Prelude
Clouds moved in yesterday afternoon, and it rained some along the Wasatch Front, and humidity increased. The weatherman on TV talked about how humid it was and would continue to be during the coming days. Claudia and I had just returned from Houston, and this was not humid. Not even in the same ball park. Houston is humid.
Humidity in Salt Lake has never caused my glasses to fog up when I leave an air-conditioned building. That happened to me half a dozen times during the five days we were in Houston.
In fact, when we first mentioned to people that we were going to Houston, their incredulous response was always, “Houston in July? Why would you want to do that?” One person even told me that we should be able to find inexpensive lodging since no one goes to Houston in the summer.
We were able to find lodging in the MainStay Suites on Old Spanish Trail, near the hospital district, and not far from the Reliant Center (what used to be known as the Astrodome) that housed all six of us and fed us breakfast every morning and provided a place to exercise and park our two cars and was reasonably air-conditioned—all for $115 a day. Whether that was inexpensive I cannot say, but it seemed reasonable to me for housing six people (that works out to only $19.17 a day per person), especially when precious few places even allowed six people to stay together in the same room.
As to why we would go to Houston in July, that was easy enough. Eliza asked us to come play with her and two of our grandchildren (Peter, who will be four in October, and Aaron, who will be two in December) while Paul was off at class all day. He was here for a week doing a compounding seminar.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Utah, Colorado, Texas
About the time Michael was driving Claudia and me to the airport to catch our flight to Houston, Paul and Eliza were arriving in Houston by car from Atlanta. They had made the same trip in May and knew they had about a 13-hour drive in front of them. This time they left after Paul finished work on Monday and drove about five hours and stayed overnight in Mobile, Alabama, and then spent eight hours driving the rest of the way to Houston. Peter was disappointed that we were not already there.
Our plane was 15 minutes late leaving Salt Lake, and we were concerned that we had only 30 minutes in Denver before our next flight was scheduled to leave. Fortunately, the pilot flew fast enough to make up the 15 minutes we were late. There had been severe thunderstorms across Colorado, so everything was backed up in Denver. The plane we were concerned about getting on hadn’t even arrived at the gate yet to disgorge its passengers from wherever they were coming from. We waited and waited. Finally, the plane came, and we waited while the passengers filed off. We boarded the plane, and we waited inside the plane. The pilot announced that continuing thunderstorms prevented our being cleared to take off. We waited some more. We left Denver an hour late.
The first half of the flight from Denver to Houston was about as turbulent as any I’ve ever experienced. Claudia slept through most of it. She was bundled up in her sweater, which should have been a clue to me that she was not well. Even after arriving in Houston, she left her sweater on. That confirmed it. She later explained that whatever was ailing her had turned on all of a sudden while we were sitting in the Salt Lake airport waiting to begin our trip. Even though our plane arrived after midnight, it was still hot and muggy, and she was freezing.
We had arranged a rental car and were concerned the Alamo rental site would be closed before the shuttle got us there. It closed at 1:00 a.m., and we got there about 15 minutes before that. We picked up our car, an economy model, and also decided to pay extra to rent a GPS unit for the week. That was a good decision. It proved invaluable.
We found our hotel without much difficulty and tried to enter the room quietly so as not to wake everyone up. Eliza did greet us and asked if I wanted my birthday surprise right then. The previous day had been my 61st birthday. I said we could wait until morning when everyone else would be up, but she couldn’t wait. She then announced that she was pregnant. She and Paul are expecting their third child on January 7. That was a wonderful birthday surprise.
Wednesday, July 21
Texas
While the boys were still sleeping, Eliza drove Paul his class. Aaron, who by now was in the middle of the queen bed Paul and Eliza had slept in, woke up first and appeared completely bewildered. Here he was in a strange place with strange people in the bed next to him and no parents anywhere in site. He could see Peter sleeping over on the couch across the room. He kept stealing glances my way. He never did fuss or panic but looked, well, bewildered. Peter, on the other hand, was ecstatic when he woke up. He was so happy to have Grandma and Grandpa here finally.
Our room was on the fourth floor of the building and had a little balcony that looked out toward downtown. Planes approaching Hobby airport were easy to watch from the balcony. They had been watching the planes the night before, and Peter kept asking whenever there was a Southwest plane if Grandma and Grandpa were on it.
After Eliza returned from taking Paul, we all went down to breakfast. They offered a nice spread with lots of choices. We learned that Peter has become a picky eater, but Aaron will pretty much devour anything he can fit into his mouth. We were amused that the waffle maker produced waffles in the shape of Texas.
With Claudia not feeling well, we had a low-key day. She rested much of the day. Eliza and I took the boys and went shopping first at Sam's Club and then at Kroger for food for the week. Our room had a stove top (but no oven), microwave, refrigerator, small sink, and very limited counter space, so we could deal with simple meals. Both the Sam's Club and Kroger were conveniently nearby.
In the late afternoon Eliza, Peter, Aaron, and I went to pick Paul up from his class. We then went to Chuck-E-Cheese to eat and play. We were there several hours. As we walked out to the parking lot, I had the first of several instances of my glasses fogging up. (Actually the second; the first occurred when we stepped out of the airport when we first arrived in Houston at something after midnight.)
We drove back to the Alamo car rental place near the Hobby airport to sign Paul up as an additional driver on the rental car so he could take the smaller car to his class each day and leave us with their larger vehicle (which holds five of the six of us here).
Wednesday evening I finally made phone contact with Rich and Amy Hogan. We are planning to attend church with them on Sunday, and Amy invited us to Sunday dinner afterward. While talking with Amy, she told us about the outdoor theater at a place called Miller Outdoor Theater, which I then looked up online.
A word about being online. Just before we all arrived, severe electrical storms had knocked out the hotel's telephone system, fried some of the DVD players, and completely interrupted wireless Internet service. People came into our unit at least twice checking on our phones (as if we would ever use them, since we all have cell phones). Our DVD player happened to work but only in black-and-white. No color. Our Internet service was spotty and easily interrupted.
Thursday, July 22
Texas
Claudia continues to feel sick. In the afternoon I took her to an emergency room at the Woman's Hospital of Texas to make sure she did not have a strep infection, such as was running through Michael and Shauna's family the previous week. She had a headache, sore throat, sore ears, and such. The doctor determined there was no strep but did prescribe an antibiotic just to be sure. Eliza and I went and filled the prescription at the Kroger's pharmacy.
