"As far as the East is from the West..."

When you travel to certain parts of our country, there are so many wonders to behold.  When you consider that the Lord has cast our sins as far as the East is from the West, it sounds pretty far...but when you're standing on top of a mountain looking at the world stretched out before you, going both East and West...going on for miles and miles...as far as the eye can see...it's then that you really get a picture of just how far the East is from the West.  This is how I felt on the 5th day of our trip... 

Once more, we spent quite a bit of time in the car.  When you get to certain parts of certain states, towns are pretty spread out...so to make sure we would have a place to stay, we kept going.  We hopped out a time or two to stretch our legs, but other than that, Lilyana entertained herself with her giant plush girafe and we pushed on...

Be forewarned...this post contains lots of scenery pictures...there isn't much to photograph inside of the car, and my camera batter was reeeeeeeeally low, so the amount of pictures continually dropped. :(

 As I mentioned above, if you don't keep pushing on when you have the chance, you end up without a place to lay your weary head.  After spending what seemed  lifetime on that old bumpy road, we found a spot to get some sleep.  This is, by far, the best view from our windows!

 Okay, okay...so yes, we did end up sleeping in the car!  After removing our luggage, food, souvenirs, etc.., and laying the back seat down, we had a cozy little room!  Thankfully, Ben packed some JIC items...(for those of you who are like me and have to have your BIL's explain what JIC means, it stands for "just in case".)...two sleeping bags, one wool blanket, pillows, etc...  I thought it was freezing outside, but Ben insists that it didn't get that cold...but I'm sure it got close!  Lilyana was snug as a bug.

 After a quick breakfast and then loading the car back up, we were on our way again!  That girafe isn't Lilyana's BIG one, the one she talked to the entire trip, but she loves the pink one, too.  

We were unpleasantly surprised to find that just around the corner from our "room" was a lodge.......

 Behold the great Fish Lake!  This is only part of the lake.  It curves around the foot of the mountain on the left and keeps going.  

Pops, we should take the sailboat out here!!!!

 As we meandered through the state of Utah, we spent a good portion of our drive with this for our view.  Ben wants to get some when we build our dream home. :)

See those nasty yellow flowers...they are nasty yellow flowers...had me sneezing and itching like crazy!

I used the YL Thieves spray orally and then put the Harmony blend on my sternum and the Valor blend on the bottom of my feet to help get my system back in order. 

 As far as the East is from the West is purty far, now, ain't it?

 Standing up there makes one feel awfully teeny-tiny...

 Ahhh!!!!  Where does the road go?!?!  And NO guard rails?!?!?!

 Ben taking in the breathtaking view.  And it's soooo peaceful up there!  

 We love staying off of freeways and finding back roads...they're usually more fun to drive, and you never know what you'll find!  This area of Utah reminds me of "The Garden of the Gods" in Colorado...only BIGGER!

 The baby found a cozy place to sit!

 The road in front of us...

 ...the road behind us.  I hope we can make this drive again!

 We spent the next night in a cute little Western town called Caliente, NV.  Since we were already into trains on this trip, we went to see the old train depot in town as well as the museum.  Ben and baby appear to be waiting for another train.  They may have to step back in time if they want to catch one here, though...

 Yes, these happened on the next day, but Ben is going to put up the next post about the ghost town that we visited, so I thought I'd throw these up with this post.

 Okay...does anybody in family remember this guy?!?!  Maybe not this one in particular, but still....

Getting gas before we head out into no-man's-land is important!

Oh, and I got some Rocket Dogs at this hardware store that turned out to be a small mall inside...go figure.

Ben heard that if you go up the road yonder a bit, hop off in between mile markers 81 and 82, take an old dirt road to a well worn foot path, follow that until you get to the bottom of a little knoll, you can dig around, break rocks and find fossilized Trilobites.  

So "Lawrence of Arabia" is digging and looking for one.  We actually did get some pieces of the little bugs, and brought home some other rocks to gently break them at home with proper tools.  The baby was more interested in her nap, so we decided to do a better job hunting when she's a bit older.

So I'll close this post with a picture of what Ben called "Lauren of A-Babia"...

Check back to read Ben's post on the Ghost Town!!!!