Six Thousand Three Hundred Twenty Six Part 1

It's true, I drove over 6,000 miles in my Suburban, with my 4 kids, in about six weeks, this summer. I am so glad we did this trip, but it's so good to be home.

The following posts are about our trip. It was a blessing to be able to go "home" out West to see our family.

July 4: David had to march in the oldest Fourth of July parade in the country, in Bristol, Rhode Island. I packed most of the day and dropped Pepper, the dog, off at a friends home so they could watch her while we were away.

July 5 4:30am: We woke up the kids and left on our big trip. Everyone was really excited and no one went back to sleep. Eli (5 months old) was the only one who slept. I slept later in the day, since I stayed up all night packing the truck. David slept so he could drive, but I didn't even go to bed.

July 5, 4:00pm, 649 miles: We stopped for the night in Columbia, Ohio. The kids voted Pennsylvania as their favorite state to drive through. This made my day since I served my mission there. It was a beautiful drive and being on I-80 the whole time helped us avoid NYC all together, thank goodness.

July 6, 3:00pm, 722 miles: We stopped for the night at Des Moines, IA. Nothing major on this day of driving. We have a DVD player built into the Suburban, so we watched a lot of movies. The kids' favorite choice on this leg of the trip was Seasons 1-3 of the 80's show "Full House".

July 7, 5:00pm, 629 miles: Stopped for the night in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The kids voted their least favorite state to drive through was Nebraska. It was ugly and boring they said. More "Full House" on the movie choices. We stayed in a hotel in Cheyenne called "Little America". It was decorated in frontier and western décor. The room was huge, and the kids loved watching all the baby bunnies run around wild outside our room. This was a fun stop.

In Cheyenne, WY.  The boys were scared of the Indian statue.





July 8, 1:00pm, just under 400 miles: On I-15 in Utah, on our way to Tremonton, we just had to stop at the Smith and Edwards Country Store. It's a ginormous store right off the freeway that has just about everything a cowboy/farmer/camper would want to shop for. We spent an hour there and had a grand time. David was in heaven and the farm boy in him appeared real quick disguised as a little kid. We had a good time.

July 8, 3:30pm, 469 miles: We finally arrived in Tremonton, UT where David grew up. David's parents were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary this summer and a year ago, we started planning to come home for the celebrations and a reunion. He has 5 brothers and a sister, so this was going to be a big shindig. It really was a miracle that we got everyone home considering 4 brothers are in the Navy in VA, WA, RI and Naples, Italy, and their sister is in Minnesota. But it worked out and we all made it.

We stayed at "home" and throughout the week, aunts, uncles and cousins were coming and going. We had a fantastic time getting reacquainted with everyone and it was a great challenge to find sleeping arrangements for the 20 plus people there at any given time. Grandpa cooked pancakes for about 20 every morning outside on the table-sized cast iron grill and we all ate breakfast together in the shadow of the Wasatch mountains. Gorgeous.

July 12, 10:45 am, Brigham City: David's parents work at the new Brigham City temple. We arranged for all their grandchildren age 12 and up to go with them to do Baptisms for the Dead. Grandma, Grandpa, Eleven of their grandchildren and several of the siblings went to the temple together that morning. The remaining sisters-in-law and eleven younger kids stayed home and played.

July 12, 2:00pm, Maddox Steak House, Brigham City, UT: The entire family, all THIRTY-EIGHT of us, had a luncheon at a nice steak house. We ate, visited and all the siblings gave a toast to Mom and Dad's 50th. It was an emotional and wonderful afternoon.

July 12, 6:00pm, Tremonton, UT: We all gathered again for the baptism of David's nephew. He turned 8 several months ago, but waited until the reunion so he could have all his aunts, uncles and cousins there. We filled the halls of the church with song and words of the Spirit. I looked around that room at all the family, active in the church, singing the hymns, and counted my incredible blessing to have married into this amazing family.

July 13, 9:30 am, Riverside, UT: Again, all 38 of us met at a photo studio for family pictures. The oldest grandson will leave on his mission in October, so this will probably be the last chance we have for all of us to be together like that. We spent several hours in the studio getting amazing pictures. I can't believe we got everyone in the photo. We also took individual family pictures. When I get those ordered, I'll post them. They turned out really nice.

The kids went out to the farm with Grandpa. It's a tradition and they always look for snakes and other critters. They had fun climbing on the tractors. Not a lot of work to do while we were there. Harvest wasn't started yet.

July 13, 6:00pm, Tremonton, UT: The Ward family is well known for their musical talents. Everyone in the family plays an instrument or two, or five. No one could think of a better way to celebrate the anniversary than with a concert, featuring the family band. A park in Tremonton was reserved and they sat and rehearsed for about an hour tops the day before. Right before the concert started it poured rain and even a little hail, but everyone stayed and it cleared up in time for a great evening. The band played and it was just a wonderful time. I don't know the exact numbers, but I think there were at least 100 or more people there. What a legacy and a fitting celebration.

David and his brother Jonathan. Our babies were born 6 days apart.

 

My college roommate came to the concert. We all "grew up" in the USU band together.

 

July 14, 10:00am, Tremonton, UT: We all attended church together. We took up two really long rows of pews. There were a lot of us, but again, the blessings of being a family who share our faith and beliefs like we do, is incredible and beyond words.

