Sorry, but I'm no longer feeling the "retell my trip in detail to people who may or may not be interested when I've already talked about it 100 times in real life" love. It's something to do with being tired and wanting to prioritize and wishing I'd just said, hey bloggers/friends far away... here are my favorite shots from my recent week on the road which was fantastic and full of adventure and father-daughter bonding, and now onto the day to day stuff! Too late now, I've likely bored you to death, but here's a closing attempt at paraphrasing so that if my husband ever gets a clue and has one of those amazing books made of my blog there won't be some strange drop-off of this story.
The last three days of our trip were all about driving and problem solving. As I mentioned before we hoped to see Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park, but the trailer sustained a blow out of the right tire on our way to Zion and after having that repaired/replaced (all in a manor consistent with "miraculous interventions" and "guardian angel-type stuff") we then faced a broken axle on the opposite side of the trailer in the dark on Friday night as we rolled into Parowan, Utah... a place I'm convinced people go to die. With all of the problems to with the trailer and being unable to have more repairs/replacements made on a Saturday/Sunday the solution was to use the inadequate trailer as bartering material for a lesser charge on a UHaul truck (signed the trailer title right over to some mechanic in Parowan), unload the trailer contents and repack them into the UHaul, then drive home in two vehicles. Nothing about this little hiccup was particularly fun, but we tried to keep a positive attitude in the midst of it and we did in fact laugh A LOT. So, once we were confidently on the road again in two rigs we opted not to make any more out of the way stops to be certain I was home by Sunday night. What a great experience it is to see the landscape change as you roll through so many states with varying climates and population types. I really enjoyed parts of Utah immensely, but you couldn't pay me to go to Idaho again. I swear there was an odor coming from the entirety of that state which could only be described as skunkcabbagemanure and a literal plague of locusts (ok, that's what I think they were) rained down on our windshields and assaulted our wipers, rendering them useless within forty-five minutes of having cleaned them. So. Very. Gross.
"Bob" stayed late on Friday night to help us with our tire exchange, he told us to tell everyone we were from California... :o)
Contents mainly made up of my Mother's things... some household items and small furniture. I still haven't heard how much of it actually survived the 3,000+ miles trek (it didn't look good for a couple of boxes when we were transferring things from one vehicle to the other). I called my Mom THREE TIMES and made sure she had to have this stuff, you have no idea how badly we both wanted to just abandon the dang trailer right there and forget the stuff ever existed. For some reason she insisted we get it home, even if it meant "Dad carried it home on his back." That's Mom for you, very empathetic. 
This truck was parked at the UHaul place and I died when I read the windshield. From now on you'll understand when I right "it do's run." Thank you Utah.
Following my Dad lasted for about seven minutes, I am not a follower. Equally frustrating however, was having to slow down and wait for him to catch up to me on those fabulous stretches of highway when you can/should be driving 80+ mph and Dad was poking along at an unstable 70. It's alright, at least I had something to do since we were traveling solo and couldn't continue to swap stories.
I'm telling you, the locust plague was WAY more severe than this picture indicates. Another con for Idaho, they only have five radio stations and they're either christian music, country music or country/christian... gah!
Final stretch, thinking about my honey. I missed my man and I missed my boys, but I REALLY missed my bed too! I feel so fortunate to have shared this time with my Dad and to have seen some truly beautiful places not that far from home. Every time I go away though I'm more sure of how much I love where I live. I can't imagine living anywhere else- getting away is great, but this is where I have to come home to. Thanks Dad, I had a blast and I love you! Also thank you H, you're my rock and I couldn't have done this without your support. I hope you know what a wonderful thing it is to return to our special little corner of this Earth with you waiting for me, arms wide open. My cup runneth over 'cuz you keep pouring the goods in... yours is the face the world turns to me.
~C
1 comment:
What a pain in the ass!
I'm sorry you had to deal with all that mess.
I definitely want to get back to Bryce Canyon someday, my parents took me back-packing there when I was like 7 mos old.
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