Friday, July 23
Texas
Based on Amy Hogan's tip, this morning Eliza and I took Peter and Aaron to the Miller Outdoor Theater in Hermann Park to see a stage performance of "Jack and the Beanstalk." It was a bit of a musical, and the characters engaged the audience at various points. The theater was near the entrance to the Houston Zoo. After the little play I paid for the $3-per-person tickets for us to take a train ride around the park. We judged it was about four or five times longer than the little train ride around Salt Lake's Hogle Zoo.
Claudia had stayed in the hotel to rest. It occurred to me that she is actually getting far better, more extensive rest here than she would have back at home. Plus, there was the added benefit for her of not experiencing the oppressive humidity and heat outside.
Paul, Eliza, Peter, Aaron, and I enjoyed an evening at the ballpark watching the Cincinnati Reds beat the Houston Astros. There were fireworks after, so it was kind of like being in Utah to celebrate Pioneer Day. They were more impressive than what we would have seen this evening at Mueller Park Junior High had we been in Bountiful for Handcart Days.
Peter and Aaron are veteran game attenders, having attended several home games of the Atlanta Braves. Now they've been to one in Houston. And they did great. It's darling hearing them sing "Take me out to the ballgame . . ."
In Texas, after singing "Take me out to the ballgame" at the seventh-inning stretch, they also sing "Deep in the heart of Texas," the one that goes:
The stars at night are big and bright
Deep in the heart of Texas.
The prairie sky is wide and high
Deep in the heart of Texas.
And they sing all the verses. You have to love it.
The waffle maker in the hotel's breakfast room also makes Texas-shaped waffles, just as Eliza reported after their visit to Houston in May.
That reminds me of what a wife of a new mission president told me last month at the mission presidents' seminar. They were from Texas. She said something to the effect, "You don't really need to ask people where they are from. If they're from Texas, they'll tell you soon enough. And if they're not, you don't want to embarrass them."
Saturday, July 24
Texas
Paul and Eliza went to the temple this morning while we watched Peter and Aaron. Claudia and I get to the temple several times a month in Bountiful. The Atlanta Georgia Temple closed for major renovation shortly after Paul and Eliza moved there, so they get to a temple rarely.
Late in the afternoon we drove to the Downtown Aquarium and spent the evening seeing the fish and sharks and white Bengal tigers and such stuff. We rode the merry-go-round, Ferris wheel, and little train that went around the property. A nice evening. Claudia was feeling better and went with us. It was her first outing here, except for the trip to the hospital the other afternoon.
We watched a DVD movie back in our room after the boys went to sleep. Invictus was the story of Nelson Mandella's election as president of South Africa and his support of the nation's rugby team as it helped draw the country together by winning the 1995 rugby world cup.
Sunday, July 25
Texas
This morning we drove north to Spring, which is where the Houston Texas Temple is located, to attend church with our dear friends, Rich and Amy Hogan. Five of their six children are now married, and they have three grandchildren. Seventeen-year-old Cami still lives at home. We calculated we last visited in their home 15 years ago, in the spring of 1995, when we were driving across the southern tier of states on our way to see Rachael graduate from Peace College in Raleigh, North Carolina. Eliza was 12 years old at the time.
Church meetings were good. Laurie Harper Cole, the married daughter of Bruce and Jean Harper, also lives in the same ward. She and her family came in just as the meeting was starting and sat in the row just in front of us. Laurie really did a double take when she glanced back and saw us sitting there. We had a chance to visit briefly after sacrament meeting.
After church we drove by the temple and then to the Hogans' home for a delicious Sunday dinner that Amy prepared. We then visited for several hours and left around 8:00 p.m. to drive back to our hotel. It was a wonderful sabbath day. And Claudia was feeling much better today.
A dramatic thunderstorm moved through the area after we were back in our room.
Monday, July 26
Texas, New Mexico, Utah
We awoke early, after a fitful night wondering if we would hear the alarm and get up soon enough to get back to the airport. We got up about 6:30 (5:30 by the time we are used to), packed, said good-bye to Paul, and went downstairs to eat a final breakfast with Eliza, Peter, and Aaron. Peter particularly was sad that we had to be leaving. By now it was nearly 8:00, so we said our last good-byes, stopped to fill our rental car with gas, and then turned it in. A shuttle took us over to the airport. We stood in a long line to get through the security checkpoint, and then waited at our gate, where we boarded our plane.
I talked on the phone with Eliza, and she said she had asked the boys what was their favorite part of the whole week in Houston. They answered, "Grandma and Grandpa."
The flight left on time at 9:35 a.m. We flew to Albuquerque but stayed on the same plane while some passengers got off and new ones came on before we headed on home to Salt Lake City. We touched down in Salt Lake about 15 minutes early. Shauna, Andrew, Ethan, Marta, and Hyrum came to pick us up and drove us home to Bountiful.
It had been a good week. I talked on the phone with Eliza again to let her know we had made it safely home. She said they boys had been playing on the bed where we had slept, and Peter sweetly said, "It smells like Grandpa."
Paul's final day of his compounding class was Tuesday, after which they were hitting the road and heading on home to Atlanta.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Along the back roads of America
Journal excerpts from ten years ago recounting a 2,869-mile trip through six states, starting with a couple days at our condo in Lava Hot Springs and helping Rachael move to Kansas City to live with her friend Kathryn Kieffer
Friday, July 21, 2000
Utah, Idaho
Our adventure began about 5:00 this afternoon—just two hours after our original target—as our three cars pulled onto northbound I–15 at Layton: Rachael and Camilla in Rachael's blue Geo Prism, Eliza and I in our green Saturn, and Michael, Meghan, and Caleb in their tan Honda Accord. Traffic thinned out somewhere north of Ogden, probably near Willard Bay, which is about where the battery failed on one of our new walkie-talkies (we hadn't been sure it was fully charged), which we were using between our car and Rachael's.
After we crossed into Idaho and Eliza had to endure my awful rendition of "Here We Have Idaho," we called Mom on the cell phone to report we were in a new state. She and Mary were staying home in Bountiful because of Mary's dizzy spells. Shauna and Jacob were in Layton. Cade, Rebecca, and Mimi starting today were spending a week at a condo near Eden. Talmage and Carisa were at Lake Powell. And Anna is in Ephraim working at Snow College for the summer.
By 7:00 we reached Lava Hot Springs, a little resort town ten or eleven miles east of I–15 on US 30. With two or three exceptions, we have come here every July since 1980 to stay in our condo at Hot Springs Village. This year we are only staying a couple days.
About 7:20 all of us but Rachael went swimming in the big pool. It was not crowded, and Meghan and Caleb especially enjoyed going down the slide, mostly on Eliza's lap, occasionally on Camilla's, never by themselves. Meanwhile, Rachael had gone to Shawn's Market to buy food for supper and had macaroni and cheese, rolls, and a berry drink ready for us when we returned from swimming.
