The Mountains

"He who forms the mountains creates the winds, and reveals his thoughts to man, he who turns dawn to darkness, and treads the high places of the earth- the Lord God Almighty is his name."

-Amos 4:13

The drive out to Jackson Hole was one of indescribable beauty. After we left Denver we did not see one stretch of civilization, but instead we were completely surrounded by God's amazing creation. As we drove into the middle of nowhere we mostly sat in silence and took in our surroundings. All I could think about was how mighty my savior is that he could create the mountains and the heavens. Not only did he create them, but because of his grace I am able to fully experience them. The sky and the views in Wyoming are more beautiful than anything I have ever seen and I cannot help but think about God's love for us. It makes me wonder how people can look at the mountains or into the open night sky and not feel the love of Jesus. His creation was not only made for us to enjoy, but so that we may know his power and love. I will never fully understand the vastness of God, but as I stare at the mountains from my window I can start to barely grasp his love for me.

Morgan and Laurel have already met the people they are working with and it is very obvious we are all here for a reason. Morgan is working at a rafting company with people who live to party and Laurel is working with Mormons. We have been praying that the Lord would stretch us this summer and take us out of the Auburn bubble. We have only been here two days and it is already so obvious that the Lord has us here for a reason. As the Lord's love is revealed more to all of us, we want to show others our love for him.

Until then,

amh

Denver

I'm kinda new at this blogging thing, so just roll with it. Our stop in Denver was just as great as our other stops. We arrived in Denver around early evening to the sight of mountains in the distance. We stayed with my brother's sweet friend, Katie. She had a precious house and was so sweet to let us barge in on top of her and her roommates. Friday night we were exhausted and so we just stayed in. On Saturday, we got dressed and headed downtown to Larimer Square for a DELICIOUS lunch at a place called "The Market." After lunch, we strolled around the city and shopped around at all of their cute boutiques. We then headed over to the Capitol Building, where I was a little worried for a second my camera was going to get stolen. (and if you know me, that could have been TRAGIC!) We were standing on the Capitol steps and a man asked if we wanted him to take our picture so we could all be in it. I was a little leery, but I didn't want to judge, so I said yes. We were standing on the steps smiling, and he says:

-"Go up one more step"

[so we move up one step]

-"No, go up three more steps"

[so we move up three more steps] ... getting kind of worried by this point.

-"wait, one more step and you will be one mile above sea level"

The whole time while he was saying this, I kept thinking he's about to run off with my camera, he's about to run off with my camera!

PRAISE THE LORD he didn't! He finally took the picture and it was TERRIBLE! Luckily a few minutes later we saw some people that looked about our age and they took a MUCH cuter one. We hung out the rest of the day and just enjoyed being in the beautiful city. Saturday night we went back downtown and watched the Colorado Rockies take on the LA Dodgers. It was really fun! This wrapped up our stay in Denver and we woke up and headed on to Wyoming at 6am. The drive was 9 hours, but it wasn't too bad because it was BEAUTIFUL! We had never seen anything like it. It was miles and miles of mountains and green farmland and blue skies. We also were surprised to see lots of SNOW on the ground! We thought it would be fun so we got out and played in it, however that only lasted a minute because we were in our flip-flops and thought we were going to freeze! We have arrived safely in Jackson Hole and are loving it so far! Hope ya'll are enjoying all of the pictures!

peace. love. & jackson hole. -laurel

Thirteen. Hours.

FINALLY we made it to COLORADO!
WE MADE IT OUT OF KANSAS!
The most exciting part of Kansas: Wind Turbines

Wow. Can’t believe we woke up in St. Louis this morning, and now we’re sitting in the cutest house right outside of Denver. Thank you so much Katie for letting us stay here! And getting here wasn’t that bad. I’m a firm believer that riding in the car is all mental. When I’m driving to Auburn I start to get frustrated around Montgomery. After two and a half hours!! But today was thirteen hours, and we didn’t start getting ansy until the very end! We left this morning around 6:15 a.m. and made it all the way across Missouri and Kansas. We were afraid Kansas would be absolutely miserable, but again it was all mental. We knew it would be a long drive so we turned off the music and struck up some good convo. We saw some cool wind turbines and lots of green rolling hills. And no trees. Weird huh? The only sad part of our day was that the Welcome to Kansas sign was not a good place to stop at so we missed taking a picture there. Ehh we didn’t like it too much anyways. We did take a picture with the sign that said Thanks for Visiting Kansas! We were so glad to see it go! Tomorrow we will be exploring Denver and maybe a Rockies game! Until then,