 

July 15: Everyone parted ways. We stayed one more day because we had some issues with our Suburban. But they got fixed and we packed and visited one more day. It was so very bittersweet to see everyone leaving. Who knows when we'll be together again.

 

July 16, 5:00am: We left Tremonton and drove to Salt Lake City to take David to the airport. He had to return to work and I decided to take me and the kids to see my family. So, we dropped David off at the airport and started our adventure south. (See Part 2.)

 

After we dropped David at the airport, I couldn't pass up the chance to take the kids to Temple Square in Salt Lake City. So, we parked at the City Creek Mall and started our adventure in Salt Lake. We visited temple square, the Church History museum and the Visitors Center. They loved being there and it was the perfect beginning to the rest of our vacation.

 

Newport, Rhode Island to Salt Lake City, UT via Tremonton = 2,545 miles.

 

 



Floyd VanLandingham

Yes, we name our cars. It's strange, but we've named them all. It first started with Beatrice. She was my car in high school...a 1989 Plymouth Reliant, dark blue. I loved that car. She was what got me from Clovis to Denver and then to Clovis again and then to Utah. David took care of her while I was on my mission. We had our first kiss in that car. We drove her to San Diego for our first duty station with the Navy. She took David to work and back for a couple of years. Finally, she ran no longer and we donated her to the local jazz radio station, seemed appropriate.

We bought Pedro from my dad. He was a white 1999 Chevrolet Lumina. He took our first baby home from the hospital. Pedro was our first "new" car. He was not totally new, but practically and we had to get a loan for him. We took great care of that car. He had to be sold when we moved to Japan. It was too expensive to take him overseas.

In Japan, we bought a Japanese brand car, made in America...it was a red Honda Accord Wagon named Red. This car took us on some grand adventures in Japan. We drove Red into Tokyo several times and even broke down somewhere in Japan once. It was a car with the steering wheel on the right side, which I still can't picture in my head anymore. It was interesting driving Red on the "wrong" side of the road. We sold it to another family for their adventures in Japan.

Before we left Japan, we planned for a new car to greet us when we got back to the States. With the help of my father-in-law and our very good credit, we bought our very first brand new car. Floyd VanLandingham is a gold 2007 Chevrolet Suburban. David's dad picked us up at the airport in our new Suburban. It wasn't easy to drive at first, for one, we were still trying to drive on the "wrong" side of the road, and second, he's HUGE.

I practiced driving on the wide open roads in Utah, very slowly and in the middle of the night. I was truly nervous about driving it. He is a great car for us. Floyd has a DVD player in the roof, and so much space. We were thrilled with him. He drove us across the country to our new home in Newport, RI. Then years later, he drove us to another new home in Norfolk, VA. And a few years later, drove us back to Newport, RI.

This is the car that has driven us just over 64,000 miles so far. People often ask if I like my "gas guzzler", and I always reply, YES! I know it eats a lot of gas, but it works so well for us. I feel safe in this car and I feel good knowing we always have room. I have four kids, a dog and a husband who plays drums. (It was a sight to see when we tried to shove me, him and an entire drum set into that little Plymouth Reliant when we were in college. I got the back seat because the bass drum would only fit in the front seat!)

So, yes, it's not cheap to drive, but very worth it for me.

A few years ago, David noticed that it was going through oil a lot. He took it to the dealer to find out if there was a leak. They assured him there was no problem and just to keep an eye on it. On our drive to Utah this summer, David was starting to get uneasy about how much oil it was eating up. He called his Dad to do some research and we found out that three years ago...right around the time we took it to the dealer in Virginia with the oil problem...there was a service message from GM stating there was a problem with oil burning off the pistons when the car switched from V4 to V8. Instead of going back in the car, the oil was splashing on the pistons and burning off and in the process, ruining the pistons.

So, when we got to Utah, David and his Dad took it to the dealer where we bought it from 6 years ago. The dealer confirmed the problem and we realized the GM dealer in VA lied to us about the problem. Well, now we need new pistons, a fix for the oil burning problem and we're out of warranty...AND on vacation in Utah with plans for me to drive it across country by myself and with my four kids.

UN-FUN.

David spent our first day in Utah "chatting" with the GM company explaining to them that they were going to have some serious issues if this problem wasn't taken care of to our satisfaction. Hours of phone calls later and several visits to the dealer and we found out it was going to cost $3000 and 6 days of work on it, to fix. I was LIVID.

David worked some magic on the phone and the issue got sent up to a higher "ranking" person in GM who informed us, as if he was doing us some kind of favor, that the company would pay 80% but we would still have to pay 20% since we were out of warranty.

I'm sure the thought pops up, but it wasn't our fault. Yes, that thought came to my head and my mouth and I was talking trash about GM left and right. It was so frustrating to deal with this anyway because of the money and the problem with the truck, but it was also on my vacation with my further travels now having to be pending.

At the end of the story, we paid the 20%, waiting until THE DAY before I was supposed to take David to the airport, and finally got our Suburban back with essentially a brand new engine.

I'm glad it got fixed. I can't imagine having to stop at gas stations across the country and filling up the oil, while my kidlets sat in the hot car. I'm thankful things worked out that we got it fixed in Utah where we had a dealer we could trust.

Note to self: be more proactive when it comes to the maintenance and awareness of my car...and write a strongly worded complaint letter to GM....just to make myself feel better about it.

Leaving Utah in 2007, Floyd "The Unit" VanLandingham was only 4 months old.

Our very first brand new car.