Eastern Escapades: Day 1--Flying

This last week was amazing. My mom, my dad, my sister Rachel, and I went on a trip to the East to see where our church was restored. It was such a wonderful trip! So many great things happened that I am going to go through it day by day and make my web log--"blog"--a travel log. I'm certain that the pictures will be the best part. Enjoy!


The first day was mostly just traveling. Our flight left from Salt Lake City at 12:45 and landed in Dallas/Fort Worth where we had a three hour layover. From there we flew at 8:00 pm local time to Cleveland, Ohio and arrived at 11:30 their time, where we rented a car and drove to our hotel. Admittedly, not a very exciting day.
The fun part of the day was the excitement of knowing we were headed toward a week of adventure. As a family we have never flown anywhere, let alone on vacation. I had flown before to Phoenix to take care of my cousins, but that was five years ago. This was Rachel's first time flying ever. It was really fun to sit next to her and share in her excitement of the new experience. I think she made a few people around us chuckle with her comments.
The not fun part of the day was that I had a pretty bad cold. In fact, the very worst part of my cold landed on Monday. Now I know why it isn't fun to travel when sick--it is miserable. I was really congested and had a faucet for a nose. The worst part was the descent on our first flight. The change in pressure nearly killed me. A normal person can equalize fairly quickly, but a person whose sinuses are filled with junk can't. I felt like my face was a brick that might burst from under the skin any minute. My tear ducts felt like needles poking my eyes. I cried, partially from pain, but partially to relieve pressure. I was exhausted and glad to be on solid ground when we landed. You better believe that I used part of our layover to take a nap.

We ate Mexican in the Dallas airport. Mom didn't really like her chicken.

Dad did like his Tamales, though.

We found the comfiest chairs possible. This is after my nap=happier April.

Oh, another cool part of the day was on our second flight. I had the center seat again, and we were all separated, but the flight made up for it--we were flying at night in a lightning storm. It sounds scary, but it wasn't. We couldn't hear it, so it just lit up the clouds silently. Most often it was behind clouds, so entire banks of clouds would flash and glow. Now and then it would fork in front of the clouds. It was awesome. It flashed every few seconds, and we had  a good show for at least a half an hour.
That night we all just crashed in our hotel.