Michael and I, still in our wet swimsuits, went quickly to the store to get hotdogs and sherbet to add to Rachael's supper and also fixings for breakfast.
I slept alone in the big bed on the east end of our unit. Michael, Meghan, and Caleb, who started out in the bunk beds, ended up sleeping on the floor at the foot of my bed. Rachael and Camilla each slept on one of the hide-a-beds in the west end. Eliza slept on the bottom bunk.
Saturday, July 22, 2000
Idaho
This morning Eliza and I took Meghan and Caleb for a walk along the Portneuf River that runs through town and back along Lava's Main Street. By the end we were carrying them on our shoulders.
Knowing there was a Pioneer Day parade sometime this weekend, we tried to find out when. A kid in one of the shops on Main Street thought it was today at 4:00, 5:00, or 6:00. The lady in the grocery store thought it was tomorrow at 5:00. And Gerri in the condo office thought it was either at 10:00 this morning or 6:00 this evening, having been told those alternative times, she said, by someone who was actually going to be in the parade. It turned out to be at 6:00 this evening.
Back at the condo, after our walk, Eliza and I fixed waffles, scrambled eggs, and orange juice for breakfast. Camilla cleaned up afterward.We had a pretty lazy day, which is what Lava for us is all about. We spent time reading, playing pool and other games at the club house, playing on the swings and other outdoor toys with Meghan and Caleb, watching TV, and such. Caleb likes the trains that rumble by several times a day, just like his daddy did 20 years ago.
This afternoon we went to the ice cream parlor on Main Street, Smitty's Sweet Shop. Caleb, who had the smallest cone possible, was a dripping mess by the time he had eaten all he wanted of his. Sitting in the air-conditioned shop, eating our ice cream, was a welcome break from the oppressive heat outside. It was a hot one (97 degrees we heard on the news tonight, 103 degrees down in Salt Lake, where poor Mom was tending house with a broken air conditioner that won't get fixed until next Wednesday at soonest).
Michael, Meghan, and Caleb left for home at 3:15, as soon as we had finished at the ice cream store. Shauna had called earlier to see how everyone was doing and to mention her dad had driven up this morning in a minivan and took away their old red car. Wow!
The four of us remaining—Rachael, Camilla, Eliza, and I—played pool, fixed shredded potatoes and hot dogs for supper, went to the little parade (actually just Eliza and I went to the 10-minute parade), and drove out to historic Chesterfield, now a ghost town with some of its buildings well preserved. It was founded in 1880 by settlers from Davis County who were finding Utah getting too crowded. We walked through the cemetery, which is well kept, and looked at headstones. Many of the same surnames seen in the Bountiful cemetery were here: Call, Hatch, Holbrook, Sessions, Muir. The earliest birth date we could find was 1822. The earliest death date 1888. The most recent burial 1998.
Back in Lava, we stopped at Shawn's Market to buy ice and provisions for our travels tomorrow.
Several times during the day we talked with Mom on our cell phone. This way she gets to share in the journey without having to ride in the car or endure the summer heat (except she is doing that at home anyway with a broken air conditioner). She doesn't do heat well.
Sunday, July 23, 2000
Idaho, Wyoming
We awoke, ate breakfast, got ready for church, and at 10:00 attended sacrament meeting in the Lava Hot Springs Ward. We returned to our condo, packed and cleaned up, ate lunch, and at 1:15 headed east on US 30 toward Soda Springs.
We decided we wanted to see Star Valley, which we'd never been to before, so we headed north out of Soda Springs on state highway 34, a scenic drive that took us north and east into Wyoming near Freedom. We headed south on US 89 through Thayne, Grover, Afton, and Smoot. We reached an elevation of 7,630 feet crossing the Salt River Pass before slipping back into Idaho briefly and then back into Wyoming for the rest of the day.
At Border, Wyoming, we rejoined US 30 and followed it south to Cokeville, east to Kemmerer (the home of J.C. Penney), and southeast to I–80, which we then traveled along past Little America, Green River, and Rock Springs to Rawlins, where we spent the might at the Sleep Inn. The air conditioning had been knocked out by a lightening storm a couple days earlier, so we were given an additional discount off our room. We ate sandwiches, Jell-o, pop, and cookies in our room. Eliza and I went for a walk at sunset.
We arrived in Rawlins about 7:30, a little over six hours after leaving Lava. Camilla and Rachael drove in one car, Eliza and I in the other. We used our walkie-talkies to communicate with each other. Eliza read me chapters from Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine as we traveled. Anna called us from Michael and Shauna's house just as we were approaching the tunnel by Green River. We talked to Mom a couple of times. She informed us that Uncle Irv, my dad's twin brother, had died Friday. He was 85.
Monday, July 24, 2000
Wyoming, Nebraska
Pioneer Day, which we spent at Martin's Cove, Devils Gate, Independence Rock, and Scotts Bluff—all important landmarks along the Oregon, California, and Mormon pioneer trails.
We ate breakfast at the Sleep Inn, filled the cars with expensive gas ($1.65 a gallon), and headed north out of Rawlins on US 287. Not far out of town we waited for about 20 minutes because of road construction. At Lamont we stopped to take pictures of the sign saying "Lamont, Population 3."
Camilla, Eliza, and I had been to Martin's Cove with Mom and Mary three years ago, during the pioneer sesquicentennial. This was Rachael’s first visit. We went through the visitor center, watched a brief film about the experiences of a boy in the Martin Handcart Company of 1856, pulled a handcart out to the Veil Crossing, walked over to Devils Gate, and returned the handcart (with my riding while the three girls pulled me) back to the parking lot.
Next we drove 10 miles or so further east to Independence Rock. Rachael and Camilla waited at the rest stop at the bottom while Eliza and I climbed to the top. (Eliza had been on top of Ensign Peak on Independence Day and now Independence Rock on Pioneer Day.) From the top we called Mom at home and used our walkie-talkies to communicate with Rachael and Camilla at the bottom.
We then continued on to Casper, the second largest city in Wyoming, where we stopped to eat at a Pizza Hut and where Rachael made comments in front of our waitress about how ugly Wyoming was. We then headed south on I–25 until US 26 took off east toward Nebraska. We arrived in Scottsbluff a little before 6:00 and checked into our room at the Comfort Inn.
This evening we drove out to Scotts Bluff National Monument, where Donna Davey, one of the park rangers, was very kind in helping us. She let us drive the mile and a half to the top, although it was nearly time to close the road for the evening, and was most helpful when we returned back to the visitor center. She even gave us helpful hints on where to eat and how best to drive back to our motel.
