Dec. 13, 2011

Family Trip to national Jamboree 1990.

As a child I remember taking Stan and Clair down to the church as they headed off to a National Jamboree in Colorado. I later as I became an Eagle scout realized that I had never had the chance to go to a jamboree and wished that I had. (I probably wouldn’t have done so well because it would have been some very large crowds and I struggled with that.) Anyway so when a chance came along to go with my sons to a National Jamboree which was then held only in Virginia state I decided to put myself on the list to go. A ward boundary change made other changes as well and one of them were the plans to go to the jamboree. Since the boys were no longer preparing as a ward to go I decided that since I already had time off scheduled at work I would just go on the trip with my family instead.

We went for 18 days and only 5 hours of it ended up at the National Jamboree of which three of that were in the rain. We first headed down through Colorado and stayed overnight in a park. We pulled out the sleeping bags and went to sleep or so I had planned. There were bugs in the grass that were biting very hard but since we had insufficient room in the van for the whole family we put our sleeping bags on picnic tables and went to sleep there instead. (Park tables are harder tha the ground by the way and a lot less comfortable if you can believe it.) We then went on down to Pampa Texs where we stopped and visited with Art Skewes, My Uncle Jack’s brother.

He had turtles and big bird houses in his back yard and the children had a blast playing in it. We left there and looked around at where I had stayed and worked as a missionary.

We left there for Dublin Texas and stayed with a family that I had met and worked with during my mission. They were on a different farm but were so excited to have us stay with them. The children couldn’t understand a bit of what she said because she spoke in a foreign language called “Texan”.  It was a lot of fun. After leaving there we went to North Carolina traveling through several states to get there. We went through Dallas and then east to Mississippi and through Georgia. We stayed with Stan and Leora for that night. (There were several other nights that we stayed in places like Motel 6 or other less expensive rooms.) We had a great time st Stan’s place because of a duck pond that was near there home.

We went up the coast after that and stopped in several historical places and learned a lot We also went to Washington DC where we visited with Aunt Helen and Uncle Charles that was there on a mission. We went to New York and visited the twin towers staying with one of Marie’s cousin’s in New Jersey. They took us on a tour at night of New York city.

We went to the National Jamboree in Virginia for a very short 5 hours and then into West Virginia for one of the nights. It was there where Brittany as a very young toddler pulled some lockers over on herself and ended up being locked into the room since the keys were in there with her and Tia. We went to the motel pool where the owner, a doctor, happened to be relaxing and stitched up the cut in her head.

We also went through Hershey  and to the sites of many of the civil and revolutionary war battle sites. It was a great learning experience for us.

We traveled across the top of the United states to Nauvoo where we stayed in a little missionary pad where my Aunt Carma and Uncle Carling Allen were staying. It was fun because he took us on our private tour after the play at night through many of the sites in Nauvoo. We also visited other historical sites of the churh in that part of the country such as Carthage, Illinois and Kirtland, Ohio. 

We continued from there to Cheyenne WY where we stayed with Mari’s Uncle Vaughn Behrmann and his wife Liz. From Cheyenne to another small town, Kemmer, on the western side of Wyoming where I had another cousin on my side of the family.

We drove back through Heber and home. It took 18 days but it  was well worth it.