the artist & the pilot: Arizona trip!

Last month Bryce and I took a trip to Flagstaff to see my parents and because Bryce has just been dying to go to the Overland Expo for the last two years. So we finally made plans and went.

I was stoked to go because it had been over a year since I had been there.

We like driving through the night so we left at 8pm and headed west. Honestly, I slept most of the time while Bryce drove. He's awesome.

I woke up in the middle of the night (3am) to realize we were in a neighborhood and not on the highway like I had expected. Turns out Bryce had found directions to the Lubbock Temple and took a small detour so that I could see it! It's one of the smaller temples and shares a parking lot with one of the LDS church buildings there. :)

We pulled over around 6am and slept for 1 1/2 hours to recharge and then I hopped in the drivers seat for a few hours. By 10am we were in AZ!

I love Flagstaff so much. The mountains are gorgeous! Only problem is that they come into view like an hour and a half before you get into town so it feels like you're SO CLOSE but ... not so much. :)

Coming into my parents neighborhood. I love the pine trees so much because as soon as you step out of the car, the pine trees are all you smell.....it's seriously intoxicating. I always know I'm home when I can smell the Flagstaff air. :)

All the pics of mom and dad are on my cell phone and I haven't downloaded them yet so I'll have to do another post of those later.

But while we were there Bryce and Dad got talking about his work so we ended up going in for the evening print run so Bryce could see how it all works. I had taken tours of dad's work several times when I was in elementary school for school field trips etc. But this time we got the in depth tour and they showed us how the printing press works and all the work they have to put into getting the ink colors to lay exactly right. It was actually really cool! :)

This pic is where the printing ink is stored. See that huge black container I'm pointing to? That's the black ink cartridge. :) Yeah huge. The colors are in the barrels on the left.

Below shows the ginormous rolls of newspaper paper. :)

And this baby is just half of the printing press. :)

So like I said earlier, half of the reason for our trip was so Bryce could go to the Overland Expo out at Mormon Lake Lodge in Flagstaff. He went the first day by himself so he could drool as long as he wanted and then the second day I went with him so he could show me everything he had found that was extra cool.

Below is the view on the way to Mormon Lake. It was a perfect day!

These kinds of things are what Bryce is so excited about. They're roof top tents and trailers and they have everything you could possibly need to live out of it for weeks and even months on end.

Many of them are custom built and very unique. There was tons to look at.

There was an off-road driving course you could drive for free. Bryce did it both days and I did it the day I went with him. It was pretty sweet.

While we were there I got to see some of my high school friends! Bethi and Derrick had us all over for Sunday lunch outside. It was so nice and so fun to see all of them!