On the way back, as we were driving through Gering, we stopped to eat at a Runza restaurant, famous throughout Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and Colorado for its Runza sandwich, which has German–Russian roots stretching back to the 18th century. The unique blend of fresh ground beef, cabbage, onions, and special spices baked inside home-made bread has been passed down for generations and debuted commercially in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1949, the year I was born. Rachael had a Swiss and mushroom Runza sandwich, I had a tossed salad, and Camilla and Eliza had cheese and broccoli soup and milkshakes.
Hyde Frederickson called tonight to report that Jack White in our ward died this evening. He had lain down for a nap and was gone by two hours later when Helen went in to wake him up for dinner. [I was serving as bishop at the time and felt bad I was not there to assist Helen and her family and even contemplated ways I could abort the trip and get back to Utah. I also wanted to be home for my Uncle Irv's funeral, but in the end I missed both funerals.]
Tuesday, July 25, 2000
Nebraska
This morning, after getting ready for the day and eating our standard continental breakfast, we were on our way again. Just east of Scottsbluff we stopped alongside the Burlington Northern tracks to see the grave site of Rebecca Winters, a pioneer woman who died at age 50 from cholera as she was traveling with her family along the Mormon Pioneer Trail. I believe she is an ancestor of my uncle, Dean Winters.
We continued a few miles more until reaching Chimney Rock, probably the most famous landmark along the pioneer trails. We had our National Park passport, which we had purchased the night before, stamped and saw a film in the visitor center and bought postcards.
We then turned north on US 385 toward Alliance, where we went to Carhenge a few miles north of town. Thirteen years ago the people who owned the farm decided at a family reunion to build an exact replica (as to size, dimensions, and orientation) of England's famous Stonehenge but out of cars instead of stones. Interesting.
We took pictures, returned to Alliance, ate lunch at McDonald's, and headed east along Nebraska highway 2 through the beautiful and isolated Sand Hills country. We passed successively through or by little towns represented by dots on the map: Antioch, Lakeside, Ellsworth, Bingham, Ashby, Hyannis, Whitman, Mullen, Seneca, Thedford, Halsey, Dunning, Anselmo, Merna—many of them so small they didn't even have the water towers or grain elevators common to Midwestern towns.
Mullen, one of the larger towns with 500-some people, located near the Middle Loup River at the intersection of highways 2 and 97, is the only town in all of Hooker County. Another 200 people live scattered on farms throughout the rest of the county. Just east of Mullen, at the county line, we crossed from the mountain into the central time zone.
At Broken Bow we stopped for gas and a snack. Less than 20 miles further, at Ansley, we turned off highway 2 onto 92, with a clear shot east (through half a dozen more counties) to Omaha. This portion of the trip was through lovely rolling farm country rather than the rolling grasslands of the Sand Hills region. Loup City, Ashton, Farewell, St. Paul, Osceola, Shelby, Rising City, Wahoo were the towns we passed. A gorgeous sunset was at our backs at Wahoo.
It was dark by the time we reached our Comfort Inn in Omaha. We had spent the entire day traveling the back roads of Nebraska, not once coming anywhere near an Interstate, and it had been a wonderful day. We ate a late supper in our motel room with take-out from an Arby's restaurant.
Wednesday, July 26, 2000
Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri
Every other day the girls switch cars: Eliza rode with me on Friday, Sunday, and Tuesday; Camilla rode with me on Monday and again today.
This morning we visited the Mormon Trail Center at Winter Quarters, a lovely new visitor center built since our last visit here seven years ago when we were taking Rachael to Peace College in North Carolina. In the center we met a Sister Wakefield, a niece of Garth Wakefield, who works with me in the Missionary Department. We also met an Elder and Sister Ross Williams, whom we knew in Rose Park 24 years ago. After taking the tour of the center and watching a film about the Saints' stay at Winter Quarters in 1846–47, we walked through the peaceful pioneer cemetery and saw the new temple under construction next to the cemetery. It is supposed to be completed by the end of the year.
Back on I–680, we drove across the Mormon Memorial Bridge into Iowa, joined I–29 and headed south into Council Bluffs, where we found the reconstructed Kanesville Tabernacle, where Brigham Young was first sustained as the second President of the Church, with Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards as his counselors in the First Presidency, at a special conference on December 27, 1847. Elder Williams, whom we had seen over in Winter Quarters, was our tour guide. He let Camilla and me play an old organ—over a hundred years old, he said—in the tabernacle.
We ate lunch at a Blimpie restaurant up the street, got gas, found I–80, and headed back across the Missouri River into Nebraska. Back in Omaha, we headed south on US 75 down the eastern edge of Nebraska rather than driving on I–29 down the western edge of Iowa. The Missouri River forms the boundary between the two states.
South of Nebraska City, we turned off US 75 onto state highways 128, then 67, to find the little town of Talmage, population 246, and took pictures. (There is also a Talmage in Kansas that has only 126 people living in it.)
We returned to US 75 and at Auburn turned east on US 136, crossed the river into Missouri, and headed south another 100 miles or so on I–29 to Kansas City. From our visit here last summer, we were able to drive straight to the Kieffers' house at NW Adrian Terrace, which is just off I–29 at exit 5. Mom and Dad Kieffer are in Utah this week, Kenny had left for work at 3:30, and Kathryn was supposed to have been home from work by 5:00. It was about 6:45 when we arrived, and Rachael went through the garage, which was not locked, and peeked her head in the door into the house, which was not locked, calling for Kathryn, who was not home, and set off the burglar alarm, which was not turned off.
So we waited outside. Half an hour later two policemen showed up in a squad car to see if everything was OK. We explained the situation and apparently looked honest, and they were nice about it, but had we been actual burglars we could have hauled away a lot of the house before they arrived. We waited some more. A friend of Kathryn's came by and knew how to turn the alarm off, so we were able to wait inside the house. She said Kathryn had gone shopping with a friend. We waited some more. Still no Kathryn, so finally we wrote her a note with our cell number on it, and we went to eat dinner at an Applebee's. Kathryn was home when we got back, and we sat up visiting until midnight.
Severe thunderstorms moved across the Kansas City metro area and put on quite a spectacular light show, reminiscent of our visit here last year when lightening knocked down their neighbor's tree. (This afternoon, when we were still in southeastern Nebraska, we had heard on the radio tornado watches for southeastern Nebraska and southwestern Iowa, although the weather looked fine to us at the time.)
Uncle Irv's funeral was held today in Woods Cross.
