By

Robert Lee Joseph

When Vivian Sweetheart Bishop-Cook sent her invitation to her sealing in the LDS Dallas Temple on March 30th, I began planning our journey West.

Then when David Michael (Mike) Joseph said he had booked rooms at the Arlington Microtel, I told Deloris we would stay there for those 2 nights also. Dorthea and Guillermo Colon invited us to stay with them before the Sealing so we enjoyed visiting with them for a couple days.

Then we drove to Arlington and I realized I had not brought the details for the hotel with me but I did think I had seen it off of I-20 before. While driving on I-20 it was not where I thought it was. After driving farther and farther I finally took an exit onto Collins street and stopped to get information via 411. I tried twice and each time they said they had no listing for a Microtel in Arlington.

Now I was getting anxious, but since I had booked it online I knew there must be a mistake. We saw a McDonalds across the street and pulled in there to hook up the Wi-fi on the PC.

Bingo! Not only did I see it on the screen, but we were sitting just across the highway from it! I asked the clerk why it wasn't listed. He said it was listed as the Dallas/Arlington Microtel. We had lunch that day at Chili's and enjoyed our visit with Mike, Kristy, Dante and Amara.

We then drove to Tiffini and Greg's and visited with the Duffs and Robert, Pamella, Kaylee and Kimberly.

On Saturday morning we drove to the Dallas Temple and witnessed the Sealing of Vivian and Brad Cook. In attendance was several family members from both sides. Brad's uncle had driven from Oregon to perform the Sealing.  We now have eight of our nine children sealed to their spouses. We are still hoping for Mike and Kristy, but that is up to them. Our first Grandchild missionary is Preston Sleigher, who is serving in San Diego, CA in a Spanish Speaking Mission. A nephew, Trevor Davis, is serving in Salt Lake City, UT.

Following the Sealing, the reception was the icing on the cake where we saw most all of our children and grandchildren. We are happy to report they are all doing well.  We were missing the Sleighers who recently moved to Las Vegas, but we wouldn't be missing them for long, as plans were to follow Mike to Tucson and then drive to Las Vegas.

There was more than one reason for our trip out west. Now that we have no family living in Georgia, we are thinking of moving out west, particularly since I learned my sister Pat settled in Tucson and her daughter, Trisha lives there too. The other reason was to climb Angels Landing in Zion National Park, Utah once more.

On the long drive across Texas to Tucson we stopped for lunch where Deloris called Mike on her cell and found that they were just a few minutes behind us, so we were able to have lunch with them.

That night we stayed in Van Horn. Texas, but Mike and Kristy drove straight through to Tucson.

We arrived at Mike and Kristy's in Tucson without incident except the van died at a stop sign, which caused anxiety about the van's dependability for the rest of the trip. Mike and Kristy have a comfortable house in a nice neighborhood.

The next evening we had a nice Italian dinner with Pat not too far from the apartments she lives in. The apartments are very nice and we might choose to live there when we really retire. I plan on doing that on or before my 70th birthday next September.

While at Mike's I asked if he knew a good mechanic as I needed a part I couldn't find in Georgia for our older Mercury Villager. I called his mechanic and arranged to see him the next day. Using the GPS directions I was able to get there and was surprised when the GPS said, "Turn right at the next dirt road."

The mechanic had his workshop next to his house. When he examined the problem he said even if he could find the part, he would have to pull the motor and transmission and he thought that would cost more than the van was worth.

I had to agree with him on that point and realized we were truly blessed the 14 year-old van had made it that far. On his recommendation I went to a car dealer, but quickly learned we couldn't get the deal we wanted there. Kristy Joseph recommended I try the dealer she had got her car from, so I went there and found a couple of possibilities and headed back to Kristy and Mike's.

While driving, Deloris called to say her and Kristy had looked at the dealer's website and picked out a van on-line. They had called the dealer and he said the van wasn't there but would be there later that afternoon. We emptied the Villager to prepare for the trade and went back to the dealer. Kristy and Deloris were excited about having found the van on-line. I was skeptical because I had wanted to downsize for economy.

