A Month Gone - By Triniti

  It was 7:30 am, on a Wednesday. My family and I loaded our cousin into the back of our car, then we started off. This was to be a road trip like no other. We would be gone for about a month, and we would never board an airplane. We started off on the I-15, headed towards the I-10. We would take that to the I-40, which pretty much runs parallel to Route 66. We left California to enter an even drier state, Arizona.


  We went to two different National Parks in Arizona. Walnut Canyon and The Petrified Forest. Walnut Canyon was a canyon that the Hopi Indians ancestors once inhabited, using the various caves to great advantage, as they were architecturally sound and provided a cool resort from the Arizona mountain heat. The Petrified Forest was a bunch of logs in various hues of orange, pink, yellow, grey, and brown, but they were hard as rocks, having been petrified.

  We stopped at Jackrabbit Junction. If you've ever traveled the I-40, you know of where I speak. On Route 66, waiting for unsuspecting tourists, sits a six foot tall, plastic jackrabbit, upon which is a saddle. There the parents say, "Come on kids! Let's take our picture with a hundred degree bunny!"

 We stopped, for the second time in my life. The first time, I had been about two years old. I had gotten a blanket to sit on the burning bunny with. But teenagers must bear life. They must endure much more than the infants for "memories sake." It wasn't as bad as the first time. It was much cooler. We stopped and got some postcards and directions to the best restaurant that was within a reasonable distance of there.

  We stopped in an Indian village for food. It was our last taste of Mexican food for a month, before we reached the South, where "good Mexican food" equals Del Taco. It was super good, but it made me so hungry for a local Mexican food place where I live.

  By this time we had already gone to Walnut Canyon National Park, but had not yet reached The Petrified Forest, which was pretty near the border of Arizona and New Mexico. We stopped just between the Indian village (whose name has slipped my mind) and the Petrified Forest, if I had to guess.

  The next day, we proceeded towards New Mexico. We stopped at our second National Park of the month, and continued on our way. At about this time a friend of ours called my mom. She alerted us that a bunch of convicts had broken out of a prison in New Mexico, and warned us not to stop there. We had planned to drive straight through to Arkansas anyway, so that did not affect our plans.

  Later that day we stopped in Oklahoma. We tried to go to the Route 66 museum that they have there, but the admission fee was ridiculous!!! We simply mailed our postcards from Jackrabbit Junction and drove right through.

  We finally arrived in Arkansas, which is where my grandpa lives. We came out there just to visit him. We arrived at our hotel very late at night, then went over to his house in the morning. By this time, it was Friday. Most of the time that we were there, my mom and my grandpa discussed politics or the Bible, with me chiming in when I thought that I knew what they were talking about. I mostly just listened.

  We left the following day, and started heading towards Tennessee. Our friends had recently moved there, so we went to visit them for a couple of days. We got to their house/mansion really late Saturday night, and went to church with them on Sunday morning. After church we went back to their house and the little boys frolicked; the adults had lengthy conversations; and my sister, our friend, and I, along with my young cousin, sang the entire Frozen soundtrack... Four times. Not that I was counting, but at least four. At one point, those songs began to get stuck in my head, so I started reading a new book series called The Land of Stories. Later that night, Zootopia was put on. For anyone who hasn't seen it, the plot was excellent, but there was a definite agenda. I don't know if you care about that, but it was all about racism. The animation and script was really cute though.

  On Monday we went to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, where one of the best country singers of the 70's hails from, Dolly Parton. After Dolly got famous, she opened up a theme park in Pigeon Forge to create more jobs and money for the people who lived in her hometown. The park is known as Dollywood.

  Wednesday morning we went on a hike to Clingsman Dome, which is the highest point in the Smoky Mountains. We were technically in North Carolina while we were up there, but we could see both Tennessee and North Carolina from where we were standing. Even though everywhere east of Arizona is really humid (or so it seems), being up in the mountain air was very refreshing. I've always loved the mountains, not as much as the sea, but they are very different. The mountains are wild and beautiful, yet to some extent can be controlled. The sea is free, and still beautiful.

  Dollywood is awesome. They had lots of rollercoasters, which were really fun. I thought that they were kind of big, but the biggest one that I had been on previously is California Screamin', which is not big at all. None of them were scary, at least, not in my opinion. Although my younger cousin that we brought along went on one of them with me and wouldn't go on it again, even though it was super fun. It did go upside down for a long time... Maybe 10 seconds... In one chunk, not total.

