The Long Road Home
Thirteen hours and eleven minutes. The convoy left Highlad Avenue at 9:03 am Utah time. Devin lead the way in her new 31 foot motor home, followed by myself and two little dogs in the Escalade, and with Dennis singing away to the 60s channel on XM Sirius radio in the F-250.
After a grueling 90 or so minutes we stopped at Scipio and let the dogs out and a couple of us suffering from we bladder disease visited the beautiful facilities. Devin had reached speeds of almost 60 miles per hour. (Hey that was mean. She is a great driver and did well for not having driven a big ass trailer for quite a few year.)
Jack was in the trailer with Devin and Jerene and has asked for a razor as he though he would have a beard before they ever arrived in California. Jack is still walking with a limp for that one.
Jerene took over the controls from Scipio to Beaver UT. Yes we were still in the state of Utah. Her speed was about 10% faster than Devin's, but she too had not driven a trailer for many years, or was it ever?
I was given the con in Beaver. I must admit it took a bit to get used to the feel of the beast at speeds in excess of 60 miles per hour. I do not want to say I was driving slow, but I did see a UPS triple trailer pass me doing about 85 as he changed his tires.
We made it from Beaver to Jean Nevada, a nice stretch where we let the dogs out and we all used the beautiful facilities. New graffiti from last week. BTW, hore starts with a W, you moron. (Not to worry I corrected it.)
We made one more stop this side of Barstow at the Lynwood exit. We let the dogs out again who looked at me as if to say, "Dear Lord, are we ever gonna get home?" (Which made me wonder, Do dog's pray?) I did not have a good answer for them as I knew we were going to be at least another hour and half out assuming no traffic. Mmmm, no traffic in Southern California.
Well we got lucky and we did not hit any traffic in California. In fact looking back at the entire trip, we did not hit any traffic except for some clown in a Silverado truck who flew by me doing about 60 in a terrible downpour in Moutain Pass. I was doing about 30 MPH in this nasty rain and this guy was a dufus as he weaved in and out of near 0 visibility.
A few minutes later traffic came to an abrupt stop. Mr. Silverado had hydrofoiled, spun, and then flipped. He had the courtesy to flip off the freeway and we ran into a few minutes of lookee loo traffic. It is hard to have empathy for a fool like that but I did say a quick HM for the guy.
We made it home at 9:14 PM. Yes, Utah is one hour later so it was 13 hours and 11 minutes. We really enjoyed the motor home and look forward to hours of fun with it.
Devin and I have had an argument over the motor home already. We bought one of those 50 United States sticky maps for the back of the motor home. You put a sticky state on each of the states you have stayed in. Once I helped her put the thing on the back, she got the Utah sticker a stuck it on the map.
Now I did not think that was appropriate as we had not really camped in Utah since we got the motor home. She said we have a house here so it is OK. I said, "No way you have to have camped there to put the sticker." To which she replied, "Says who, Good Sam?" This went on for several minutes and it got much more heated than really needed to be.
She finally came to her senses and saw my point of view. It only took a couple of minutes to get the Utah map to stick on the back of the motor home. I did have to stare at the stupid thing from our house all the way to Beaver.
Moving Day
After a late dinner, I was in bed by 12:15 and slept hard until about 7:00 am today. My first words this morning was "guun minninng derrr, huppy bunnnday". Devin said "What?" I removed my C PAP mask and said "Good Morning Dear, happy birthday." To which she replied, "Oh dear, thank you for remembering my birthday. After you drove for thirteen hours in terrible weather and dangerous winds, even with all that stress you managed to make my day so very special. I love you honey."
Well, that is what I heard. She may have said, "uhuh, thanks." Then she got up and took the dogs out and I got ready for moving day.
I got in the office, my old office at 9:00 am. Ellen and I were taking on my office. With the help of Devin, Jerene, Dennis, Kristin, we actually got my office into boxes and basically ready to move. It did take till 4:00, but we got it done. BTW that included packing 120+ bottles of wine and bringing them to our house.
When we finished, we all headed to our house where we were joined by Lauren Henry (Dennis and Jerene's daughter) and her beau Alec. Nice good looking young many who has teeth that would make the entire Osmond family jealous. I had the honor of introducing him to his first taste of 21 year old single malt. (It is down hill from there on.)
We all (Kristin and Ryan met us there) went to Hanna's to celebrate Devin's and Jerene's
birthday and as usual, the meal and the service was tremendous. Nice job Jess, Dave, Beth, Sean and the entire gang.
On the way I ran into one of the loyal supporters of the Santa Margarita Eagle's football team, Dougel, who congratulated me on my retirement. That left me feeling pretty good and while I thought the night could not get any better,
my phone rang.
Much to my great surprise, it was Coach Welch.
Being as late as it was, I had a feeling it was important enough for me to take the call. All he had was a kind message for me and my lovely wife, thanking us for our support and friendship.
He then asked for a favor, to pass on a message to Manchild, Jack. I said, I'll do even better and handed the phone to Jack. He had some nice things to say to Jack and passed on his support for him in this his sophomore year. He said he respected his decision not participate in the football program but let jack know Coach was there for him to help him in any way he could, as a mentor, teacher, or just someone to talk to.
That was pretty darn cool coming from a guy who is a week away from starting a demanding football season with a high school team ranked number one in the nation. Not only that he called from LA where he was enjoying a nice night out with his lovely wife. Coach is a reader and is probably embarrassed by these comments, but you made our night coach. Go Eagles.
Before I sign off, let's see how we are doing in the market.
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