Thursday, July 27, 2000
Missouri
Tonight, sitting in the Kieffers' living room in Kansas City, I finished reading one of my birthday books, Larry McMurtry's Roads: Driving America's Great Highways. I share McMurtry's passions for books and the road (he lists a third: women) and have enjoyed both during this week's foray into middle America. Not only did I read Roads, but Eliza has been reading aloud from Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine as we made our way across the back roads of Wyoming and Nebraska.
In his final chapter, McMurtry writes, "Some years ago I had a sobering realization about women, which was that there are just too many nice ones. . . .
"As it is with women, so it is with roads. There are too many nice ones. I could go on for a long time, driving America's roads. I could see the sandhills of Nebraska, follow the old Oregon Trail along the North Platte, see the Tetons, dodge moose in Maine, slip down to Salt Lake City and remind myself what an inspired city planner Brigham Young had been.
"But I can't drive all the roads. On even the narrowest highways that I've driven on these trips, and in even the smallest towns, there are signs pointing down even narrower highways to even smaller towns, many of which I will never see."
Something like that thought occurred to me yesterday afternoon as we were pushing south along US 75 in eastern Nebraska. Our fourth child and second son is named Talmage. We knew from our road atlas that a little town named Talmage, population 246, was in these parts.
As we were looking for Talmage, we overshot our intended turn off by a few miles, so turned instead onto a little paved road that after a half mile turned into "a rock road," so called by the friendly farmer from Talmage who stopped to see if we needed help as we sat at roadside studying the atlas. He wondered who we were visiting in Talmage and, after explaining our purpose in visiting there, explained that we could indeed arrive there along the rock road (what I would call a dirt or gravel road) that his tractor was planning to follow but suggested we go back and take the regular road instead. "Maybe I'll see you there," was his parting comment. He seemed so helpful, I was almost surprised we weren't invited for supper.
We backtracked to state highway 128, one of those narrower roads that lead to even smaller towns that McMurtry referred to, and I thought of all the myriads of little roads like this that crisscross the places people call home. After a few miles heading west, we turned south on state highway 67 and after another couple miles had to take an even narrower road, a half-mile spur that led to the little town. Talmage. Like so many other towns we've seen here in the Midwest, the name was proudly emblazoned on the town's water tower, as if water towers wandered off or were misplaced and had to be returned from time to time to their rightful owners.
Today was a rest day. It was afternoon by the time we were ready to go find the Liberty Jail visitor center and deliver a package of pamphlets from Winter Quarters. We took the tour at Liberty Jail, where Joseph Smith and his companions were in prison during the cold winter of 1838–39 and where some of the most sublime revelations were given to the Prophet.
We then drove back to Independence in Jackson County and visited the home of Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the United States. He was the president when I was born in 1949 and Claudia in 1951. The guided tours through the home are limited to only eight people at a time. We were the last tour of the day.
Afterward we drove by the Truman Library eight blocks away, the temple and other world headquarters sites of the RLDS Church, the LDS visitor center, and the National Historic Trails site (which had just closed for the day).
We drove back to the Kieffers' house in Platte County, and Kathryn had dinner ready for us. Rachael and Kathryn went off to an Institute class this evening. Camilla, Eliza, and I caught up on journals, read, and such. I finished reading Roads: Driving America's Great Highways.
Friday, July 28, 2000
Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming
Today we headed home. We told Rachael good-bye and took off. She was standing in the Kieffers' driveway as we left, looking pretty sad, reminding us of an August afternoon seven years ago when we left her bawling in a parking lot at Peace College.
It rained on us pretty much all the way up I–29 to the Iowa border. During the 13 miles we were in Iowa before crossing the river at Nebraska City, it did not rain. At Lincoln, where we stopped for lunch at a Runza restaurant, it started raining again and did for a while as we headed west along I–80.
Originally we had a motel reservation at Ogallala in the western part of Nebraska, but we were reaching there by mid-afternoon, so we called and canceled that room and made a reservation for Rawlins, Wyoming, the same motel we had stayed in last Sunday. All they had available, unfortunately, was a smoking room, which we took but later regretted.
We stopped for supper at a Wendy's in Laramie, Wyoming. As we were pulling onto the highway again, I observed that we were now 700 miles away from Rachael and was overtaken by such a sense of sadness, an emptiness, that she was now so far away from home. We will miss her a lot.
It was about 9:00, thirteen hours after we left Kansas City, when we pulled into our Sleep Inn in Rawlins. The stench in the smoking room we were put in was pretty bad and caused everything we took into the room to smell. Eliza had a hard time sleeping because of it.
Saturday, July 29, 2000
Wyoming, Utah
We awoke right at 6:00, ate our breakfast, and were on the road toward home by 6:40. At Little America we stopped to buy 35¢ ice cream cones and fill the car with gas. After we reached Utah, we took I–84 down Weber Canyon, then south on US 89, and then I–15 to Bountiful. Mom called us on the cell phone as we were passing Farmington, and Camilla and I each talked to her until we were on 500 West in Bountiful. Our intent was to surprise her; she wasn't expecting us until this evening. Finally, she asked where we were, and I gave a vague enough answer that she was totally surprised when we walked in the door only moments later. It was 11:00 and our trip was over.
According to our odometer, our house is 1,100 miles from the Kieffers' house in Kansas City by the route we took home. During the 2,869 miles of our trip, we saw license plates from 40 states (we were missing Delaware, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, and West Virginia) and 4 Canadian provinces (we saw Alberta, British Colombia, Ontario, and Saskatchewan). Our highest elevation was 8,640 feet on I–80 at Laramie Pass in Wyoming. Our lowest was probably when we crossed the Missouri River at Kansas City. We stayed in four different motels (in Rawlins, Scottsbluff, Omaha, and again in Rawlins) and spent $245.70 for lodging. We stopped 10 times for gas and spent $123.38 for fuel. We spent about $165 on food and about $30 on other stuff. We traveled through parts of six states (Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri). And Eliza read aloud all but 30 pages of Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine. It was a wonderful trip.
Friday, July 21, 2000
Utah, Idaho
Our adventure began about 5:00 this afternoon—just two hours after our original target—as our three cars pulled onto northbound I–15 at Layton: Rachael and Camilla in Rachael's blue Geo Prism, Eliza and I in our green Saturn, and Michael, Meghan, and Caleb in their tan Honda Accord. Traffic thinned out somewhere north of Ogden, probably near Willard Bay, which is about where the battery failed on one of our new walkie-talkies (we hadn't been sure it was fully charged), which we were using between our car and Rachael's.