MM

Brats and Schlotzs

No, were not talking about annoying pre-teen girls. We’re talking about bratwursts. Ya know, those sausages you eat in hot dog buns with ketchup and mustard? Apparently they are a midwestern cook-out staple, so we experienced our first brats last night at the Schlotzs! Our friend Britton was nice enough to give us a place to stay in St. Louis.  Unfortunately, he wasn’t even there! However, his brothers and parents were nice enough to take us in, feed us and show us around for the night. When we got there John had was preparing brats and Texas potatoes for us!  Well, the brats were an experience… ha, we’ll just leave it at that. The potatoes were delicious and something we surprisingly recognized, they were just under the guise of what we call hashbrown casserole! We quizzed John and he had only heard of a few of the casseroles that are usual staples in the South. Grits were also foreign to him. GRITS!!!! Despite our food differences, it was still so wonderful to eat outside in the nice weather and get to know our new friends. Later on we met up with Mrs. Schlotz and their other brother, Kyle. They took us to Ted Drewes, a famous St. Louis stop known for it’s frozen custard. After that we saw downtown Kirkwood and hung out for a little while before heading to bed. We had an early morning today! I was so confused as to why my phone was ringing at 5:30 a.m. 

We could call 911?

Moms, don’t worry, we haven’t called 911 yet. We are keeping ourselves very safe!! But our drive to St. Louis was slightly eventful. And of course, with four girls who are all very excited and slightly delirious in the same car, things got a little over-dramatized. At least we kept ourselves entertained! Our gas gauge was nearing E and there were no gas stations in sight. So, we debated what we might do if we ran out of gas. We made a video (slightly obnoxious), but it won’t upload. Maybe its for your benefit. Anyways, here are our suggestions and comments:

-Can we call 911?

-No, they wouldn’t feel sorry for our stupidity.

-We could call AAA?

-Nope, same thing.

-We could just say the car broke down and we don’t know why. We kicked it and messed with it and it just wont start.

-That could work.

-Hitchhike!

-RIDE OUR BIKES!!
-Yes, perfect. Well Laurel would have to stay behind since Tommy has flat tires.

-We could lock you in the car. But don’t try to get out of the car or you might set of the car alarm. (Ha. We’ve already done that once.) Then your batteries would die!!

-Maybe we should turn off the air to save on gas.

-That messes with your aerodynamics!!

-I guess we’ll just have to call Mrs. Schlotz. (Mind you we are still 60 miles outside of St. Louis and we had yet to meet her at this point) This was TOTAL DESPERATION, but it was the one thing we kept going back to!!!

Luckily we survived our gas scare, and Anna McLean successfully navigated us through the crazy interstates of St. Louis. Garmin was trying to tell us to get off at exits that did not exist, but Anna McLean took it all in stride. We visited the St. Louis Zoo (fo free!!) and it was really neat! It was pretty hot so we didn’t see everything, but the lemurs and kangaroos (Laura) were our favorites! Then we had the fortunate experience of navigating the streets with Evie, which was quite an adventure. Evie has been packed to the gills since day one (more like since when I arrived) and the bike rack only added to it. We probably looked silly navigating around this chic area. Oh well. We FINALLY found a great restaurant near the Cardinals stadium and then we proceeded to the Arch. Which was closed. BUMMER. But we have been very go-with-the-flow this trip, so we did not let that slow us down. We just took pictures (duh!) beneath it instead! We still feel like we got the full Arch experience. In fact, we were just proud that we navigated our way there. Making it across two busy, four-lane roads (from the wrong lane) was quite the adventure.

Meet Evie

Evie (short for Evelyn) is our very beloved minivan that has faithfully brought us all the way to Denver so far and we want yall to know and love Evie also.

A few reasons why we love Evie:

1. She has been our road mom all along the way.

2. She's really comfortable

3. She's predictable

4. She's kinda needy (her feelings get hurt when we leave her alone for too long)

5. She's very musical

6. Baby got junk in the trunk (literally)

7. She takes us as we are

8. She keeps all our secrets safe

9. She doesn't mind our junk

10. She keeps us safe

Home Sweet Henry-Nashvegas

Day one started off with a little trauma. As many of you know my cartilage piercing has caused me lots of problems, but against many peoples advisement I have left my earring alone. This morning though, I woke up to a serious throbbing pain in my ear. Laura Langley, Morgan, and I (Laurel, of course, had not made it out of bed yet) all gathered around the mirror and tried to figure out the least painful way to pull my earring out of my ear. After much deliberation, the earring was simply pulled out. Then the day could begin.

