Adventure 263: Home Sweet Home/Last Entry of Year Two

Lumpy and Stumpy (Alias Fric and Frac)

We're back safe and sound. Once again we were blessed with traveling mercies, and as for that ninety-nine percent of our traveling days presented us with uncommon luck: No mishaps, no flats, no crashes, no near misses, no misery at all. Wow! The past few days we've been running hard, both of us feeling the fever of getting home (Judy to dig in the dirt; me to get to the lake). Today, we drove straight through from my father's house in Madras, OR. It's 343 miles and it took a little over six hours. All told, we traveled just under eleven thousand miles (On the truck odometer). Most of that included the trailer, but quite a bit included tourist driving around the places we visited. A quick summary: We left October 15 and traveled from Spokane to Portland for a quick grandson fix (Sawyer). From there we traveled down the Oregon coast, making three two day hops. We dodged some rain, got soaked by some, and generally enjoyed ourselves. We continued down the Northern California coast to the Redwoods, where we enjoyed one beautiful day among the giants, and one rainy day so dark and dreary we cut the visit short. That decision proved to be fortunate because it meant that the time we spent in Yosemite coincided with a weather window that was perfect. We ended that portion of the trip by storing the truck and trailer in a little town south of San Jose called Morgan Hill. Then we flew home to enjoy Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Judy's knee replacement surgery. Judy (Stumpy) powered through the first part of her rehab like the champion she is, and by January 10, we were ready to fly back to California to retrieve Fric and Frac. From there we cruised down the rest of the California coast (Carmel, Morrow Bay, Santa Barbara, Crystal Cove [LA], San Diego. We spent Super Bowl weekend with our good friends the Cramer's who live in a suburb outside San Diego. Then we met my cousin, Douglas, in Death Valley. From there we stayed with our good friends, the Ellsworth's in Lake Havasu (One of only four repeats this year from last). From there we ventured to Phoenix where we stayed for a month so we could study Tai Chi (That's where I learned that I don't even know how to stand correctly after studying for twelve years--humility lessons are good for me). We spent four days in Tucson visiting our good friends, the Kral's, and then we headed for Texas, after a very pleasant three day stop and tour of Las Cruces, NM. We had planned on visiting Big Bend National Park, but our arrival coincided with spring break and there wasn't any room in the inn (So to speak--it was college kids after all). Instead, we ventured back to the gulf and landed in Galveston for a spell. That's where we realized that Gonzaga would be playing in the Sweet Sixteen (And Final 8) in Houston. We were so close, we changed our plans and headed into the morass of Houston. Basketball is quite a draw. It was fabulous, even though we lost to the Dukies. From there we took an abbreviated tour through the piney woods of East Texas before traveling to Kansas for Easter (We visited both of Judy's sisters). After a week or so in Kansas, we made an overnight stay in Judy's birthplace, Beatrice, NE. We enjoyed a very nice day with her cousin Dale Linsenmeyer. Then we started smelling the barn (It must have been the midwestern manure). We galloped halfway across Nebraska to an overnight stop in North Platte. We spent the next night with Tim Ulmen and his wife Carissa Pereda in Cheyenne, WY. Then the weather forced us to drive hard to get out from under a front. We were set up and plugged in at the Sweetwater Fairgrounds in Rock Springs, WY when the caretaker casually mentioned that the next day was going to bring high winds. We checked the weather and a massive front was on its way to Utah. We decided then and there to pull up stakes, and we drove (463 total) all the way to Brigham City, Utah that same day. The next day we hunkered down to let the storm pass over us. It proved to be a wise decision. Brigham City recorded winds in the sixty mile and hour range. Just South in Salt Lake, they recorded 80-100. Trucks were blowing over; I-80 was closed to high profile vehicles, and we were thankful to be warm and snuggily in the Golden Spike RV park in Brigham City. We did wake up the next morning to four inches of snow, but by the time we headed out, it had melted and the air temperature was moving past the freezing. We arrived a the Hooley farm in Filer, ID mid afternoon, and spent a joyous day, evening, and next morning with those folks. We took the back roads to Vale, OR the next day, following Gary Hooley's advice. It was one of our most pleasant drives. Bright sun, green farms, cows, few cars, and the thankful glow of good fortune traveling with us. We spent an easy evening in Vale, which is a little cow town in Eastern Oregon that has as its claim to be an actual part of the Oregon trail. The town does a nice job of promoting the idea. It's filled with twenty eight very well done (But sun faded) murals depicting life as it was during the pioneer days. The next morning was so lovely, we enjoyed a six hour trek across the high desert of Oregon to my father's house in Madras (A day early). He was sitting outside his garage drinking a Coors Light waiting for us to arrive. We spent two days with him, took him to visit his wife's grave (The first anniversary of her death is this week, and what would have been her 94th birthday is tomorrow). I hope we deflected a little bit of his loneliness. At any rate, we left his house this morning around nine thirty and we were back home by three-thirty. It felt a bit surreal. We caught our good friends, the Ulmen's, coming out of our house (They had just left a welcome home bouquet on our kitchen table). Our neighbors across the street, the Schafers and the Burgads came out of their homes to welcome us and chit-chat. It felt good to be home. We then met our son and his family (Steve, Bonnie, Emily, and Sarah) along with Bonnie's brother, Ben, for pizza. To top it off, by chance, Greg Smith, a former co-worker and coaching colleague of mine was at the pizza parlor. We hugged. I promised to come visit, and just like that it was back to whatever normal is. Right now, I couldn't put a name on a favorite place, express a favorite moment,  remember a favorite sight, or describe the best experience, but I can name the top two things I ate: Mole Burrito at the Atoyac Cafe in Phoenix, and Chile Verde at the St. Francis Cafe, also in Phoenix. I hope those of you who followed along with us enjoyed the trip. Stay tuned, God willing, there will be more adventures of Fric and Frac. And think about this. I heard it today while listening to sermons given by our old pastor, David Peterson (Well worth listening to: Google him). Two lines that stick with me: First, Don't worry so much about being blessed; instead, concentrate on being a blessing to others. Second, Don't worry about solving all the injustice in the world; instead, trust in God's plan (He's a professional at vengeance; humans just come off as mean spirited). The thing is, the more we find out about the mysteries of the universe, either microscopically or telescopically, the more we realize the infinite nature of God's creation, and since God speaks to us through his natural world, how can we not be hopeful, much less deny His existence or question His wisdom. Therefore, I must conclude with whatever clear vision I have that life is good, especially today. 
Goodbye for now.  

 Home safe after an exceptional run, and ever thankful for good fortune.