Our Dear Hartwell's

Last weekend our wonderful friends the Hartwell's came to Ridgecrest to visit us! They were going to the St George marathon, and decided to come see this funny town we live in. We were SO excited to have them come. We have been in the same ward together for the last 3 years, and we even lived in DC during the same time last summer. Needless to say, we love them. They are just downright fabulous people and WE couldn't have asked for a better weekend (although I don't know what they have to say...)

They arrived with these beauties:

Not only is it enough to brighten my day with familiar faces on the doorstep, but fresh flowers also do the trick.

Sunday, after enjoying General Conference together, we ventured to Trona. We've had several people tell us, "You just need to go to Trona once. It's somethin' else." Trona is a VERY small town (if you can even call it that) about 25 miles away.

So, we ventured out, and this is what we found:

Yep, a whole lot of this.

Salt flats? Maybe. It's definitely not snow. There is some sort of factory in Trona, which is why anyone would ever live there. Maybe they produce this white stuff, whatever it is. All houses and stores looked completely abandoned, so it's not like we could ask anyone. Planet of the Apes was filmed in Trona.

Here's Trona. Save yourself a drive out.
The only thing I got from this place was I felt really good about living in Ridgecrest, "the city", after going to Trona.

I suppose this is something Trona has to offer the world:
One week later, I'm still trying to decide if it was worth the drive.

The pinnacles are these giant, random rock formations in the middle of nowhere. I think it sounds cooler than it really is.

They don't exactly get any cooler the closer you get:
Any signs you see, or probably even these here pictures, do the pinnacles justice.

I don't plan on EVER going to the Pinnacles again. Sorry to burst your bubble if you've googled things to do in Ridgecrest, saw The Trona Pinnacles, and were planning on coming to visit.

Been there, done that:

Thank goodness for good company. If nothing else, what a drive for a Sunday afternoon. Chris and Deidra got to see how REALLY in the middle of no where we are.

The weather was SO lovely, we did a bit of this on the back patio, enjoying the sounds of the waterfall behind us:

Relaxing in Ridgecrest (catchy, huh?). Not only are the Hartwell's easy to please, I think it helped we were at a gorgeous 75 this day, and Logan UT was approximately 40 and raining.

We definitely saw a lot of these, at the musuem on Base. This one was my favorite, because it's something I'd actually heard of, and it was ginormous:

Still not really sure if I was allowed to take pictures in this museum...shh.

We experienced this treasure:

We'd heard some pretty good stories about this place, and just had to see it for ourselves. Not only is it a drive thru dairy, which I find kind of strange, there are no prices on the menu, and they expect you to know exactly what you want as soon as you pull up to their hard to read menu. And don't even think about asking them questions about what they serve; you can feel

the darts from their eyes shooting through the speaker box.

The absolute best part of the evening was when Chris read this sign just inside their window:

"Service is 99% attitude, please be courteous to our customers. Service with a smile. :)"

We were dying! We were definitely served some attitude, but I'm pretty sure we were the only ones smiling at this joint. We all did enjoy our ice cream treats, still not sure what the price is on any of them, and we didn't dare ask what else they serve besides the 4 things we got. But it was a highlight of the weekend, none-the-less!

There was DEFINITELY a lot of this:

Mucho thanks to the Hall fam for letting us borrow extra Wii controllers for a night. One of my favorite Rock Band moments was having Deidra sing The Beastie Boys "No Sleep Till Brooklyn". Not exactly her style of music. ;) Another classic was hearing Nate sing way too high on a song none of us had ever heard. Deidra and I had tears streaming down our faces, couldn't see our notes on the tv, and my big belly was shaking like Santa Claus, making us laugh even harder. What a work out.

I miss my Hartwell's.

I loved "touring" Ridgecrest with them, staying up late, playing ridiculous games, laughing, laughing and more laughing. I loved having people in the house, and especially cause it was these folks. You know they've got to be good people, when they came all the way to Ridgecrest for no other reason than just to see and spend time with us! Deidra kept saying it's not like we've really moved, we're just gone for the summer or something, even though it's fall. :) I think we are all still in a bit of denial. We enjoy these two so much, and have spent many a late evening simply talking, and that's my very favorite thing about them. Thanks Hartwell's, for being you. Number one on our list of people we love lately!