Shakespearean Festival


It takes a lot to really push me to my limits when it comes to being adventurous. I feel like I don't get scared very easily and I love to take on a challenge. Our road trip to Cedar City definitely pushed me though, which is why it was one of the funnest things Mark and I have done together I think! I bought Mark tickets to the Shakespearean Festival for his birthday. Since we wouldn't have Beckett with us, we thought it would be fun to take the bike. 

On the drive up the canyon to drop Beckett off to sleep over at my parents for the first time, I had a bit of a panic attack. I've never had a panic attack so I didn't know what was going on. According to Google, chest pains and light headedness mean that the thought of leaving your teething baby with a 101 fever over night for the first time to hop on a motorcycle for 4 hours going 80 MPH might be causing you to have a small heart attack. Nevertheless, I took a little rest until I didn't feel like I was going to pass out anymore, loaded my breast pump on the bike, and kissed my boy goodbye. 

A road trip on a motorcycle requires very light packing. The pump took up an entire saddle bag, which meant Mark and I had to fit all of our stuff into the other. Which meant not taking good jackets. Which was fine, because it's the middle of July, right? I packed a tooth brush, tube of mascara, one change of clothes, and a hat to hide my frightening hair. We picked our gas stations and restaurants according to which ones had outlets in the bathrooms. Pumping in a gas station bathroom is a rather disgusting thing to do, but the good part was I had nowhere to store the milk. I was pumping and dumping which meant I could eat all the dairy I wanted and Beckett wouldn't be affected. ICE CREAM! 

The further south we went, the darker the sky got. I felt like we were headed for the middle of a tornado. My head told me we should be turning around and running from those black clouds as fast as we could, but we just kept driving into them. And then...... a downpour. This was not your typical July rainstorm flittering by. This was hail and rain, and it hurt! We pushed through it as long as we could, but there came a point that we had no choice but to stop. We just stopped on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. We're obviously amateurs at this because we didn't even bring a tarp. There was nothing to hide under and nowhere to go so we just laughed and enjoyed the break from the heat. 

Once the hail stopped, we got back on and drove through the rain until we came to a truck stop in Beaver. As we hunched down and I clutched on to Mark as tight as I could, I knew we looked like Dumb and Dumber riding their Moped through the snow. We didn't have a dry spot on us. We ate some dinner and waited for the storm to pass. There was going to be more rain ahead and I had my super thin jacket to give me a tiny bit of protection from the rock hard rain drops, but Mark had nothing. His only option was to purchase a sweatshirt from the gas station that said "I heart Beaver". AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! 

We made it to Cedar City. The weather was beautiful and we were able to enjoy an awesome night in the outdoor theater watching Measure for Measure. The next day we went on the backstage tour and saw Into the Woods. The weather was great the entire time. As soon as the play was over and it was time to head home, in came the clouds. 

We pushed through the rain as much as we could, but when the lighting was striking the ground just miles from us, we had to stop at a rest stop. We stood outside under the small roof that covered the bathrooms for an hour. We laughed and chatted, but then I started to shiver. I went in the warm bathroom and dried my socks and shoes in the hand dryer. Yep, I stood in a rest stop bathroom in my bare feet and I survived to tell about it. I met this kind girl from Japan who could hardly speak a word of english. When she found out we were on the "motor bike" she left and came back into the bathroom to bring me some apples. She was so kind toward the crazy american drying her socks in the hand dryer. 

We made it a few more miles to Cove Fort where we spent the next two hours sitting at a gas station Subway. Again, I dried my socks and shoes under the hand dryer. We watched the weather radar on our phones and enjoyed a sandwich. I started to stress because although I had packed extra milk for Beckett, he wasn't eating solids because of his teething, and went through the milk faster than I anticipated. He was in bed for the night, but out of milk. I knew he would be waking up around midnight or one to eat and we had to get home. It was 10:30 before we left the Subway. They didn't have any warm clothes for sale, but some gloves that were basically gardening gloves. Mark put on his Beaver shirt, I put on my gardening gloves, and we were back on the road. 

My parents had already happily watched Beckett even though he was rather grumpy, and now they were offering to come and pick us up. We were finally out of the storm, but Beckett was going to wake up hungry and I was stressing. We made it to Nephi where we met my tired and awesome parents at 1:00 am. Mark stayed in the all time nastiest motel I have ever seen, and I fed Beckett and drove back to my parent's house with them. 

It was scary, exciting, cold, challenging, hard leaving Beckett, fun to get away, and a great adventure. The part where Beckett ran out of milk and my parents had to rescue us wasn't fun, but other than that, it was one of my favorite trips I've ever been on. 







It appears that Mark and I were Skyping with this man's head and the theater, but I promise you, we were really there. We were messing around with a camera setting on Mark's phone that takes a picture from the front and back of the phone at the same time. This is all we got before we were told taking pictures of the stage wasn't allowed. 

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