Across four time zones

I read something in a supplement to this morning's paper that caught my attention. "Apparently," it said, "one of the inescapable rules of life is that children won't stay put" (Roger Aylworth, in Mormon Times, Oct. 3, 2009, 8). It's true when they're little. And it's true when they're grown up and start moving all about the country.

Our family is now spread across all four time zones of the lower 48 states. A daughter and her family live in Georgia (in the eastern time zone), where our son-in-law is in his second year of pharmacy school. Another daughter and her family live in southern Illinois (in the central time zone), where our son-in-law has become the head of the emergency room in the hospital of his boyhood home town. Five of our children, together with their families, still live near us in Utah (mountain time zone), where they keep busy with the routines of daily living. And a daughter and her family live in Washington (Pacific time zone), where they own and operate a Great Harvest bakery.

No one lives in Alaska or Hawaii yet, although our oldest daughter and her family are leaving in a couple weeks to go visit Hawaii. They have gone there every fall for the past several years to attend a conference on the island of Maui. This past weekend, when I mentioned my plan to go with them next year, they advised me that this year was their last time to go off to that tropical paradise. Bummer. And I've never been to Hawaii. Others of my children have. And some of my grandchildren.

Hawaii is one of four remaining states I have yet to visit, along with Alaska, Wisconsin, and Maine. So, with those four states still to visit—along with children living in Georgia, Illinois, and Washington—there are still some good road trips out there beckoning to me.