After we crossed into Idaho and Eliza had to endure my awful rendition of "Here We Have Idaho," we called Mom on the cell phone to report we were in a new state. She and Mary were staying home in Bountiful because of Mary's dizzy spells. Shauna and Jacob were in Layton. Cade, Rebecca, and Mimi starting today were spending a week at a condo near Eden. Talmage and Carisa were at Lake Powell. And Anna is in Ephraim working at Snow College for the summer.
By 7:00 we reached Lava Hot Springs, a little resort town ten or eleven miles east of I–15 on US 30. With two or three exceptions, we have come here every July since 1980 to stay in our condo at Hot Springs Village. This year we are only staying a couple days.
About 7:20 all of us but Rachael went swimming in the big pool. It was not crowded, and Meghan and Caleb especially enjoyed going down the slide, mostly on Eliza's lap, occasionally on Camilla's, never by themselves. Meanwhile, Rachael had gone to Shawn's Market to buy food for supper and had macaroni and cheese, rolls, and a berry drink ready for us when we returned from swimming.
Michael and I, still in our wet swimsuits, went quickly to the store to get hotdogs and sherbet to add to Rachael's supper and also fixings for breakfast.
I slept alone in the big bed on the east end of our unit. Michael, Meghan, and Caleb, who started out in the bunk beds, ended up sleeping on the floor at the foot of my bed. Rachael and Camilla each slept on one of the hide-a-beds in the west end. Eliza slept on the bottom bunk.
Saturday, July 22, 2000
Idaho
This morning Eliza and I took Meghan and Caleb for a walk along the Portneuf River that runs through town and back along Lava's Main Street. By the end we were carrying them on our shoulders.
Knowing there was a Pioneer Day parade sometime this weekend, we tried to find out when. A kid in one of the shops on Main Street thought it was today at 4:00, 5:00, or 6:00. The lady in the grocery store thought it was tomorrow at 5:00. And Gerri in the condo office thought it was either at 10:00 this morning or 6:00 this evening, having been told those alternative times, she said, by someone who was actually going to be in the parade. It turned out to be at 6:00 this evening.
Back at the condo, after our walk, Eliza and I fixed waffles, scrambled eggs, and orange juice for breakfast. Camilla cleaned up afterward.We had a pretty lazy day, which is what Lava for us is all about. We spent time reading, playing pool and other games at the club house, playing on the swings and other outdoor toys with Meghan and Caleb, watching TV, and such. Caleb likes the trains that rumble by several times a day, just like his daddy did 20 years ago.
This afternoon we went to the ice cream parlor on Main Street, Smitty's Sweet Shop. Caleb, who had the smallest cone possible, was a dripping mess by the time he had eaten all he wanted of his. Sitting in the air-conditioned shop, eating our ice cream, was a welcome break from the oppressive heat outside. It was a hot one (97 degrees we heard on the news tonight, 103 degrees down in Salt Lake, where poor Mom was tending house with a broken air conditioner that won't get fixed until next Wednesday at soonest).
Michael, Meghan, and Caleb left for home at 3:15, as soon as we had finished at the ice cream store. Shauna had called earlier to see how everyone was doing and to mention her dad had driven up this morning in a minivan and took away their old red car. Wow!
The four of us remaining—Rachael, Camilla, Eliza, and I—played pool, fixed shredded potatoes and hot dogs for supper, went to the little parade (actually just Eliza and I went to the 10-minute parade), and drove out to historic Chesterfield, now a ghost town with some of its buildings well preserved. It was founded in 1880 by settlers from Davis County who were finding Utah getting too crowded. We walked through the cemetery, which is well kept, and looked at headstones. Many of the same surnames seen in the Bountiful cemetery were here: Call, Hatch, Holbrook, Sessions, Muir. The earliest birth date we could find was 1822. The earliest death date 1888. The most recent burial 1998.
Back in Lava, we stopped at Shawn's Market to buy ice and provisions for our travels tomorrow.
Several times during the day we talked with Mom on our cell phone. This way she gets to share in the journey without having to ride in the car or endure the summer heat (except she is doing that at home anyway with a broken air conditioner). She doesn't do heat well.
Sunday, July 23, 2000
Idaho, Wyoming
We awoke, ate breakfast, got ready for church, and at 10:00 attended sacrament meeting in the Lava Hot Springs Ward. We returned to our condo, packed and cleaned up, ate lunch, and at 1:15 headed east on US 30 toward Soda Springs.
We decided we wanted to see Star Valley, which we'd never been to before, so we headed north out of Soda Springs on state highway 34, a scenic drive that took us north and east into Wyoming near Freedom. We headed south on US 89 through Thayne, Grover, Afton, and Smoot. We reached an elevation of 7,630 feet crossing the Salt River Pass before slipping back into Idaho briefly and then back into Wyoming for the rest of the day.
At Border, Wyoming, we rejoined US 30 and followed it south to Cokeville, east to Kemmerer (the home of J.C. Penney), and southeast to I–80, which we then traveled along past Little America, Green River, and Rock Springs to Rawlins, where we spent the might at the Sleep Inn. The air conditioning had been knocked out by a lightening storm a couple days earlier, so we were given an additional discount off our room. We ate sandwiches, Jell-o, pop, and cookies in our room. Eliza and I went for a walk at sunset.
We arrived in Rawlins about 7:30, a little over six hours after leaving Lava. Camilla and Rachael drove in one car, Eliza and I in the other. We used our walkie-talkies to communicate with each other. Eliza read me chapters from Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine as we traveled. Anna called us from Michael and Shauna's house just as we were approaching the tunnel by Green River. We talked to Mom a couple of times. She informed us that Uncle Irv, my dad's twin brother, had died Friday. He was 85.
Monday, July 24, 2000
Wyoming, Nebraska
Pioneer Day, which we spent at Martin's Cove, Devils Gate, Independence Rock, and Scotts Bluff—all important landmarks along the Oregon, California, and Mormon pioneer trails.
We ate breakfast at the Sleep Inn, filled the cars with expensive gas ($1.65 a gallon), and headed north out of Rawlins on US 287. Not far out of town we waited for about 20 minutes because of road construction. At Lamont we stopped to take pictures of the sign saying "Lamont, Population 3."
Camilla, Eliza, and I had been to Martin's Cove with Mom and Mary three years ago, during the pioneer sesquicentennial. This was Rachael’s first visit. We went through the visitor center, watched a brief film about the experiences of a boy in the Martin Handcart Company of 1856, pulled a handcart out to the Veil Crossing, walked over to Devils Gate, and returned the handcart (with my riding while the three girls pulled me) back to the parking lot.
Next we drove 10 miles or so further east to Independence Rock. Rachael and Camilla waited at the rest stop at the bottom while Eliza and I climbed to the top. (Eliza had been on top of Ensign Peak on Independence Day and now Independence Rock on Pioneer Day.) From the top we called Mom at home and used our walkie-talkies to communicate with Rachael and Camilla at the bottom.
