This Can't be Right...

First of all, to address Carrie's question about Branson, I have no photos from Branson, MO.  We didn't actually spend very much time there because we spent most of the day in one of Justin's areas an hour or so away.  However, we did make it back in time to do some outlet shopping, and look around town wishing that there were more people with us.  For some reason that city strikes us as the sort of place you want to go with a crowd, not as a couple.  In part this is because we aren't "show" type people, but we thought that it would be fun if someone forced us out of that mindset and pressured us into doing things that we don't ordinarily do on our own.  I would like to go back at some point.

Carlsbad Caverns turned out to be amazing.  It exceeded all of my rather limited expectations.  Justin and I elected to enter through the natural entrance:

There were all kinds of signs indicating that it would add about two miles of walking and was classified as very strenuous.  Although I still wouldn't classify it as "very strenuous," my knees might.  It was pretty much two hours of straight down switchbacks, like the ones pictured above.  Worth it, but I wouldn't mock anyone who decides not to put their knees and ankles through that, and just elects to take the elevator that will shoot you down 700 feet below the Earth's surface in a matter of minutes.  Right as those people stroll off the elevator they are greeted by one of the features of the cavern that I found most fascinating, a restaurant, souvenir shop, and restrooms complete with flush toilets. 

It wasn't really what I was expecting.  We continued on to the Big Room

There were literally miles of paths that took you through all sorts of different weird cavern features.  We spent hours in there.  All the pictures are on facebook, if you have interest in viewing more...which you should, but I have no interest in taking the time to post more of them here.

From there were drove to Tucson where we spent the night, visited the senior missionary couple that gave Justin and I our first introduction over breakfast at a McDonald's in Sierra Vista on the temple trip where we met.  We continued on from there to San Diego where we spent a couple of days visiting my Cousin Trent and his family, and went to the San Diego Zoo, and Seaworld.  Pictures have not yet been downloaded from this portion of the trip.  We attended the wedding of one of Justin's closest friends and then began the homeward trek through Nevada (where we stopped at Hoover Dam), spent the night in Utah, and finally 21 days, and 15 states later we have returned to our little apartment in Boise.  We are not sorry to have made the trip, but not sorry to be home either. 

We returned the rental car later that evening, and when the lady checking it in got in to log the mileage, she emerged from the car a second later with a rather puzzled look on her face and said "This can't be right, I show that you put 6,905 miles on this car?  That must be wrong..."  I told her it wasn't wrong, and she assumed a look of total astonishment as she inquired where it had been, and looked more shocked as I rattled of a few of the states.  Finally she just shrugged and said okay.  Probably not the number she's used to seeing, but they said unlimited mileage...