190,000 MI
That doesn't happen very often!
I just checked the odometer this morning and I have gone 665 miles this week. I could have made it to my sister Valerie's house for a visit. Instead, I:
- Went to my internship in Salt Lake three times
- Made three trips to Provo--twice to visit Ben and once to spend the afternoon with Eileen Bradford and Sandy Lai, dear friends from Hong Kong.
- Went to school in Kaysville
- Drove Jena to Woods Cross for Wonderwood, her reading and math class.
- and the assorted collection of errands--getting gas (a few times), groceries, getting stuff for my office, etc.
That doesn't even include the miles put on Gary's truck as he took Jena to Salt Lake for her mission and then to Layton the next day, taking her to work and Institute, running errands himself (including getting milk when we needed it during the middle of the week), taking Allan to dinner and back and heading up to Nordic Valley to work on our Little Library with our brother-in-law Gary Kerr.
Thank heavens for reliable vehicles which make our lives doable and for safety and good roads to travel on!
My friend, Kathy (Nelson) Corbally, is currently serving a mission in Sierra Leone, This is how she described the roads in their new area in this week's letter: "We are grateful for a truck that hasn't bottomed out so far. Also we have had to use the 4 wheel drive to get out a steep dip. But it is an adventure. The main road in town sometimes feels like we are on a ride at Disneyland only much more jarring. But we are gradually learning our way around the town and finding church buildings, Elder's apartments, grocery stores, the open market, and Airtell. Scott (her husband) has a love/hate relationship with the driving here. He is doing a lot more driving here because it is much more simple and slow. Also the roads make it an adventure which he loved at first but is getting very tired of as time goes on. When we finally return to the States it will be so boring. In Kenema there isn't the traffic that there is in Freetown but there are lots of motorcycles who act as taxis and called Acotas."
I have been places like that but sometimes I forget to remember how lucky we are to live in America with some of these basic advantages. We do have potholes to complain about and constant road construction but we are certainly blessed. Sometimes boring can be good.
(Historical note: I call Kathy my oldest friend--which makes her laugh and complain that she surely isn't my oldest friend as she is only 6 months older than me. However she is the first person I have a vivid memory of as a little child. We were playing under a quilt our mothers were sewing on at a Relief Society meeting. I was about 3 years old. She still lives in the area where we grew up in the Tri-Cities, Washington.)
Yesterday was Ben's birthday, so we grabbed some Panda Express Chinese food and Gary, Jena and I went and ate dinner with him. He was sightly less tense and actually talked a bit more than he has for the past three months. He even thanked us for bringing food and eating with him and let me hug him and wish him happy birthday. Tiny things but nice for his birthday. We took a few cards to him which he seemed pleased with as well and he was able to take them back to his room. I had included pictures of Scarlett, Niki and Liam and he seemed to like that, too.
And one more picture and note (because if I don't, Gary will accuse me of hiding historical events :) )
I had just grabbed some shoes and driven barefoot down to Provo yesterday. When we stopped to get the Panda Express food, I realized that my shoes were different colors and also they were both right shoes. As you know;- "No shoes, no services" so I had to wear them into the Mall where the store was located. Jena was laughing the whole time.
Where did your cars take you this week? I hope they were all happy places.
We will be hopping in our car to attend Stake Conference at the Ogden Tabernacle (we have the 3-5 time slot) which is about 25 minutes north east of us. So the miles will just keep rolling...........
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