Monday, December 26, 2016

Eight to Eight

I wasn't feeling so well this morning.  I was pretty nervous about that because Cassie and I had a long day ahead of us.  Luckily, by the time we had left my stomach had calmed down.  Cassie and I left around 8:00 this morning and drove to Utah.  We would have liked to have left earlier, but we were waiting for the sun to rise.  The roads were not the best.  Not super horrible, but not wonderful.  After we were on the freeway for awhile it wasn't too bad, but it is about an hour and a half to the freeway.  Sherry met us at my house around 1:00.  Sherry got there a few minutes before we did.  There was so much snow!  I couldn't make it up the driveway.  Poor Sherry was wearing sandals. Sherry met us to do Collin's handprints.  (Collin was with us too, obviously.)  Collin was great on the ride down.  He did not cry at all. He also did not cry when Sherry was pushing on his hands and feet getting them into the clay.  He didn't even look distressed.  Wow! Cassie has some pictures of that on her camera.  If I get them, I will post them later.  I also have pictures I need to get my family member that were taken six months or so ago.  Hopefully Cassie is more on top of things than I am!

I brought some garbage and laundry home.  I unloaded those things and picked up several things we wished we had.  There were a lot of neighbor treats on our porch, so I loaded those up too.  I think we were at my house a total of thirty minutes.  Maybe forty five.  We left for the long ride back.  I stopped at Harmons to pick up more sleds.  They were out.  The Harmons sleds were the best and most durable sleds of this trip.  I wish I had bought more than two!  I also grabbed some gatorade for the ride back.  I was worried I was getting dehydrated.  The gatorade helped a lot.  I sat in the car while Cassie grabbed some things and then we headed to Rod Works.  I wanted to get more wall hanging things for her handprints.  The parking lot was a nightmare!  I had to go around an accident to get out of it.  Plus, Rod Works didn't have the piece we were looking for.  As I was pulling out it dawned on Cassie that we didn't stop at the bank.  We were planning on doing that after handprints, but I went down a different road to get to the correct stores.  Cassie had mentioned several times on the way down how it would be nice to get those checks in the bank.  I was willing to go back, but Cassie didn't want to.  We were both anxious to get back on the road.  I was not looking forward to that last part of the drive at night.

Cassie and I had a great time talking while we were driving.  The roads were great and everything was working perfect.  Until Tremonton. That is when I ran out of gas.  I felt the car pull weird and looked down.  That is the first time I noticed we were on empty.  I managed to make it to the side of the freeway.  I saw we were one mile from an exit and I was willing the car to make it there, but no luck.  I don't know why it didn't cross my mind to get gas.  Especially when I was sitting in the car with Collin while Cassie was in Harmons.  There is a gas station in the parking lot!  I don't like where the gas gauge is on the van.  My left hand covers it and I have to go out of my way to see how much gas I have.  Well.  There was nothing to do but get out and walk.  Cassie and I were laughing so hard. I have only ran out of gas one other time.  That was when I was driving to Wyoming with Sam and Maysen.  Sam flagged down a truck then.  No way was I doing that!  I figured we were just over a mile from a gas station.  This could be my exercise for the day.  Cassie took a picture of me walking away.  I'm the little dot.
I had walked quite away when I noticed a truck backing up.  He had his window down and I walked up to it and said, "Hi, I ran out of gas."  He asked if I would like a ride.  I said, "That depends.  Are you a scary guy?"  He laughed.  I noticed a loaf of Kneaders bread on the front seat and said, "You can't be a scary guy if you have Kneaders bread."  So, I hopped in the car hoping for the best.  I asked the guy his name, but now that I'm typing everything I can't remember it.  We will call him Hero.  Hero took me to the gas station and I bought a gas can and filled it up.  As I was filling up the can I told Hero that my sister-in-law and her baby was in the car.  He said, "Oh @$%&*!  We need to get you out of here!"  I told him I could walk back but he said, "There is no way I'm letting a little thing like you walk back on that busy road.  It will be dark soon."  Okay.  We drove away from the station and Hero said, "I just need to warn you.  I'm going to go through Bear River City to get to the freeway from another direction.  I'm not taking you somewhere else."  I'm glad he mentioned it because I might have gotten a little nervous going through all these back roads with no freeway in site for five minutes.  Hero said that because of cell phones you don't see people walking on the side of the road that much anymore.  What stood out to him was I wasn't talking on a cell phone.  I told him everyone I could call was really far away, so there was no point in making other people worried.  Once Hero and I got back to the van he filled up my tank.  I stood by the corner of the van with his flashlight waiving it back and forth so other cars would see us more easily.  Most of the cars noticed us and got in the other lane.  I thanked Hero and told him that my birthday is tomorrow and he just gave me the best present I could have.  The car started up and Cassie and I headed to the gas station.  I kept telling myself, "Don't forget to stop at the gas station, you do not have a full tank of gas!"  Hero followed us there.  He hopped out of his truck and brought me his Kneaders bread.  I told him he helped us enough.  He said he was a bachelor and it would go to waste.  Wow. Talk about a nice guy. Cassie and I got back on the road one hour later. Yikes.

I was worried that we would have awful roads now that we were even more behind schedule.  We didn't.  The roads were great all the way to the cabin.  They were much better than when we left.  The only thing that was bad was the fog.  As soon as we crossed the Utah/Idaho border fog was everywhere!  It didn't last too long though.  When I was around Swan Valley I drove into a patch of fog that was so thick I couldn't see beyond the hood of my van.  That was scary!  Luckily that didn't last too long.  We arrived back at the cabin at 8:00.  Yay!  Left at eight, back at eight.  Long day, but I'm really happy we were able to get Collin's handprints done.  My dad was here when we got back.  Glad he didn't fall asleep when he was driving up here.  I get nervous when he drives by himself.  I played two Dominion games before bed.  I won them both, I'm pretty sure.  I was completely exhausted when I crawled into bed.  So happy to be back safe and sound!

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