We then continued on to Casper, the second largest city in Wyoming, where we stopped to eat at a Pizza Hut and where Rachael made comments in front of our waitress about how ugly Wyoming was. We then headed south on I–25 until US 26 took off east toward Nebraska. We arrived in Scottsbluff a little before 6:00 and checked into our room at the Comfort Inn.
This evening we drove out to Scotts Bluff National Monument, where Donna Davey, one of the park rangers, was very kind in helping us. She let us drive the mile and a half to the top, although it was nearly time to close the road for the evening, and was most helpful when we returned back to the visitor center. She even gave us helpful hints on where to eat and how best to drive back to our motel.
On the way back, as we were driving through Gering, we stopped to eat at a Runza restaurant, famous throughout Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and Colorado for its Runza sandwich, which has German–Russian roots stretching back to the 18th century. The unique blend of fresh ground beef, cabbage, onions, and special spices baked inside home-made bread has been passed down for generations and debuted commercially in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1949, the year I was born. Rachael had a Swiss and mushroom Runza sandwich, I had a tossed salad, and Camilla and Eliza had cheese and broccoli soup and milkshakes.
Hyde Frederickson called tonight to report that Jack White in our ward died this evening. He had lain down for a nap and was gone by two hours later when Helen went in to wake him up for dinner. [I was serving as bishop at the time and felt bad I was not there to assist Helen and her family and even contemplated ways I could abort the trip and get back to Utah. I also wanted to be home for my Uncle Irv's funeral, but in the end I missed both funerals.]
Tuesday, July 25, 2000
Nebraska
This morning, after getting ready for the day and eating our standard continental breakfast, we were on our way again. Just east of Scottsbluff we stopped alongside the Burlington Northern tracks to see the grave site of Rebecca Winters, a pioneer woman who died at age 50 from cholera as she was traveling with her family along the Mormon Pioneer Trail. I believe she is an ancestor of my uncle, Dean Winters.
We continued a few miles more until reaching Chimney Rock, probably the most famous landmark along the pioneer trails. We had our National Park passport, which we had purchased the night before, stamped and saw a film in the visitor center and bought postcards.
We then turned north on US 385 toward Alliance, where we went to Carhenge a few miles north of town. Thirteen years ago the people who owned the farm decided at a family reunion to build an exact replica (as to size, dimensions, and orientation) of England's famous Stonehenge but out of cars instead of stones. Interesting.
We took pictures, returned to Alliance, ate lunch at McDonald's, and headed east along Nebraska highway 2 through the beautiful and isolated Sand Hills country. We passed successively through or by little towns represented by dots on the map: Antioch, Lakeside, Ellsworth, Bingham, Ashby, Hyannis, Whitman, Mullen, Seneca, Thedford, Halsey, Dunning, Anselmo, Merna—many of them so small they didn't even have the water towers or grain elevators common to Midwestern towns.
Mullen, one of the larger towns with 500-some people, located near the Middle Loup River at the intersection of highways 2 and 97, is the only town in all of Hooker County. Another 200 people live scattered on farms throughout the rest of the county. Just east of Mullen, at the county line, we crossed from the mountain into the central time zone.
At Broken Bow we stopped for gas and a snack. Less than 20 miles further, at Ansley, we turned off highway 2 onto 92, with a clear shot east (through half a dozen more counties) to Omaha. This portion of the trip was through lovely rolling farm country rather than the rolling grasslands of the Sand Hills region. Loup City, Ashton, Farewell, St. Paul, Osceola, Shelby, Rising City, Wahoo were the towns we passed. A gorgeous sunset was at our backs at Wahoo.
It was dark by the time we reached our Comfort Inn in Omaha. We had spent the entire day traveling the back roads of Nebraska, not once coming anywhere near an Interstate, and it had been a wonderful day. We ate a late supper in our motel room with take-out from an Arby's restaurant.
Wednesday, July 26, 2000
Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri
Every other day the girls switch cars: Eliza rode with me on Friday, Sunday, and Tuesday; Camilla rode with me on Monday and again today.
This morning we visited the Mormon Trail Center at Winter Quarters, a lovely new visitor center built since our last visit here seven years ago when we were taking Rachael to Peace College in North Carolina. In the center we met a Sister Wakefield, a niece of Garth Wakefield, who works with me in the Missionary Department. We also met an Elder and Sister Ross Williams, whom we knew in Rose Park 24 years ago. After taking the tour of the center and watching a film about the Saints' stay at Winter Quarters in 1846–47, we walked through the peaceful pioneer cemetery and saw the new temple under construction next to the cemetery. It is supposed to be completed by the end of the year.
Back on I–680, we drove across the Mormon Memorial Bridge into Iowa, joined I–29 and headed south into Council Bluffs, where we found the reconstructed Kanesville Tabernacle, where Brigham Young was first sustained as the second President of the Church, with Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards as his counselors in the First Presidency, at a special conference on December 27, 1847. Elder Williams, whom we had seen over in Winter Quarters, was our tour guide. He let Camilla and me play an old organ—over a hundred years old, he said—in the tabernacle.
We ate lunch at a Blimpie restaurant up the street, got gas, found I–80, and headed back across the Missouri River into Nebraska. Back in Omaha, we headed south on US 75 down the eastern edge of Nebraska rather than driving on I–29 down the western edge of Iowa. The Missouri River forms the boundary between the two states.
South of Nebraska City, we turned off US 75 onto state highways 128, then 67, to find the little town of Talmage, population 246, and took pictures. (There is also a Talmage in Kansas that has only 126 people living in it.)
We returned to US 75 and at Auburn turned east on US 136, crossed the river into Missouri, and headed south another 100 miles or so on I–29 to Kansas City. From our visit here last summer, we were able to drive straight to the Kieffers' house at NW Adrian Terrace, which is just off I–29 at exit 5. Mom and Dad Kieffer are in Utah this week, Kenny had left for work at 3:30, and Kathryn was supposed to have been home from work by 5:00. It was about 6:45 when we arrived, and Rachael went through the garage, which was not locked, and peeked her head in the door into the house, which was not locked, calling for Kathryn, who was not home, and set off the burglar alarm, which was not turned off.
So we waited outside. Half an hour later two policemen showed up in a squad car to see if everything was OK. We explained the situation and apparently looked honest, and they were nice about it, but had we been actual burglars we could have hauled away a lot of the house before they arrived. We waited some more. A friend of Kathryn's came by and knew how to turn the alarm off, so we were able to wait inside the house. She said Kathryn had gone shopping with a friend. We waited some more. Still no Kathryn, so finally we wrote her a note with our cell number on it, and we went to eat dinner at an Applebee's. Kathryn was home when we got back, and we sat up visiting until midnight.