  One of the ones that I went on was called Lightning Rod. It's the worlds fastest wooden rollercoaster, with top speeds of 73 mph. The ride is themed like a 1950's car repair joint, and has lots of quirky decorations. It had a two story drop, and lasted about three minutes. When I went on it, it had just opened the week before, and whether or not you got to ride it was sketchy. Some pieces had been recalled, and they hadn't quite fixed it. There had been a really long line when we walked by at one point, and the doors were closed. We went on one ride and came back, and the line was gone. The doors were open! They were letting people in. I gave my speech about "I'm alive, so why not live?" and ran into the line. It was so much fun! But it closed again shortly after I rode it. It is still going under closure and it hasn't permanently opened yet.

  We went to Dollywood twice, on Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday we prepared to leave again, then as we were leaving we went on a rollercoaster that was built into the mountains, The Smoky Mountain Alpine Coaster. That was really fun. You control your rate of speed, and if you go too slow the person behind you gets annoyed. I was in the back of a three car chain, so I was very annoyed. ZIP LEFT. ZIP RIGHT. STOP!!!!! I got to enjoy the scenery though, and that was a plus.

  We also went to Paula Deen's Family Kitchen, which was super good! I don't even like beef or pork, but their pork chops were awesome. My entire family thought that it was amazing, especially the dessert. The Ooey Gooey Butter Cake (that's it's real name) was so good! If it hadn't of been so rich, I could have eaten several by myself.

  We started off towards Ohio! My dad's friend, who started a Bible outreach with my dad, (DiG Outreach, DiG Outreach Blog, and The Adventures of Tony Samoni by DiG Outreach) lives out there, and we'd never met his family, so we went out to meet them. They are some of my new favorite people. They are some of the kindest people that I have ever met. I cannot properly describe them. We spent Saturday, Sunday, and Monday (Independence Day) out there. They took us to see Lake Erie, which was beautiful! I was surprised to see a fresh water lake that was so comparable to the ocean. We watched a fireworks display on the 3rd of July, and went to their families house on Independence Day.

   On the first day that we were there, Anna and her family were also in Ohio, so we stopped and grabbed a snack with them. It was nice to see some of my close friends from home too, because although I had tons of fun on my vacation, I would love to just be home with some books by Charles Dickens, my dictionary, and a functioning air conditioner all the time.

  On Tuesday we began our trek to Kentucky to visit the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter. We woke up at no-man's hour (about 3:00) and started off. The ribbon cutting for the Ark was that day, and we had to make it before it commenced. The Ark was even bigger than I thought it would be... It's the largest wood-frame structure in the world, as of now, and clearly shows how all the animals could have fit in the ark, how they would have been fed, how they kept everything clean, and provides evidence against evolution! It was awesome. It was amazing, even if you just look at the architecture. I'm planning to do a post solely about the ark pretty soon.

  We also went to the Creation Museum, where we randomly met a family that also homeschools, and they have friends who live in our neighborhood! They were very nice, and we ended up seeing them the rest of the days that we were in Kentucky. The Creation Museum had lots of really cool exhibits, including a dinosaur fossil that kids could actually touch and an exhibit about the existence of dragons/fire breathing dinosaurs. For example, there was apparently a group of cowboys who claimed to have seen a giant fire breathing lizard. Keep in mind, these were cowboys, which would have put them in the 1800's. They saw dragons and the word dinosaur wasn't invented until 1842 by Richard Owen.

  We began heading back towards home. On the way, we again headed back through the town where our friends live in Tennessee, then down to my grandparents house.
  As we went back down the I-40, the GPS told us to detour onto Route 66 to avoid a spot of traffic. As we were driving down the road, a red and white sign caught my eye.

"Listen Birds"

(that caught my attention)

 "These Signs Cost Money"

(inward laughter)

"You Can Rest Awhile"

(confusion)

"But Don't Get Funny!"

(at which point my mother and I both burst into hysteric laughter)

"Burma~Shave"

(which apparently is a brand name)

  Burma~Shave was a brand that pioneered roadside slogans and brushless shaving cream. At this point we were in Arizona. It turns out that Burma~Shave went out of business a long time ago, and advertised with quirky signs like that. Originally there hadn't been any in Arizona because there weren't enough people, but a group of people who try to restore historical things put a bunch of reproductions of the Burma~Shave signs along Route 66. They were super funny. Here's a list of all the slogans.

Burma~Shave Slogans

We got to my cousin's house shortly after 4:00 am, and dropped her off with her mom, and arrived at our house a while after 4:30 am. And that is the end of our Month Gone.