Road Trip: Before the road trip.

So, I am a big fan of road trips. I love being out on the road and experiencing places that I normally wouldn't. Road trips are a great time to think, talk, jam (my fave), catch up with friends, or get to know new ones. 

Here are a few suggestions to keeping your car ride interesting.

1. Listen to your favorite jams. 

2. Playing car games such as the license plate game, or Would You Rather.

3. Stopping often. If you see a place that catches your eye, don’t just drive on by it. Stop and see what it is. If it is not that cool then just get back in the car and keep going, but if it is cool stay a while and explore. Some of the most amazing things are in between you and your destination.

4. My personal favorite (don’t judge). I like to look out the window at the scenery passing by and imagine myself out there doing extraordinary things. While driving through these wide valleys I imagined myself as a cowgirl being chased by bandits. I sat backwards on my horse, dogged bullets, and sent some flying. Once the gun smoke cleared I discovered that I had came out victorious over all 88 of them bandits. I then stopped at the nearest saloon, walked in through the swinging doors, and ordered me a Sasperilla. Calamity Carli was my name. 

If that is too extreme as a pass time for you then you might as well be bored. 

Don’t get so caught up in moving from point A to point B that you don’t see what your passing by. Sometimes what you overlook could be much better then you destination.


The title of this post and preliminary comments may be a bit deceiving because I wasn't actually road tripping when I took these pictures... I took them the day before my dad and I left for Texas. He had just flown in so I decided to take him into a canyon and then show him around Salt Lake. I just wanted to preface what is to come in the next week. I will be sharing some of my adventures and photographs from my drive!

First we went...

  to Emigration Canyon

 

Time flies when your having fun.

It is completely impossible for me to wear matching socks.

Then we went...

 to Temple Square and saw the...

enormous amounts of flowers.

I am not kidding. I have never seen so many flowers in one place in my entire life. We could smell the flowers by just walking by them. It was magical.

Carli

Magical.

I have been dying to go see the temple lights for weeks. It seems like every time I plan to go something else comes up… 

Phil & Ben were in town this weekend and I made them go with me. It wasn’t really a forceful make because they actually wanted to go… We drove down town and parked a couple blocks away and rode trax. It was so very cold. As we were standing out in the cold and being crammed into the trax (much like train stations in India and Japan… due to the amount of people going to the temple) I wondered if this would be worth it. It was…

It was magical. The lights were like floating embers from a fire. 

No I don’t have weird hair. It’s a hat.

I do apologize for my lack of photography skills. Night photography is so hard!

Even though there were like a million and one people there and it was dang cold I such an amazing time. I seriously felt like I had taken a step out of reality. 

I just had to have a picture with Santa and his Elf. Please ignore the fact that this picture is blurry. Also ignore the fact that my face is as red as my jacket. No I am not embarrassed… it was just so cold that my face was burning. I was afraid that I might not have a face by the end of the night. 

Happy almost Christmas.

Carli

Temple Square

Friday night I was extremely tired of being in the house and just needed to get away. Aunt Tavie and her two kids Kendy and Kevin are visiting for a couple weeks. So we decided to go do something in Salt Lake. Of course the only thing that we can think of doing is either going to the beautiful Liberty Park, or to Temple Square. Since it was 8:00pm and getting dark, we decided that Liberty Park is not the best place to go at night. I transforms from a nice family park into a hobo hangout after the sun goes down. So to Temple Square we went!

The temple is so beautiful at night. This is one of the many things that I love about living in the Salt Lake Valley. At night you can see many of the temples from a far because they are the brightest points in the valley. It’s so beautiful to see their bright heavenly white light amongst the yellow city lights. The Salt Lake Temple is exquisite. Can you believe that it took 40 years to build?! Because of purescution the building was postponed several times. The temple foundation was buried to to hide it from those who came to destroy it, and through all that it now stands as the shining beauty of the city.

Here are a few pictures… ( They aren’t very good due to my lack of camera skills and the fact that the other day I changed a whole bunch of settings for my sparkler pictures and couldn’t figure out how to reset them. I have since then fixed it. All is well.)

After this spirtual adventure we lightened the mood a bit. Tavie decided to take us to some mysterious place that she went when she once lived here. On the way there was a car of attractive men who waved at us. Of course we waved back because I find joy in waving it random people in other cars. Especially children. Tavie then tells me that if I take a picture of them she will give me ten bucks. Of course I do this. TEN BUCKS! She rolls down the window and asks them if it’s ok if I do so. They happily agree and then pose for the picture. Because the light turned green and the cars began moving these are the shots that I was able to get… 

I find them very funny, and kindof cool. A little artsy maybe?

Unfortunatly Tavie did not give me the ten bucks she promised, but I had a great time.

Carli