Arizona: A Summary

So I did, in fact, travel to Arizona and then return home to New York.  I filled pages of my personal journal with facts and feelings concerning the trip, but I think most of that should be kept to myself.  On the other hand, I couldn't, in good conscience, skip right back to normal blog posting without even a mention of my journey, so the following is what I came up with for public consumption.

First, an understatement.  The flight into Phoenix was turbulent.

I thought I was going to die for a second there.  I was sure the pilot had lost control and we were on a crash course to the Arizona desert.  My sisters were thinking something similar.  I could tell by their wide, searching eyes.  So we played 20 questions for the remainder of the flight.  The diversion worked until a girl seated infront of us barfed.  It was really turbulent.  Seat belts were strictly required, so she couldn't even go clean up.  Thankfully, we landed safely soon after.

Elise pre-turbulence

The desert turned out to be in the middle of a huge rainstorm and flooded.  It wasn't quite what I was expecting, but the rain stopped and flooding dried up after a few days.  Then the weather was akin to late June where I'm from (around 60 degrees).  Everyone was wearing jackets and mildly complaining about the cold.  I thought it was great.

Yeah, No Kidding

Sending a girl from Upstate New York to a never-ending expanse of Arizona urbanity is quite similar to dispatching Dorothy to Oz.  I was out of my element.  Not that I didn't enjoy myself.  It was just sooooo different.    

Olivia and a Joshua Tree

Mountains vs. Rolling Hills. Sparse Desert Plant Life vs. Thick Northeastern Vegetation.  Standing-Room-Only Back Yards vs. Wide Open Space.    People vs. Not So Many.  Beautiful New Homes vs. Very Old Homes.  Lots of Mormons vs. Almost None.  Things to Do vs. Invent Your Own.  Traffic Lights vs. Stop Signs.  Sidewalks vs. The Shoulder.  


I could go on and on.  The contrasts between Arizona and My Kansas were blatant.

As mentioned previously, I traveled without my family.  Like the olden days when I was single.  I had no one to worry about but myself, yet I worried the whole time.  I missed PTB so much that my heart ached.  To distract from my missing and worrying, I tried my best to enjoy the things that I don't normally get to do, like running in the morning on sidewalks, and ping pong whenever I could find an opponent (because real vacations involve ping pong).  I went swimming and even participated in water-slide races.  I met new people and visited with a dear friend from BYU.  What a welome change to have so many uplifting conversations in the space of just a few days.  Even so, it was such a relief to be headed back home Monday morning.


But all of that was superfluous.  


I made the trip for only one thing: 

                           Mesa Temple.  January 23, 2010                                 Love Birds
 to be with my brother and his sweet wife as they went through the Mesa Temple for the first time and were then sealed together for eternity.  I do not have the words adequate to describe my experience in the temple.  Even if I did, this would not be a place to share them.  It was a most sacred day.  The memories of it are the kind that I will treasure for the rest of my life. 

My Parents and Their Children

And so concludes my summary. 


P.S. Credits:  The photo of the love birds and the one of my parents' family were snitched from Diana's Facebook.  The photo of Dad and I playing ping pong was taken by my mom.