Florida Road Trip: Days, 2, 3, 4, and 5

     Apologies ahead of time as this is going to be a loooong post. Notice that there is a fifth day to our road trip that was not previously planned. New lesson learned, when driving through the plains, plan on a fifth day, just in case you have our luck.

Day 2: Denver, CO to Topeka, KS

 This picture pretty much sums it up. Though, upon arriving at the Hoyos home in Topeka, we did notice this little hobbit hole that we found extremely amusing.

Driving through Kansas was 7 hours of uninterrupted bliss, and we began to believe that the remainder of our trip was going to go very smoothly. Hahaha.

Day 3: Topeka, KS to St. Louis, MO

   We did not get very far this day, due to the mid-west just being itself, which I'll get into later. It was, however, probably our favorite day of the trip. We absolutely loved Missouri! It was so pretty to drive through, and we had fun in Independence and St. Louis. 

The day began, after about an hour of driving, at the Kansas City Temple (we actually had to go backward to get this picture, since we forgot about it and accidentally passed it up.)

 Independence was only just outside of Kansas City. Sean had never seen it before, and I couldn't remember if I had. Though I wasn't feeling well that day, we decided to stop at least at the visitor's center. We are so glad we did, since we got the chance to run into some old friends!

 It was so exciting to run into Sister Zito from my home ward! I had no idea she was serving here, and it's pretty coincidental that she was working in the visitor's center this morning. 

Brother Brenchley was not only Sean's stake president at BYU, but is apparently good friends with my Dad from olden times. (You'll have to ask him about it). Long story short, where Mormons are concerned, the world is very, very small.

After discovering that we would not have time to go up to Liberty Jail, we decided it would be cool to visit the Community of Christ temple in Independence, because at the very least, they have the original Liberty Jail door. Unfortunately we were not able to take a picture of it because photos apparently endanger the artifacts in their museum. Their Temple is actually not a temple by our standards, but is more of a worship center and museum. They use it for some prayer ceremonies, but other than that it functions a lot like an LDS visitor's center. There is a tour guide who took us through and explained all of the art and more or less what their church is about. It has some really pretty art work and architecture, so this turned out to be a cool experience. I'm also pretty nerdy and really enjoyed comparing similarities and differences between their beliefs and ours. 

 The Community of Christ Temple, which sits directly across the street from the future Independence Temple Lot.

The tour guide explained that they don't have too many symbols, but this is sort of their logo (other than a cross). It depicts a child with a lamb and a lion to represent peace.

A three-layer tapestry of the burning bush

There is no picture that can quite depict how beautiful this was. It's a two-layer glass pane that has been sand blasted to create a three-dimensional look. It is a depiction of the Sacred Grove, and goes around an entire doorway. Easily the coolest thing in there. 

Once you get into the chapel, or auditorium, you can look straight up the spiral. It is really high up and beautiful. It's supposed to represent drawing closer to heaven, but also spreading their message outward.

The organ in the chapel.

And, just around the corner, we have the Independence Temple lot! We decided to count this as a temple stop, so I stuck Sean in the picture for good measure. 

We had a lot of fun in Independence, but spent way more time there than we had planned. We realized that at this rate, we were not going to make it to Nashville (where we planned to stop that night) until at least 9:00. So we jumped back on the road, only to be distracted again 3 hours later with St. Louis! We only planned to stop at the temple, which was outside of town.

 But...as we began to drive through the city, we kept commenting on how pretty and awesome it looked. We had not planned to stop there at all, but then we hit major rush hour traffic. We slumped our shoulders and waited in a near stand-still for about 5 minutes, before looking to our left and seeing the gateway arch. We decided it would be way cooler to be up there than to be in this traffic, so we got off the next exit. This turned out to be a fateful decision.

I love this picture of Sean at the arch, but I got a lot of stares for lying on my back to take it. I'm beginning to feel a bit more pregnant now though, because I needed help getting up.

My least favorite part was this tiny ball you ride up in.

View from the top

The Mississippi

The Cardinals game was just starting. I figure this is cheaper than a ticket to the game. I'd hate to be there though because the game was about to be canceled anyway.