We loaded up the rest of the van and to all of our surprise we were pulling out of the drive way by nine o'clock! And we left the drive way at nine thirty. Laurel's drive way is fairly steep so getting our overpacked van with four bikes on the back to go easily down the hill was quite a challenge. The scraping noise the bikes made as they hit the pavement probably woke the whole neighborhood. Once again much deliberation took place as to how to get the van and bikes safely down the drive way. Finally success.

We were off. The music was loud and Laurel drove slower than the speed limit. We got into Birmingham and got off at Katie's exit to see her for a few. She gave us a great goodie bag and laughed at our minivan (which we have named Evie). Then back to the road. When we hit Tennessee we took a picture with our first state visited and got many honks as we all piled out of the minivan.

Nashville has been so great! Emily and her family have been such a treat. She has been a wonderful tour guide to us tourist. She showed us all the hot spots, cute boutiques, restaurants, and even bravely took us down town. We even got to see Emily's brother, Will, preform at a function called Cellophony. He played the guitar, mandolin, and drums. We are now all hanging out at Emily's beautiful home. We are off again tomorrow bright and early.

Until then,

amh

Packin' up and movin' out

Well, we are all in Montgomery! Anna Mclean and I got here first and Morgan wasn't too far behind. With a surprise to us all, Laurel won the packing award for having the least amount of bags- while Morgan came in last with a grand total of 6 bags! We ate a wonderful homecooked meal of spaghetti and squash casserole with a lovely surprise cake for Laurel's (early) birthday!

Then... we tackled loading the van. That was interesting. But- we did it ALL BY OURSELVES. And it all fit perfectly! We have pictures to prove it! Now... putting the bikes on was a whole different story! But an hour later and putting the bikes on and taking them off and trying them in a different order later... SUCCESS. [and I must say, Anna Mclean and I are pros at that bike rack!]

So for now we're off to bed and our plan is to hit the road at 8:30. [I have my doubts whether or not that will happen, but we'll see]. We are driving 5 hours to Nashville, TN (without stops, which we all know we will have PLENTY of stops)- so call or text us if you have fun suggestions for when we get there! Until then!

-llh

Step One.

This is the day!! My journey begins today!!

We are all meeting at Laurel's house in Montgomery today, so the plan is for mom and I to leave Mobile at 4pm. So, you would think since its 848am right now that I would have.. ya know, packed or something? Ha. So far my morning has consisted of catching up on the news with my USA Today app, playing a quick "easy" game of Soduko (again, on my phone) and sending some e-mails. Maybe this is why I am always running late in the mornings? I actually am doing something semi-productive right now, I am downloading Books On Tape (not CD, per Ed WIlliams and JRNL 1100) from the public library onto my Ipod for our trip! However, I AM NOT PACKING YET. Maybe I should. I had a dream/nightmare last night that I only made it to Jackson with the things that are currently in my suitcase. You should know that my suitcase currently includes 15 t-shirts and about 10 pair of shorts. Nothing for the cold weather we will encounter. Nothing cute to go out in. No shoes, no bathroom stuff. Hm. I take that as a sign my psyche is worried about me. I have been avoiding this aspect for days now (much thanks to cam and hal). It is easily the worst part of a trip. Well, second only to unpacking. And if you know me, you know I simply don't unpack. I either continue living out of the said bag or just throw in new, clean clothes when I need the bag to go somewhere else. Needless to say, getting settled in Jackson might take a while for me. That is if I make it! I'll let you know if I make it to Montgomery on time. Ha.

Stay tuned, tonight we will post pictures of the van all packed and ready to go!

-MM

Packing, packing, packing-- and still making plans

Well our summer at home is coming to an end as we all begin packing and meet in Montgomery on Tuesday! Our plan is to hit the road Wednesday morning and drive to Nashville and explore some and stay at our friend Emily's house! We'll leave the next morning and head to St. Louis, stay there a night and then head to Denver. From this point on we're going to play it by ear. We may spend two nights in Denver, or we may go somewhere else in Colorado and camp out... or we may head on to Jackson Hole and camp. But we have a minor problem- we don't have a tent. So we're in search for a tent now and if we find one, we may be camping for four to five days. That should be interesting! I think some of our parents are a little worried about our lack of plans for the end of our road trip- but hey, we're trying to save some money!

Now about packing-- this should be interesting. Four girls, packing for two months. Not to mention the weather change out west. Warm during the day and cold at night. Packing the car will be interesting. We'll post a picture when we get that done. Well, until then!

-llh