screen. The video screen is only in use once an hour for about seven minutes, though. Even more amazing than the video projection was the spray painted artwork of a man whose name, I must admit, I failed to learn. Below is a video of him practicing his craft.

Download:

• h.264 – High Quality – 27MB
• DivX – Medium Quality – 38 MB

Well, I’ve arrived in Las Vegas without critical incident. I happen to have realized my mind is becoming feeble. I don’t know if it was because I was tired or just excited to be leaving, but I have discovered that I can’t remember anything anymore.

Krissy and I stayed the night in Barstow. I learned quickly that a “data port” is a fancy name for a telephone jack in the wall. My laptop’s modem doesn’t yet have Linux drivers released for it so that precluded anything useful from happening that night. I popped in my wireless card and fired up kismet to look for nearby access points; there were none. I was sitting on the bed and wanted to conserve energy, so I popped out the wireless card and layed it on the bed. I later moved the laptop to the desk.

Later that night Krissy realized we had left nearly all of our dress clothes for church back home. I was less than pleased that I had hidden them where we would easily forget them, but quickly realized everything would nonetheless be okay. And everything was okay. We visited some outet stores in Barstow that happened to have some really smoking deals on exactly what we needed. We then continued on our merry way to Las Vegas.

My Grandparents’ new place is huge compared to the place I grew up in. There are really high ceilings and I think they’re really happy with it. I wanted to post to this blog so I proceeded to set up the wireless router I had brought with me so I could get on the Internet in the living room of the house. Then I realized the wireless card was not in the laptop where I almost always keep in, even in transit. I frantically scoured my backpack and my pockets. I ran out to the car fearing the worst. Krissy hadn’t seen it, and I knew all along where it was: blending into the colorfully cheap Motel 6 bedspread in Barstow. We had two beds in our room because it costs the same as having only one and at the same time gives you a larger room.

So I’ve already wasted nearly $80 replacing clothing I already had and now I’ll have to fork over another $30 to replace the wireless card I so deftly left for a confused cleaning lady to toss in the trash or give to her manager.

This has been the best vacation ever!

Tomorrow is the big day. Spring Break came just as Krissy got some extra floating holidays suddenly. We’re going to be spending Easter with Grandmother and Grandfather at their new house in Las Vegas.

We plan on stopping in Barstow and looking around for anything interesting to stop and do on the way. I’ll report on what we found and if it was entertaining or enlightening.