While it looked like really nice weather while we were in the arch, it was beginning to cloud over when we got out. We thought nothing of it and decided to get some dinner. We ate at a really cool Old Spaghetti factory. I thought it would be just like any other one but now I wish we had taken pictures in there. Anyway, by the time we got out of there the sirens were going off in the city and our phones were buzzing non-stop with tornado and flood warnings. This is the storm that came in.

We ran to our car in the pouring rain, and waited in the parking garage for a half hour while listening to the radio. The storm was really bad at that point, with high winds, tons of rain, and possible hail. Two tornadoes had already touched ground nearby. The lady at the parking garage did not recommend leaving at all. Since the storm was moving east and only getting worse in Illinois, we decided Nashville was out, and stayed in St. Louis that night. Luckily, the most dangerous part moved out by morning, and all we had to deal with was the rain. 

Day 4: St. Louis, MO to Atlanta, GA

We only drove 4 1/2 hours on Day 3, so by this point we were way behind. We decided to split our trip into two more days so that we wouldn't have to drive 15 hours. This landed us in Atlanta, Georgia by the end of day 4. It was still pretty stormy on the route. I think we were behind the storm in Illinois, because we only had to deal with light rain. Kentucky was not stormy, but we were in stop and go construction the entire way, which was maddening. It took over 3 hours just to cut through the smallest corner of Kentucky. Construction was gone in Tennessee, but it was then that we caught up to the thunder storm. The rain was so heavy at times that every car on the road had their hazards on just so the car behind them could faintly see them. I've never driven in such heavy rain! Luckily, this part of the storm was not solid, so we got breaks now and then from the rain. Our picture at the Nashville Temple was taken from the overhang of the church next to it, with me in the car. If you look really close, my face is plastered against the window.

We rally liked that this temple was all marble. It was really pretty and I've never seen a temple like that before.

We did not stay directly in Atlanta, but directly outside of it, in a really downtrodden travelodge. This was the only time that we felt extremely worried about the stuff in our car. There were homeless people wandering the parking lot all night, and every little noise during the night caused one of us to jump up and run to the window. We should have gotten a picture of this hotel room.

Day 5: Atlanta, GA to Orlando, FL

By now we were so so ready to get home! Because we were only planning on four days of driving, we were both out of clean clothes from our bag, and couldn't dig through the rest of our stuff because the car was too tightly packed. We were also both really tired from not sleeping well the night before.

 I don't know how many of you have heard of the Waffle House, but if you ever drive east, it is impossible to ignore. The first time we saw one, it was just a small, ghetto looking diner that we thought was a local business. Then, suddenly, they were off of every single exit, no matter how remote. According to wikipedia, they have over 1700 stores in only 25 states, founded in Tennessee. They are all tiny and do not have the feel of a large chain. It's an absolute southern phenomenon. We decided that we couldn't ignore the Waffle House any longer, and ate there for breakfast. Upon entering the place, we discovered that it was even more awesome than we thought. Case in point: 

This was my meal at 10:00 in the morning (typical waffle and sausage).

This was Sean's (T-Bone steak with hash-browns and Texas toast). 

This is the only place that has been able to accommodate our different tastes so completely.

After breakfast, we made sure to hit up the Atlanta temple, which for whatever reason was closed that day. 

After only a few short hours of driving, we arrived in Florida, and were at last welcomed with the first glimpse of the sun we had in days!!! We love that they offer free fresh squeezed orange juice at the Welcome Center.

We still had a few hours to drive to get to Orlando, but we made sure to eye all the signs at the side of the road. That's how we found the Florida Citrus Center, where a nice man sold us an orange peeler and a weird contraption that allows you to drink directly from an orange. He then graciously gave us two free oranges and pointed us to the building next door where we could look at some baby gators. (Florida has not yet ceased to entertain me. I hope it's always like this.)

We made it to Orlando at last! It was a longer trip than we had expected, and bad luck seemed to follow us wherever we went, but so far we love it here. 

The Orlando Temple (Yes, it's raining again)

We are really excited to show off our new home, so pictures of that to come.