Temple closed form April 5 through April 21

Here we are on the beach at Maceio, 

it is about 4 hours south of Recife.

 We were invited to go on a road trip during our two week break 

with another couple serving at the Recife Temple. 

Elder Anderson has a Brazilian drivers license 

and they had planned to drive around the Recife Temple district

visiting the towns where many of the Patrons come from.

Most cities on the beach have a big open air markets

 that cater to tourist

after a while it all starts looking alike

The beaches that we have seen in Brazil are beautiful 

and generally quite clean. 

Here in Maceio they have a lovely walk way that extends for miles. 

Sister Anderson and I walked for an hour or so along the beach 

planning to meet up with Layne and Vernon at the point. 

We got our points mixed up, however, 

and ended up waiting for an hour or so in the dark

at the end of the walkway under a street light until they found us 

Here is the car that we drove around in 

and the hotel where we spent our first night.

We drove through many little towns

stopping along the way to eat, take pictures, and stretch our legs

Even in the big cities you will see horse drawn carts

on busy streets filled with cars

I love taking pictures of clothes lines

There is a lot of cattle ranching in Brazil.

These white Brahma are typical. 

You often see little homes along the roads
with fruit,vegetables, or handmade items for sale.

A lot of people leave the country

 to try and make more money in the big cities.

These people often are the ones that live in the poor housing

 you see all over Brazil

We ended up driving back to Recife at the end of our second day out. We had heard that April was not the high tourist season so we did not make reservations ahead of time. We stopped in three towns along our route only to find that there was "no room in the inns"  By now it was 8:30, so we decided to just drive back to Recife

We still had lots of munchies in the car to keep Layne awake. We also kept him awake by answering open ended sentences like: If I were to write a book it would be about. . . , The thing I remember most about my childhood is . . . , Knowing what I know now . . . etc. (my friend Geri had sent me 100 of them) We kept the conversation going until we got into Recife at about 11:30 P.M. Everyone enjoyed learning more about each other and we vowed to make reservations for our trip North.