Severe thunderstorms moved across the Kansas City metro area and put on quite a spectacular light show, reminiscent of our visit here last year when lightening knocked down their neighbor's tree. (This afternoon, when we were still in southeastern Nebraska, we had heard on the radio tornado watches for southeastern Nebraska and southwestern Iowa, although the weather looked fine to us at the time.)
Uncle Irv's funeral was held today in Woods Cross.
Thursday, July 27, 2000
Missouri
Tonight, sitting in the Kieffers' living room in Kansas City, I finished reading one of my birthday books, Larry McMurtry's Roads: Driving America's Great Highways. I share McMurtry's passions for books and the road (he lists a third: women) and have enjoyed both during this week's foray into middle America. Not only did I read Roads, but Eliza has been reading aloud from Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine as we made our way across the back roads of Wyoming and Nebraska.
In his final chapter, McMurtry writes, "Some years ago I had a sobering realization about women, which was that there are just too many nice ones. . . .
"As it is with women, so it is with roads. There are too many nice ones. I could go on for a long time, driving America's roads. I could see the sandhills of Nebraska, follow the old Oregon Trail along the North Platte, see the Tetons, dodge moose in Maine, slip down to Salt Lake City and remind myself what an inspired city planner Brigham Young had been.
"But I can't drive all the roads. On even the narrowest highways that I've driven on these trips, and in even the smallest towns, there are signs pointing down even narrower highways to even smaller towns, many of which I will never see."
Something like that thought occurred to me yesterday afternoon as we were pushing south along US 75 in eastern Nebraska. Our fourth child and second son is named Talmage. We knew from our road atlas that a little town named Talmage, population 246, was in these parts.
As we were looking for Talmage, we overshot our intended turn off by a few miles, so turned instead onto a little paved road that after a half mile turned into "a rock road," so called by the friendly farmer from Talmage who stopped to see if we needed help as we sat at roadside studying the atlas. He wondered who we were visiting in Talmage and, after explaining our purpose in visiting there, explained that we could indeed arrive there along the rock road (what I would call a dirt or gravel road) that his tractor was planning to follow but suggested we go back and take the regular road instead. "Maybe I'll see you there," was his parting comment. He seemed so helpful, I was almost surprised we weren't invited for supper.
We backtracked to state highway 128, one of those narrower roads that lead to even smaller towns that McMurtry referred to, and I thought of all the myriads of little roads like this that crisscross the places people call home. After a few miles heading west, we turned south on state highway 67 and after another couple miles had to take an even narrower road, a half-mile spur that led to the little town. Talmage. Like so many other towns we've seen here in the Midwest, the name was proudly emblazoned on the town's water tower, as if water towers wandered off or were misplaced and had to be returned from time to time to their rightful owners.
Today was a rest day. It was afternoon by the time we were ready to go find the Liberty Jail visitor center and deliver a package of pamphlets from Winter Quarters. We took the tour at Liberty Jail, where Joseph Smith and his companions were in prison during the cold winter of 1838–39 and where some of the most sublime revelations were given to the Prophet.
We then drove back to Independence in Jackson County and visited the home of Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the United States. He was the president when I was born in 1949 and Claudia in 1951. The guided tours through the home are limited to only eight people at a time. We were the last tour of the day.
Afterward we drove by the Truman Library eight blocks away, the temple and other world headquarters sites of the RLDS Church, the LDS visitor center, and the National Historic Trails site (which had just closed for the day).
We drove back to the Kieffers' house in Platte County, and Kathryn had dinner ready for us. Rachael and Kathryn went off to an Institute class this evening. Camilla, Eliza, and I caught up on journals, read, and such. I finished reading Roads: Driving America's Great Highways.
Friday, July 28, 2000
Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming
Today we headed home. We told Rachael good-bye and took off. She was standing in the Kieffers' driveway as we left, looking pretty sad, reminding us of an August afternoon seven years ago when we left her bawling in a parking lot at Peace College.
It rained on us pretty much all the way up I–29 to the Iowa border. During the 13 miles we were in Iowa before crossing the river at Nebraska City, it did not rain. At Lincoln, where we stopped for lunch at a Runza restaurant, it started raining again and did for a while as we headed west along I–80.
Originally we had a motel reservation at Ogallala in the western part of Nebraska, but we were reaching there by mid-afternoon, so we called and canceled that room and made a reservation for Rawlins, Wyoming, the same motel we had stayed in last Sunday. All they had available, unfortunately, was a smoking room, which we took but later regretted.
We stopped for supper at a Wendy's in Laramie, Wyoming. As we were pulling onto the highway again, I observed that we were now 700 miles away from Rachael and was overtaken by such a sense of sadness, an emptiness, that she was now so far away from home. We will miss her a lot.
It was about 9:00, thirteen hours after we left Kansas City, when we pulled into our Sleep Inn in Rawlins. The stench in the smoking room we were put in was pretty bad and caused everything we took into the room to smell. Eliza had a hard time sleeping because of it.
Saturday, July 29, 2000
Wyoming, Utah
We awoke right at 6:00, ate our breakfast, and were on the road toward home by 6:40. At Little America we stopped to buy 35¢ ice cream cones and fill the car with gas. After we reached Utah, we took I–84 down Weber Canyon, then south on US 89, and then I–15 to Bountiful. Mom called us on the cell phone as we were passing Farmington, and Camilla and I each talked to her until we were on 500 West in Bountiful. Our intent was to surprise her; she wasn't expecting us until this evening. Finally, she asked where we were, and I gave a vague enough answer that she was totally surprised when we walked in the door only moments later. It was 11:00 and our trip was over.
According to our odometer, our house is 1,100 miles from the Kieffers' house in Kansas City by the route we took home. During the 2,869 miles of our trip, we saw license plates from 40 states (we were missing Delaware, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, and West Virginia) and 4 Canadian provinces (we saw Alberta, British Colombia, Ontario, and Saskatchewan). Our highest elevation was 8,640 feet on I–80 at Laramie Pass in Wyoming. Our lowest was probably when we crossed the Missouri River at Kansas City. We stayed in four different motels (in Rawlins, Scottsbluff, Omaha, and again in Rawlins) and spent $245.70 for lodging. We stopped 10 times for gas and spent $123.38 for fuel. We spent about $165 on food and about $30 on other stuff. We traveled through parts of six states (Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri). And Eliza read aloud all but 30 pages of Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine. It was a wonderful trip.
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