Alligator Park

You may be wondering where I have been all this time. I have had some fun adventures which I hope to catch up on soon. Life has just been so busy but good busy! One thing that has kept me busy is I was called to be the Relief Society President for our branch at the beginning of the month. But here is one adventure for you. Enjoy!

Back in June, some friends and I went to Alligator Park. It's official name is Brazos Bend State Park. As you probably guessed there are gators that live in the park. Here is the group at the park.

 Here is one with the sun in their faces instead of behind them.

 It was a pretty park. I loved the lily pads.

 This tree also was awesome!

 Fortunately, while we were there we did see a gator. I would have been very disappointed to go there and not see a gator! Here, he is swimming in the water. Can you see him? (I am just assuming that it is a him: I wasn't going to get close enough to check.) It's the log looking thing in the middle.

 Here he is again a little closer. This was a smaller gator probably 4 feet.

 It was SO hot that day. 102 plus humidity. We were trying to stay a  little cooler by taking a moment in the shade. It didn't help much but 101 with humidity made a tiny difference.

 We saw some turtles sun bathing on a log. If you look close you can see there legs stretched out. Cute.

 Deanna and Jessica decided to pose with the turtles and sunbath too. 

 So you may be wondering where I am this whole time. Well, here you go. Proof that I didn't just still someone else's photos and claim to be there.

 This is the view from the top of the tower. See pretty in an alligator, swampy way.

  We finally got someone to take a picture of all of us together. I like this picture a lot!

Me posing with the gators. (Can you see them?) 

 There was some cool places to take pictures at the park. If it wasn't so hot I might have explored them more.

 And there's just something about a big tree that makes you want to climb it and take pictures.

It was a fun and successful trip to see gators. 

O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A

How many buses does it take to get from Nauvoo to Houston?

 

Until this trip I had never been to Oklahoma before. But on this trip we spent too much time there. Don't worry I don't hold anything against Oklahoma. Someday I look forward to visiting under better circumstances.

 

So our tale begins as we are driving along in the wee hours of the morning about 3:30 AM. Most of us were sleeping or trying to find a decent position to sleep in. I had just gotten comfortable and was starting to drift into the sleepy world when "CLUNK!" It felt like we had run over something and my thought immediately was "Uh oh! That didn't sound good." But the bus driver kept driving so I started to think that it must not have been anything major. A few minutes later the bus driver saw some sparks coming from the back of the bus and pulled over to check it out. And calmly assured us in English that everything was fine but then started speaking in spanish to the other bus driver saying "What the crap just happened?" When they went to look this is what the found.

One of these things is not like the other. In case you missed it, this picture might help.

Our entire wheel had fallen off the bus! So they drove us very slowly to a truck stop and then they called the bus company to send a mechanic to check it out. An hour later they determined that they couldn't fix the bus and would have to send another bus from Dallas (which was 3 hours away) to come get us. By this point it was 5 ish. So I thought okay not too long and we'll be on our way and we can just sleep until the bus arrives. Cooper actually had a brilliant idea and went down to the luggage compartment so he could stretch out and sleep.

 

3 hours came and went with no bus. Then 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 hours went by. Then at about 1 PM to our great joy the bus finally arrived. Apparently, if you are going to have your wheel fall off on your bus and have to get a replacement bus you shouldn't do it on a saturday (make a note of that) because all of the buses and drivers were out already. So they finally had to contact another bus company to come get us so we weren't there even longer. Halleluja! Cause 9 hours was long enough.

 

For those of you that might be mechanically inclined and like to see the lack of wheel in the daylight here you go. I was told that that part there above the axel isn't suppose to be like that. Yes you know that one.

Although we were detained on our journey for longer than we had wanted or planned we made the best of our situation. Stacy and I joined Cooper at his luggage compartment.

They played some Ultimate Frisbee.

We ate breakfast.

Played some more frisbee.

Found a lady bug.

And uh... yeah.

The signs says "Welcome to Chouteau" wherever that is. This happened to be right across the street. But that is where we stayed for 9 hours.

We had a devotional and sang hymns.

Cooper, Stacy, and I rewrote hymns to make it fit our circumstances. Like the big hit "God speed the Bus." And the one we didn't perform for anyone "Rejoice the bus has Come!"

From the luggage compartment we had a nice view of the car parade that stopped in at the truck stop.

 This was the most comfortable place I experience on the bus.

Then Megan joined us. I love this photo!

Then we rejoiced when the bus finally arrived. And we quickly transferred everything to the new bus.

When we were approaching Dallas we learned that we had to change buses yet again. This time back to a bus from our company. We quickly transferred everything over again.

We eventually made it home only 6 hours after we had planned to but we had a good time.

 

Here is a headless picture of Cooper our bus attendant collecting trash and dispersing hand sanitizer as he had done all through the trip.

 And another with better lighting.

 

We felt fortunate that our wheel chose to come off when it did. If it had happened an hour earlier it would have hit another car on the road but at the time there was no one else around. If it was a different tire it could have caused us injury. In many ways it could have been much worse then it was. We are grateful that we were all protected and made it home safely even with the 9 hour layover. And we made the most out of our delay.

 

So how many buses does it take? 3 apparently.

Carthage Jail

Our last (planned) stop of the trip was at Carthage Jail.

 

Carthage Jail is where Joseph Smith and Hyrum were killed by a mob.

 This is the dining room. The jailer ate dinner with Joseph here. It shows that he knew Joseph wasn't a criminal to let him eat with his family.

 

 I love these keys.

 This is one of the rooms that they kept the prisoners in. But the jailer thought so much of the Prophet and his companions that he let them stay in his bedroom. It was a blessing because had they been in this room they all would have been killed.

 This is the jailers bedroom that he let them stay in.

 

 

This is the door that the mob shot through and killed Hyrum. You can see the bullet holes still in it.

 Here is the crew. And I do believe we managed to get all 41 of us in this picture.

Here is another. You can see a couple people a little better.