What a week!

The week began with me, Mindy and her brother Jeff driving from Provo to Phoenix. We were driving the new (to us) truck and pulling a 20' trailer with only ~ 2000 pounds of lumber and some stuff for a woman in Phoenix from her mom in Utah. Thank you KSL.com. It was an uneventful drive with some heavy rain in the middle. Our friends Jim & Becky let us stay at their house. On Monday I picked up a couple of day laborers (don't knock it 'till you try it) and Jim and I, and Julio and Antonio got the truck and trailer loaded in four hours. Tuesday morning we left at about 5. I headed toward Payson and Holbrook and Mindy and Jeff back toward Utah. I made it to just east of Denver the first night. It was a long day, with an amazing electrical storm in the evening. I even pulled over and slept for a while in the cab of the truck. Mindy and Jeff made it home that night. The next day I left at 5:30am and drove to Iowa City and got to Maryanne & Jared's about 9pm. I stayed in Iowa City on Thursday. We went to the library and I spent a lot of time working on getting last minute details wrapped up. I left Maryanne & Jared's at about 10:30 Friday. Things were going well until I pulled into a BP station and put 8 gallons of gasoline into a diesel truck before realizing that the green pump handle was not diesel as it is everywhere else, but some BP concoction. The guys said to finish filling the tank with diesel and put in an additive. That worked great and I drove to Cleveland to my uncle's house. This morning I left Cleveland at about 7 and made great time until milepost 53 in Pennsylvania. State College is exit 161, so I was pretty close. At that point the truck died.

A serive guy came out, looked at it and left, came back, looked and worked some more, and finally came back with the big tow truck. Budget told me I was getting towed to State College, the driver said Budget had not talked to him about that and that he had a wedding this afternoon and could pull the truck in tomorrow (Sunday) morning.

During the three hours I spent most of my time sitting on the embankment between the offramp and the travel lanes wondering what was over the crest of the hill and behind the trees that were everywhere around me. There is no shortage of green here. I saw more riding mowers on trailers and in the back of trucks during that three hours than I have ever seen in one day before. It is beautiful country and it was a lovely day to be outside. I could have done without being outside staring at a non-functioning moving truck full of 80% of my family's earthly belongings, but so be it, and at least it wasn't burning or on its side (like my vehicle was last time I had to call a tow truck 6-1/2 years ago). When we got on our way, I found out what was on the other side of the hill, more hills and beautiful tree-covered valleys with clear streams in the middle.

Three hours after the truck's death, they towed me to their garage where they worked on it for another hour or so before they gave me the keys to their parts truck (a 1993 Chevy S-10 with 135,000 miles on the odometer with the appearance of having gone at least four times that far). I must get photos of this truck. Words cannot describe it. Joe Dirt would love it and it is, quite simply, a piece of art. It is an incredible conversation-starter.

I drove it to State College where Dad and David had been hanging out all day. We put my old mission bike in the storage shed and then did some more driving around. A couple in the ward is letting me stay in their basement - I only really realized mid-day that I had no place to stay tonight. What a huge relief that is. The truck will get towed into town tomorrow and we get to empty it after church.

Meanwhile Mindy is back in Utah with the boys and I have gotten some really sweet phone calls from them. Today Parker said "I miss you. I love you" and the other day Cole told Mindy that "it is time for daddy to come home". I'm glad they didn't have to be along for the fun of today, but Cole would have loved the big tow truck.