Thursday 1st August 2014
Phoebe and I woke early so that I could take her to the Jordan River temple. I had fallen asleep just a few hours before as Wayne and I were up chatting, the subject of which is found in my little book of wisdom.

Jordan River Temple is incredible and we were there on the same day as 3 other stakes temple day so things were busy. Too busy to make friends. I sat at the back next to the organist, no gentle music being played through cd players,  no, over here we have full time organists who bash out hymn after hymn of solemnial praising. Imagine having that many saints hanging around that you can call a few to be temple organists.
We made it back and started packing the suburban Wayne and Amber had arranged for us. Americans think in a different scale, this car is huge, seating us and all our luggage in comfort. We love Road tripping and Tanya had arranged a folder with maps and a list of places of interest along the way.
Amber insisted that we take their iphone so we could use maps and just post it back from Texas. We were grateful for that phone so many times along the journey and scoffed at our naivety in thinking we could just pop down to Texas on our ability to read road signs.
We were excited to be explorers. Tough leaving Salt Lake City though and we had to consciously banish thoughts of when we'd be able to return or we'd have become depressed.
We headed south and a little way after BYU we turned left and headed into the mountains toward Moab. What thrill to see what’s over the next horizon.
We soon stopped at a little truck stop.
Cotton
Helper
Price
Crescent Junction
Moab we stopped and enjoyed the spectacular scenery, the river was muddy.

Monticello. A small farm town, not much going on except, what the heck, that's Moroni, we couldn't believe a tiny town had a temple. We drove toward it and stopped. The car park was full. We spent some time there but I guess some of us were getting hungry because we weren't all getting along.

We found an awesome burger place called PJ’s. And played the world's longest game of pool before I finally had to put the rest of the balls in the holes with my hands and sent everyone back to the car.

The sun was setting to our right as we headed toward Cortez. The road to Durango must be beautiful and I'd love to drive that during the day. But it was dark and when we arrived in Durango we looked for a place to sleep. Nothing at the holiday Inn, nothing at the Marriott opposite, nothing anywhere, we stopped a lot of hotels and drove through the town criss crossing the roads. It was around 10.30pm and People were out enjoying the evening. We spotted another Cold Stone Creamery and it was packed. Best ice cream in the world. Absolutely.
We found a motel a little ways out of town, my responsibility as the father was to get everyone off the road and asleep. I went in secured a room, paid $150 and went back for my family. Melissa was a bit put off by the rickety lift and dirty carpets and some bloke walking around without his shirt on with massive moles on his back,. I opened the door to our room, we were in, safe, let's sleep, except Melissa looked at a dirty pillow and said goodnight, I'll be in the car and walked out. Kids looked at me waiting for the indication of what we do next.
The fellow at reception was a bit put out but one can't really argue with a dirty pillow. So we were back on the road. I understand that the motel wasn't great but I was not happy being on unfamiliar roads. Cat eyes don't work because of the snow, so the roads are dark.
Shortly after midnight we arrived in Aztec and pulled in at a Microtel hotel, it was around $100 and perfectly comfortable. We loved it.    I enjoyed the view from our room of the Pepsi factory, I pointed out to Noah that the mound of rock and sand alongside is used as ingredients in Pepsi and a discussion ensued on the harm of fizzy drinks.