How Great Thou Art! - Our trip part two

O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,

Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;

I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,

Thy power throughout the universe displayed.
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Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,

How great Thou art, How great Thou art.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,

How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

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I love this beautiful hymn, How Great Thou Art, with lyrics by Carl Gustaf Boberg

and Stuart K. Hine.

As we traveled 2,349 miles through parts of California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho and Wyoming the melody and words of this hymn kept running through my mind.

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As I viewed the pictures posted by Marie at http://ayearatoakcottage.blogspot.com/ of the beautiful English countryside, and by Cinderelen at http://cinderelen.blogspot.com/ of the lovely scenery in Greece again this hymn played in my mind.

I am in awe of the beautiful world God created for us.

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When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,

And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur

And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,

How great Thou art, How great Thou art.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,

How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

The raging rapids of Wyoming's Snake river

The beautiful scenery in Wyoming and Idaho

The rolling pastures and farm lands in the valleys of the majestic Rocky Mountains of Utah

(This sign says "Welcome to Utah" in case you can't read it.)

The beautiful Virgin River Gorge in Arizona

And even though I prefer the sea shores or mountains, the sprawling deserts of Nevada and California

Testify to me of the greatness of our God and His wonderful creations.

I know that this beautiful world could not have come to be by chance or accident. I know that a loving God made this world for us and placed us on it. I am thankful for it and appreciate it in all it's diversification and splendor.

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We traveled the 2,349 miles through these states in the comfort of our little Toyota Prius going 70 to 80 miles an hour, with the air conditioning running, bottles of cold water in our cooler and our favorite CDs playing on the stereo. Stopping for food or convenience whenever we wanted to. Enjoying the view and the ride as we sped from place to place.

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As we traveled we saw historic landmarks all along the way. I thought of the thousands of pioneers that traveled on foot, a few miles a day, in the blazing heat and freezing cold, in covered wagons and pulling hand carts often with little food or water. ( This is a picture of my daughter Erin as she and Patrick went on a handcart trek this last June.)

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We celebrated Pioneer Day on the 24th of July in Utah. I am thankful to those pioneers that did so much and set such a good example of faith and courage for us to follow. When I start to grumble or think my lot is hard, I hope I will stop and remember the sacrifices made by our forefathers.( and "foremothers") I hope I will realize how easy and comfortable my life is and how blessed I am to live in this amazing day. When the pioneers left family and friends it was usually forever. Now my family and friends that live in other states are only a plane ride, car trip or blog click away. What a blessing!

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I feel grateful and blessed that we have had the health, strength and means to make this trip, see these beautiful sights and enjoy being with our dear family. I will share a little more about our trip in a future post.

I send my love to all of you. I hope that you too are enjoying our beautiful world where ever it is that you live. Until next time may God be with you. (((Hugs))) Grammy Lura

I went to Heaven .. No .. It was Wyoming

Dear Blog Friends,
John and I are in Utah visiting family. We just got back from camping in beautiful Wyoming. We love it there. The scenery is breathtaking. I don't think that heaven will be much prettier than Wyoming.

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Here is a photo journal of our trip.

Every year John's family meets near Jacksonhole for a family reunion.

We camp on the Snake River about 20 miles from Jacksonhole.
Our favorite thing to do is run the rapids. We usually use John's nephew's rafts but this year we bought one from him. Here you see the "Black and Grey Pearl" on her maiden voyage. I never go more than one run a day but the younger members of our group make 3 runs a day. I don't know how they have the strength to do it. Rowing in rough waters for miles is very tiring . I don't ever row anymore like I used to. Now I sit in the middle with the young kids and hold on to the rope for dear life!
It gets pretty intense but it is really exciting. The water is icy cold, but I get so scared that I'm numb anyway so it hardly matters. I'd like to get a wet suit like my kids but I doubt if they make one big enough for me. Besides the thought of me in a wet suit is not a pretty picture. So even though I get cold it really is fun.
We told the kids that we were too old to go this year, but Erin and Patrick kept calling and insisting that we come.... so we did.... and we had a great time. This picture was taken at the end of our two hour run. I was so excited to still be in the boat and alive. On one of the commercial rafts all 16 people got washed overboard.... they were all o.k. but that is scary...huh!!!

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On our first run it was cold, windy and rainy all the way down the river. I was freezing by the time our truck picked us up. The rest of the runs were much nicer weather.





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Grampy and I were happy that we old timers survived.


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Cousins had so much fun together.

We set up a great camp. All together our group took up 7 camp sites.

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The scenery was beautiful. The food was great. (Everything tastes better cooked outside.)

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It did rain everyday. We found out there was a hole in our 5th wheel when we got rained on the first night. Grampy fixed it the next day.
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Austin was too small to raft with us but he had fun exploring.
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He found pretty flowers to take his mommy.

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I had so much fun with my girls. (Lynell is not in this picture because she was the photographer.) I missed our son, David. He was not able to get away from work at this time and bring his family.
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At night we all got together and sang around the campfire. There was over 50 of us.

..This was my favorite time of the day.











One night we get cleaned up the best we can and go into Jacksonhole to eat and attend the great show at the Bar J Chuckwagon Ranch. Lynell and Dathan are two of the 21 of us that went to Bar J.

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Lynell and Patrick were our best

photographers. Lynell got the great shots of the raft in the rapids.

Before we knew it, it was time to leave. We had sooo much fun. Thanks Erin and Patrick for insisting that we come this year.

Goodbye wonderful Wyoming

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I always think it is fun driving down State line Road with Idaho on one side and Wyoming on the other.
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Idaho has beautiful scenery also. I love the drive from Wyoming through Idaho to Utah....

It was 9:30 p.m. by the time we reached the Utah border but as you can see it was not quite dark yet.

On the way back we stopped and spent the night with our dear friends, the Doneys, who moved from CA to Utah. We surely miss them but we can see why they love living in rural Utah.

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We had a nice visit with them. Dee made us a fabulous breakfast.

Dee and Fran have a wonderful view from their back porch.

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We said goodbye to Dee and Fran and came on to Lynell and Dathan's lovely new home. (They have only been in it 3 weeks and Lynell has already made it really pretty and homey.) Mindy and Ernie are still here so we are having fun together. I'll make the rest of our trip the subject of another post.

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If I can get back on the computer tomorrow I will get caught up on making comments to all of you. I read several of your posts today but didn't have enough time to make many comments. If I can't find time tomorrow I will soon.... I promise... I surely appreciate all of you that commented on my last post for Erin and wished her happy birthday. I hope that you all have a great day.