On the Road Again….

Y’all….I cannot tell you how much time I have spent in a car/airplane this summer – mostly car. But Lily needed to get to Omaha to pick up her car and stuff for college….so Rich, Tallinn, Lily, and I jumped in the truck to make the trek to Omaha….then to Kansas City. What’s another 45 hours of driving when you have already logged 100 hours in the car? I complain because it is A LOT…but in the same breath, I am thankful because I am well enough to be able to travel and my treatment allows me the flexibility to do so. This was a bittersweet trip….our last chickadee was leaving the nest. I am so proud of the young lady Lily has become and it is time for her to strike out on her own and spread her wings. So she left our new place in Montana….AGAIN…to leave huckleberries, jerky, mountains, and wildlife, to head back to Omaha. Montana is such a large state, that the first 11 hours of driving is in Montana alone, as we are living in the northwestern corner and need to get to the southeast corner to get to Wyoming…then South Dakota and finally Nebraska. We stopped briefly in the badlands…and at Wall Drug. Tallinn didn’t freak out over the dinosaur, which was surprising. The acres and acres of haybales were in Montana. We must have seen tens of thousands of them.

We had a small….okay maybe major hiccup along the way to Omaha. Lily had to fill out a lot of online information for Kansas City Art Institute. One of the questions was if she had ever been in Asia for more than 2 months. Well, she was born in China and then lived in Japan. So she answered yes. Granted…this was over 16 1/2 years ago (they didn’t ask that question). She got a text on a Monday while we were driving across Montana with very little cell service, saying she couldn’t move into the dorms on Thursday without a TB test, because she was considered high risk. Lily was vaccinated as an infant in China for TB. It is a live vaccine, so she cannot have a TB skin test like most Americans. She would have a violent reaction to it. So she needed to have a chest x-ray to prove she didn’t have TB. We have moved from Omaha to Montana. We changed our insurance….she no longer had a doctor in Omaha. It was crazy. I was driving and Rich was making calls to our insurance and then to clinics in the Omaha area that had an available appointment on a Wednesday…the only full day we would be in town. Do you know what a tall order that was? We were outside of cell service 90% of the time, so we would find a random spot with service and pull over on the side of the road to make phone calls. We ended up with an appointment at a clinic in Omaha at 0745 Wednesday morning. We went thinking we would only get a doctor’s order or referral for an x-ray and then try to find a place for that…but God was looking out for us. They had an x-ray there and by luck had a radiology tech there that morning. It was all done in the morning and we picked up a letter of clearance from the doctor that afternoon. Lily wanted to go to Dave and Buster’s – a dinner and arcade place, to cash in some of her points she accumulated over our years in Omaha. She bought a radio-controlled helicopter, which she had fun flying in our empty house in Omaha. Our close family friend, Emily Ryan, spent a lot of that day with us. She brought a SPREAD for lunch for us and two pans of scotcheroos – one for the family and one for Lily to take to the dorms to “make friends”. (it worked – it was a hit with her roommate and suitemates). I had to take a photo of the Husker flags at the grocery store….sports are not like this where we live now. I will be following the Huskers from here though!

We left Thursday morning, August 17th, to take Lily to Kansas City. Our house was put on the market the next day. No nibbles yet, but we hope someone will fall in love with it. So not only was the 17th the day we became empty-nesters, but it was also our 32nd wedding anniversary. It was awfully hot that day and we were lucky. First kid of three and we finally got a first floor assignment. Her roommate and best friend from high school, Sam, was already moved in and the adults with her helped schlep in Lily’s belongings as one of us had to be in the shade with Tallinn most of the time. After all her belongings were placed in her room, and her bed was lofted, we took her and went to see Michelle. Michelle had been out-of-state in training for nearly 2 months and had just returned home the day prior. We went out to eat and it was great to all be together. We rushed Lily back to the dorm for a residents meeting that evening and started on our way home. The dorms were all decorated in Pokémon themes and I know both of Lily’s brothers would have approved. By the way, Tim was travelling at this time as well…he got to spend 10 days touring Italy with the UC San Diego women’s basketball team. He just returned last night. He had the same kind of heat the midwest has been having….but with no A/C and no ice.

We left that night and drove through part of Kanas before stopping for the night. We then drove the next day along I-70 until we were in Colorado. It has almost been 18 months since Joe died in a snowstorm in a car accident in Colorado. We had never been to the crash site. We don’t know when we’ll be that way again, so took this time to go and just be there for a little bit. It was 100 degrees…but we were there about an hour, cleaning up the area and adding a few things to the site that the OFD firemen had so graciously placed beforehand. The first photo is how we found his site…the next photo is how we left it. The third photo was 15 minutes after we left…and I believe Joe showing us he was there with us. It was very very hard, but now the tears of Joe’s parents are mingled in the dirt with his blood. We can’t thank James Davis enough for helping to make this a more permanent memorial for Joe. He went there on the one year anniversary of his death and helped spruce it up a bit. I told Rich that I heard Joe in my head the whole time we were driving there telling me that he wasn’t there. I know that…he lives on in all of the hearts of those who loved him. It was something as his parents we needed to do though.

We stayed the night in Fort Collins, our first official time camping in the trailer at a campsite. We left early the next morning and drove to Jackson, Wyoming, where we stayed for three nights. We love the Grand Tetons National Park. We had never been there in peak tourist season though. The weather the first day was a steady rain all day. The mountains were socked in. We still managed to hike about 10 miles that day in the rain. Did you know that after several hours in the rain, raincoats are no longer impermeable to water? We were both soaked to the skin that night. The next day went horseback riding for a couple of hours in the mountains and the forest. Rich went white water rafting in the afternoon and I went to the park to try to take some photos. The clouds weren’t so low that day. You could see the mountains, but it was still pretty storming, which was a cool look. These are my cell phone photos. I hope the good camera photos will be impressive. I always going to Mormon row and taking photos of the Moulton Barn…the most photographed barn in America.

We drove through the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone to head north to Montana. We FINALLY got home Tuesday night close to midnight. We have been unpacking, resettling in, and enjoying the quiet and cool temps here. This was our view on the walk to the mailbox this week. Ready for visitors!