Our Summer Trip to Utah 2008-Getting There

We started out our trip in quite an interesting way. We flew Emily to California to drive with me because Joseph was flying to Utah the next day. On Saturday night Emily and I made a late run to the gtocery store to get some snacks for the trip. We were deep in conversation when we arrived home and I forgot to turn the lights to the van off, and I left the keys in the ignition slightly turned. Sunday morning, Joseph went to put something in the van before his 6:30 bishopric meeting and realized the battery was dead!

James and Tanner came over to give the battery a jump start while Joseph was at his meetings, so we made it to 9:30 church on time. After church we ate lunch and finished packing and prepared to roll out about 3:30 p.m. We had plans to stay in Elko, Nevada on Sunday night (about 7 hours from here). Well we made way just before 4:00 that afternoon and once we got things rolling I decided to put a movie on for the kids. That's when I noticed there was no power to the DVD system. In fact, there was no power to the entire stereo system. Ahhhh! All Hondas are equipped with an anti-theft device in the stereo system, if anyone steals the stereo system, you have to have an access code to get it to work again. That access code is located in the owner's manual. Well, we bought our Odyssey as a lease buyback, and the leasee didn't turn in the manual with the car...NICE!!! We called the Honda dealership in Davis and they laughed telling us this is a common call for them and told us it would cost about $200 for them to take the computer out and figure out the code. A 12 hour trip with no movies is one thing, but with no music too? That's just too much to bear! I did have my ipod shuffle, but I felt bad listening when everyone else had to sit in silence. For sanity's sake, I did pull it out a couple of times.

We drove 5 1/2 hours in complete SILENCE....well, almost complete....every 10 minutes or so Abby would ask, "Are we almost to the hotel yet?" To which we replied, "Yea, about 6 more hours." It made the ride sooooo much longer...for everyone! Brynn and Abby slept for a couple of hours, but Aaron napped before we left, so he just sat and twittled his thumbs, kicked his legs back and forth, and danced to rhythms in his head. I apologize for those who live in Nevada, but that has to be the worst drive in terms of scenery. Usually, when I don't want the kids to watch the television in the car, I tell them we are going to look at the beautiful world around us. None of them thought the brown desert of Nevada was consistent with the phrase "beautiful world around us." I didn't even bring books or coloring stuff, I didn't want any more "stuff" in the car than we absolutely needed. BIG MISTAKE! We should have turned around and picked up "stuff" when we realized it wasn't working.

I have to hand it to the kids, they hardly complained at all, that's what made me feel the worst, seeing their bored little faces as we traveled through the Nevada desert, in the dark, in silence.

Emily was a trooper, she told about 5 different versions of Peter Pan. She had to make up her own variety, because when she tried to tell the real story, Abby would interrupt every few seconds with, "That's not what happened." Emily tried to get her to tell the story, because we all know we would have heard the whole Peter Pan story verbatim for about 2 hours, but Abby refused, so Emily told her this was a new version of Peter Pan.

When we arrived in Winnemucca (about 2 hours from our hotel for the night) at about 9:00 p.m. we decided we could take it NO LONGER! Emily could not come up with any more versions of Peter Pan. We found a Wal-Mart and stocked up on books, coloring books, crayons, and even a little CD player and batteries. Wahoo! We were ridin' in style!


Aaron LOVED his new Cars books! We were all so relieved and happy to have something to do!
Brynn and Abby completed their Strawberry Shortcake coloring books. Please excuse Brynn's mouth full of crackers, we just couldn't contain our wide-mouthed perma grins! Emily and I thoroughly enjoyed our "ghetto" blaster. Could we get any more ghetto than this? Music has never sounded so good!
We arrived at the Elko Holiday Inn around 11:30 p.m. , had a good night's sleep and yummy breakfast and then headed on our way. Emily had to make it back for the John Mayer/Colbie Caillat Concert later than evening.
We were again gratfeul for our all our supplies!

When we arrived in Wendover, I decided to give Honda of Orem a call to find out if I could bring the car in so that the system would be ready for our trip home. They guy on the phone said, try this......he told me to push this and that and then gave me a disabling code and wala! WE HAD MUSIC! WE HAD MOVIES! WE WERE IN HEAVEN!!!!! (and all without having to pay the dealership the $200 fee). I started a movie for the kids and we all started screaming with joy!

I know that people have traveled for years without DVD systems in their car, and I'll admit, sometimes we can be a little too dependent on them, but I have never been so grateful for music and movies. We made it 5 1/2 hours with no music and 9 1/2 hours without a movie. I know it's silly, but I am very proud! It's amazing how much faster the trip goes with music and movies.

Thank you dear man from Honda of Orem, for helping this pregnant woman who is losing her mind! We had a great time on our trip. More details coming up.....