But when the van arrived after being driven back and forth to Phoenix, I had to agree it was a good choice, especially when I saw it looked almost brand new. So now we are the proud owners of a newer Dodge Caravan, which drove very well on the trip home.

Now, back to the rest of the story. We drove north through the Arizona desert to Las Vegas where the GPS took us right to the Sleigher's new 'mansion'. It is gorgeous and I think everyone would agree it fits them very well. Check out a few of the Pix at:

http://everywhere.bizland.com/viewfromtopisbest/id5.html

While at Christi and Von's I had the opportunity to read his first published novel, "To Be A Thief". It is a very good book and I enjoyed reading it. It is a science fantasy book created from bedtime stories he told his kids and is available at Amazon.com by William Von Sleigher.

I felt my trip wouldn't be complete without climbing Angels landing, but the family tried to talk me out of it. I believed if Pat could climb it on her 69th birthday, which we did in 2008, I wanted to prove I could too during my 69^th year.

Christi agreed to climb it with me and I am very glad she did. It was a very nice easy drive the hour and a half drive up to Zion National Park where we used my lifetime pass and drove right to the shuttle-bus parking lot, hopped on the bus and were on our way to the stop that leads to Angels landing. It was at this point I realized I wasn't as prepared physically for this climb. On the previous climb in 2008 I exercised our dog daily on a walk around the neighborhood. I hadn't done that for a while, having no dog now.

So it wasn't long before my calves were barking at me loud and painfully clear. I slowed and then came to the physical reality that I might not be able to make the climb. I stopped and sat on a rock and confessed to Christi of my problem. She encouraged me and I tried some more walking, but soon stopped again. I told her to go ahead as far as she wanted and I would still be here. She didn't want to go without me but did as I had asked her. After a few minutes the calves stopped barking and I decided maybe I could do it in short stretches and started slowly forward. I found that after each stop it wasn't taking me so long to get my breath again. Pretty soon I wasn't stopping at all, but just taking time to breathe. After several switchbacks, I saw Christi coming back down. She said, "Dad we are supposed to be doing this together." And she was surprised I had made it that far.

We started walking up together with me stopping for breath at each switchback. I know it took me at least 3 times longer than before to make it to the 5,000 foot level, but I was happy we made it. Christi didn't believe it when I pointed to the next part of the climb. But the trooper she is, she started it with me.

We were not very far from the top when she said she didn't want to die today. We had both slipped a little bit on the rocks. A few minutes later I looked up and saw the rest of the climb was almost totally vertical. I didn't want to die today either, so I told her we had done enough and we started back down, which was almost as difficult as the climb up that part. I think we missed getting to the top by about 50 feet.

Again on the way down I was taking short breaks as going down was hard on the knees. Along the way we took some good pix as a reminder of our climb. It took me over 2 days to fully recover my legs from that day's efforts, but I would do it again for the joy it gave me of having achieved it. We jokingly called it a checkmark on my 'bucket list'.

On Sunday we watched General Conference while I lay on the couch recovering.

Another crowning point of the trip was getting to go to the Las Vegas Temple and go through an Endowment session for my great Grandfather, Robert Rutledge Joseph, and I sincerely thank Christi for making that possible. Christi was also able to update our genealogy site with all the work they had done.

On planning our 2,000 mile return trip I decided in my mind I would consider it 100 miles at a time. We planned on spending 2 nights on the road. We stopped at Joseph City for gas and Gallup, New Mexico where Deloris was born. We stayed at Albuquerque, New Mexico and Fort Smith, Arkansas on the trip home.

As I look back, I could not have scripted our trip any better and thank the Lord very graciously for it.

Now all we need to do is get the house ready to sell and make the move, hopefully by October, 2013.

See the climb pix at: http://everywhere.bizland.com/viewfromtopisbest/id3.html

With Love to all, Rob and Deloris / Grandpa and Nanny J