Spring Break- Road Trip

The Haines family took our spring break vacation this week.  We did a road trip down to Southside Virginia, then continued on to Southwest Virginia and Tennessee and back home again through the hill country of central Virginia.

Our first stop was in Petersburg.  You can hardly do a tour through Virginia without at least one civil war stop.  The Pamplin Park is located at the site of the "breakthrough", when the Union forces ended the seige at Petersburg.  This was a hugely significant battle which forced the evacuation of Richmond and the General Lee's surrender within a week- essentially ending the war.  We happened to show up on April 2, which was the anniversary of the breakthrough.

Next up, we traveled down to Clarksville, Virginia to camp at Occoneechee Park on Buggs Island Lake.

Spencer is demonstrating the stability of his camping hammock.

This was just the day after Easter, so we decided to try roasting some Peeps.  I almost didn't try it, because ordinarily, I think Peeps are disgusting.  However, the fire transformed this into something incredibly delicious. The sugar melts into a delicious caramelized coat and the inside is an amazing, warm, gooey mess.

The next morning we drove West until we arrived in Bristol, Virginia/Tennessee.  One of the fun things about this town is the main street, which is called State St, is also the state line.  So the city is half Tennessee and half Virginia. One of Bristol's biggest claims to fame is the birthplace of country music.  They have a whole museum dedicated to the first major recording of the genre.

The kids are on the Virginia Side.

Now Jen is on the Tennessee side.

Spencer and Laurel are making a recording of an old-timey tune.  We captured some audio of this event, but some things just shouldn't be shared online.

After the Museum we went out for Dinner at Cootie Browns, then to our hotel for a splash in the pool.

The next day we went on the best bike ride of our lives.
It rained all night.  It even rained hard as we drove up to the top of the trail, but five minutes before we arrived, the last rain blew out.  It was plenty muddy and plenty chilly, but we were so glad to have the rain stop.
This was the Virginia Creeper trail.  This is a Rails to Trails style trail.  But this one is particularly awesome because of a 17 mile segment from Whitetop to Damascus, which is almost entirely a gentle downhill grade through beautiful Blue Ridge scenery along the Whitetop Laurel Creek. I got a lot of pictures from the bike ride:

Ha Ha Ha  Good job kiddos!

After our bike ride we drove to Natural Bridge, Virginia to tour the Safari Park. We got caught in a bit of traffic and almost didn't make it, but 5 min before they closed the gate, we arrived.  I'd never have done that on purpose, but it worked out great.  It was almost like we had the whole place to ourselves.  We all had a blast driving up to the animals.  Laurel tried feeding an elk, who managed to pull the bucket out of her hands and get the whole thing to himself.

Grant's Zebra

We continued on to Charlottesville and took in a movie at Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.  This is not just any movie theater.  This is a Dinner-Theater experience.  And not just that, but we went to a "quote-along" interactive movie party.  Remember Labyrinth? (David Bowie meets Jim Henson) It was a great show.  Dad was singing along like he was an 80s rock star. The kids loved the movie and we had a lot a fun with the props.  Balloons, poppers, streamers and whoopee cushions! (For the Bog of Eternal Stench, of course)

It was such a fun day.  The kids couldn't decide what was the best part.

The next day we went to Montpelier, James Madison's home. We learned about the Madisons, a little about the Unites States Constitution and life on a plantation.

Our last stop was at Sweet Frogs.
When we moved to Virginia 6 or 7 years ago, I made a deal with the kids.  I wanted to help get the kids excited about General Conference, and I have been excited about the possibility of a Temple here in Richmond.  Anyway, I promised them if the prophet announced a new temple in Richmond, I would take them out for Sweet Frogs (premium frozen yogurt)- unlimited.
We were so excited and so grateful to hear the news of the new Richmond Temple during this historic General Conference.

So I made good on my promise:

12 years of Spencer...

Or you could just skip to the end.

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Hawaii

This year Scott had his North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society meeting in Kona, Hawaii.  He presented a poster titled Neuro-Ophthalmologic Manifestations of a Hemizygous Patient with Autosomal Recessive Spastic Ataxia of Charlevoix-Saguenay.  It was a good meeting, but I won't dwell on the details of that.

We arrived on the Big Island late on Saturday night, after a full day of travel.

On Sunday, we got up to go to church.  Their meeting was different from our meetings in just one regard.  Everyone who speaks at the pulpit first says, "Brother and Sisters, Aloha!" and everyone in the congregation responds with an Aloha.

We made it back to the conference and Scott caught the rest of the meeting and Jen had a big nap.

Monday was another big day of conference meetings.
We met up with the other former Iowa fellows for dinner.

On Tuesday we had some time to hit the beach and the lagoon for some snorkeling.

This was a mixed black and white sand beach.

We ate a picnic on the beach before wading in.

Snorkels!

Plenty of tropical fish to find in the lagoon.

One of the highlights of the whole trip was swimming with this guy!

We even had time to catch the sunset.

Just as the sun goes down, a runner comes by and lights all the Tiki Torches and when he reaches the end, blows a signal on a large conch.

On Wednesday we had some time in the afternoon to visit a Hawaiian sacred place, a place of refuge, Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau.

My Tiki face.

Hawaiian native game similar to checkers. Konane.  By the way, we learned that the Hawaiian alphabet only contains 13 letters, which really creates a certain recognizable sound.

 While we were at the place of refuge, we found a beautiful trail for a walk.

We came across this herd of goats while we were meandering.

While we were in the area, we made a trip to the LDS Kona, Hawaii temple, too.

On Thursday the conference came to a conclusion and we zipped out to the other side of the island for some lava action.

The lava field is somewhat remote.  We rented bikes to get as close as we could on this gravel road.  We chose these pedal assist E-bikes.  It was a blast cruising down the road on these things.

After we took the bikes as far as we could, we continued on on foot across the lava fields.  This was quite a hike, over uneven terrain.

After 90 minutes of hiking we made it to the active lava flow.  Very hot, glowing molten rock!

Coming back, it started to get dark and we realized we were hiking over molten lava down in the cracks.

No wonder it was so hot.

We came back in the dark.  These headlamps were invaluable.

On the way back there is just a faint, dim light way off in the distance to guide the way.  It sort of comes and goes depending on the lay of the land, but keep following those little glimmers that you get.  As you get closer the light gets stronger.

On Friday we toured Akaka falls and Botanical gardens and a vanilla bean farm

Before we went back to the airport, we made one more stop to look at petroglyphs.

It was amazing how many different climates there are on one relatively small island.

One last visit to the beach

Merry Christmas

Stephanie came to visit us on Christmas Eve.  We all went caroling together.  Nancy stole the show with her Grinch-esque reindeer antlers.

Sunday Morning, ready for church on Christmas Eve.

No, it isn't a white Christmas this year.  This was a few weeks ago, but looked so Christmasy, I wanted to share it now.

Check out this Christmas message that I really enjoyed.