The Journey, Part IV

Well, I thought that driving through Utah was bad. Nevada is bad in it's own unique way. After a few hours, I took over for the last leg of the day. Our goal was to reach Winnemucca. Joel and Kezia had to use the bathroom, in the middle of nowhere, so we stopped along an exit. I could never figure out why they would bother building an exit from the interstate to a place that had nothing. No houses, no gas station, maybe an abandoned shed with an old mattress propped up against it. We had supper in Battle Mountain at the McDonald's. It seemed really isolated in that little town. Carl ordered and was amazed at two things: 1) how long it took them to get our food ready and 2) that the other guy ordering couldn't speak English, only Spanish. The Hispanic girls at the counter just responded to him with louder English.

Nevada has it's unique qualities, Carl pointed out. There are tons of rolling hills, and lots of sagebrush. To me it felt like we were driving along the Easterville highway up to Thompson, Manitoba. There were very few cars on the highway, hardly any small towns, no farms along the way. It felt way too wide open and lonely. But we did end up passing one of our first vehicles!! That was very thrilling for me; the most excitement all day. It was a middle aged lady who obviously had very poor night vision.

That night we stayed in Winnemucca. We arrived quite late and unfortunately all the hotels with pools were full, except for Shady Courts. The motel was off the beaten track and boy it was shady in more ways than one. Our motel room was right in the back and as soon as I walked in I knew I had seen this place before. It could have been the set for last week's CSI. But it was clean and they had an "indoor" pool; a makeshift structure overtop an outdoor pool . That night I didn't sleep very well. The room made me nervous, so I couldn't sleep with my back towards the door. But if I turned over, then the kids' night light shone brightly into my eyes. And of course, this night Asha slept soundly.

The Journey, Part III

On Thursday morning we arose and headed off by 8:30 a.m. I was especially excited about today, since we were going to stop in Salt Lake City, Utah to have a look at the Mormon Temple. By 11:00, we stopped to get a map of the city and headed down Sorth Temple road. Unfortunately, there was a lot of construction, so we weren't able to find a place to park. Our only option was for Carl to park in a tour bus spot while I jumped out to take a quick picture. I was amazed at all the grandeur of the buildings and grounds, and all the men walking around with white short sleeved shirts and ties. I tried not to look too keen or interested, lest someone try and convert me. I got a quick picture of the temple as well as a number of bridal couples posing in front. I also noticed a Usana convention taking place at the Salt Palace. Most of those people weren't wearing white short sleeved shirts and ties.

Afterwards we stopped for lunch at yet another fastfood restaurant and had burgers and chicken, again. Carl was thrilled to use his Spanish to help a lady at the gas station purchase a money order. Then it was my turn to drive. Carl had driven through the mountains of Montana and Idaho and I got the wasteland of Utah...

Oh it was awful driving from Salt Lake to the Nevada border. Of course after lunch, Carl and all three kids fell asleep. All you could see for miles was flat, flat, flat. The road didn't curve, at all. It was worse than Saskatchewan. I was so bored that I got out my nail file and filed my nails while I drove. As soon as we hit the Nevada border, I let Carl drive for a bit. Boy it was hot, probably 40 degrees and dry with not a cloud in the sky or a tree for shade.

The Journey, Part II

On Tuesday we looked at the map and figured out how long it was going to take us to get to Fresno. We knew that our travel days would have to be longer if we were to make it in time for the 27th. Our trailer unfortunately had a weird wobble once we reached 101 km/h, so we couldn't go very fast. I was embarrassed as even old men driving their campers flew past us on the interstate.

Our goal for the day was to reach Billings, Montana. The last two hours were a bit trying as Asha was definitely done in her car seat and Joel and Kezia started to get really silly. The last 15 miles were the longest miles of the day. I kept muttering, "Only 15 miles, 15 minutes....only 14 miles, 14 minutes... We got to a very nice Comfort Inn and though it had a pool, we decided to skip swimming, have supper and head straight to bed. Well, straight to bed wasn't really straight to bed in the kids' minds. Maybe we should have hit the water to burn off some of the sillies.

The third day, Wednesday was a better travel day. We debated whether to drive through Yellowstone National Park, but decided that pulling a trailer through mountains probably wasn't a smart idea. So we instead stopped in Bozeman at the travel station to ask which highway to take. Apparently not a lot of people stop and talk to the lady at the travel desk. She was very chatty and wanted to share all of her travel experiences with us. Well, we finally got out of there and headed down the 187.

Around 2:00 we decided to stop in Norris, Montana for lunch. Now Norris is a very small town, smaller than Vita, Manitoba with what appeared to be only one restaurant. We walked into a dimly lit room with tacky Mexican garb strewn along the walls. A nice waitress seated us and then wandered around the large room, since we were the only customers. The food was okay; I could only have a half Chimmi because they didn't have enough beef, "Is that okay, sweetie?". After lunch, the kids picked a few flowers while I changed Asha's diaper and we headed off.

That night we stayed in Pocatello, Idaho at a mediocre Super 8. Unfortunately it didn't have a pool, and the kids were pretty upset about that. Well, actually only Joel was, Kezia was distracted by the plastic chair in the bathroom. We walked to a Jack in the Box, chatted with some Americans, and then hiked it to the park up the road. That night Joel and Kezia slept pretty well. Asha on the other hand grunted and thrashed all night.

The Journey, Part I

On Monday the 20th of August, we set out from Steinbach on our long journey to Fresno. I think at that moment as we pulled away, we realized that our lives were changing in a big way. We had been too busy having a baby, packing our house, changing our address, driving to Beausejour for our Autopac appointment, to fully come to terms with how life was going to be different.

Someone told me that at the border they may look through our entire trailer and if there was something suspicious, like flour that really could be cocaine!!!, we could be held up for hours. So of course I didn't take any of my flour along with us to help make things smoother at the border. Well, prayers were answered because they didn't even look in our trailer and it took under an hour for us to have our papers processed. But now what was I to do? I didn't have any Canadian flour! Arg.


That first day was pretty uneventful. We drove through North Dakota and our kids started into their candy stash and activities. We were a bit shocked at the amount of candy they were given by a few helpful aunties and so we ended up rationing the loot bags. I think it was some ploy of these aunties to get our kids so sugared up that they would drive us crazy and we'd end up sending them right back home. Those sweet aunties; it's because they love to spoil our kids.


So that night we spent the night at a lovely Comfort Inn in Jamestown, North Dakota. Joel and Kezia and Carl enjoyed the pool and Asha and I had a nice little cuddle. Poor Asha, she had been held for her entire short life and now she was strapped into a car seat without any human contact. For the most part, the first day was a pretty decent day.

Packing up and Saying Bye

Friday August 17 was the big moving day. We had so many people come and help us move everything out of the house. Some of our stuff went to Wendell and Shana's, some went to Ryan and Dawn's, some went to MCC, and a bit of it went into a U-haul trailer bound for Fresno. It was a bit of a whirlwind as we watched everything from the last 6 years get packed into boxes and emptied out of our home. And so that night we made our way with our trailer to Judy's for the night. It was a bit surreal and emotional...

The weekend was spent saying our last goodbyes. It was more emotional with people from church because we truly were saying bye to a time and place that can never be brought back. Even if we were to go back to Braeside, it would be different. That was hard. So it was quite fitting that we left Winnipeg from the church....

On Sunday afternoon we headed to Steinbach to spend with family. In the morning we awoke and Carl's parents made a great breakfast. We dawdled at the table, trying to avoid the inevitable departure. But we had to get going....we had 2000 miles to go. So we took some pictures, shed some tears, had prayer together and headed off.