Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Trip to Utah - March 2008


Wow, I really haven't written in a while! It's mostly due to my having to make this blog "private"; somehow I'm less-motivated to write when I know my audience is limited and I'm not addressing "the world." Anyway, I wanted to write about my trip to Utah with my mother over the long "weekend" of March 6-9, 2008. The trip had multiple purposes, the first of which was simply to fulfill my intense desire to get out of town and out on the road somewhere. The second was to see my daughter Devery H_____ and her husband Easton, who will still be attending BYU in Provo for some time yet. The third was to spend an extended amount of time with my mother. And the fourth was to enable my mother to see her other four sons (Roger, Robin, Jeff, and Kelly), all of whom live and/or work in Utah Valley. (Dorine and I would almost certainly have gone to Utah during the Albuquerque Public Schools' spring break [March 24-28, 2008] -- as we have done for each of the last three years -- except that our daughter Kristy F_____ is about to give birth to twin girls and Dorine needs to be at hand when that happens.)

Mom and I traveled in my Toyota Tacoma, which unfortunately is the most roadworthy vehicle Dorine and I own at present. We left town on Thursday the 6th before 8:00 am and stopped off in Farmington to visit with Mom's brother Wayne before heading on; we took the "standard" route through Shiprock, Cortez, Monticello, Moab, and Price. Weather is always a concern this time of year, but it stayed nice for the entire trip. We got to Provo too late to go see Devery and Easton's co-ed intramural soccer game, but we did take them out for pizza after we checked into our hotel, the Cottontree Inn on University Parkway by the Provo River. (The Cottontree Inn is a decent hotel with a nice continental breakfast and an indoor pool and spa.)

On Friday morning, the 7th, Mom and I drove up to DME Health Services, my brother Jeff's home medical supply company that he runs in Pleasant Grove with my other brothers Roger and Robin. We visited with them for a while before going with Roger on a few of his "rounds." Later, Mom and I went back to the hotel, where I "checked out" a pass to Gold's Gym in Orem and went and ran three miles on a treadmill -- a heck of a lot nicer machine than I'm accustomed to using at Defined Fitness in Albuquerque! -- before coming back to the hotel for a short swim. Mom and I then drove down to Devery and Easton's apartment in south Provo, where they cooked dinner for us. (I was pleased to find that their apartment -- see the bottom photo above -- is actually fairly decent as BYU "married" housing goes.) Finally, Mom, Devery, and I drove up to Robin and his wife Karolyn's house in Pleasant Grove to see their daughter Meredith and her six-month-old twins, Aidan and Alexander (see top photo above).

On Saturday, the 8th, Mom and I went up with Roger to the big Cabela's store in Lehi to shop for a while. I wanted to buy something for Mike Prairie, who, in addition to being a great guy, is the senior manager at Sandia National Labs to whose group I provide financial and admin support. (Mike, who is currently undergoing chemotherapy for a brain tumor, is a big-time hunter and outdoorsman, and from previous conversations I knew that he liked to shop at Cabela's; I ended up getting him a ballcap and a fleece-lined jacket, which he seemed very pleased with when I gave them to him this week.) Later, Mom and I went with Roger to his home in Pleasant Grove, where we visited with him and his wife Lynnea for a few hours; Roger and I watched old rock 'n' roll video clips on Youtube before all of us watched The R.M. on DVD. Still later, Devery and Easton came to the hotel for a swim before we piled into Devery's car to drive up to Jeff and his wife Marlyn's house in North Salt Lake for an extended-family get-together, where we finally got to see my brother Kelly and his wife Kit, in addition to various nieces and nephews and their families.

We lost an hour on Saturday night due to the beginning of Daylight Saving Time, so Mom and I got away fairly late on Sunday morning to come back to Albuquerque. However, aside from my cruise control's turning itself off periodically (it would only come back on when I restarted the engine) and some yokel's almost pulling out in front of me on U.S. 491 east of Monticello (which caused me to brake hard and dump my drink all over the floor of my truck), the trip passed without incident. (On the return trip, we took the "scenic" route through Mancos, Hesperus, and La Plata, bypassing Shiprock and the Navajo reservation.) I enjoyed having a chance to talk to my mother for a few hours coming and going, so the trip filled all of the above-referenced purposes, although I'm still going to miss going up during spring break. (Hopefully I'll have news to tell about Kristy's babies here in a week or so.)