Friday April 26, 2024
Dear Diary,
I woke up at 4:30 am. I thought about sleeping some more but I was already thinking and knew it would be better to just get up and get moving. I posted my blog and got up. I woke Angel up and while she was waking up, I took our ice packs out of the freezer and our food out of the fridge and placed it in the coolers. Grapes, homemade dog food, coconut water, olipops, kombucha, raspberries, strawberries, leftover smoothie, homemade almond milk and fresh made grape juice. I appreciated how colorful it all was and it fit perfectly. Angel and I got dressed and packed our suitcases. I went out to the lobby and brought the hotel luggage cart into our room. I loaded our suitcases and coolers onto it. We checked the room to make sure we didn’t leave anything, making sure to get our phone chargers and charging cords. Angel helped roll the cart out to the lobby. I moved my truck near the door and we loaded everything into the back of it.
At 5:30 am we were on the road headed to Salt Lake City. I will stay in Salt Lake City visiting my boys, daughter-in-loves and grandkids until Sunday. Sunday morning I will drive 4 1/2 hours to Boise, Idaho. I will visit my mom and nephew that afternoon. Sunday evening I will drive 2 more hours to my sisters in Council, Idaho. Her surgery is today and she is staying one night at the hospital. Saturday morning her boyfriend will take her home from the hospital. He is staying with her until Sunday. Then I will take over.
The moon was still up and shining bright when we headed out. It was just short of being a full moon. The full moon was 3 days ago. I thought Angel would go to sleep but she was wide awake. I called Christopher and we talked for a few minutes before losing service. I put on an audiobook I had downloaded called Away In The Wilderness by R.M. Ballantyne. I listened to it for a half hour but didn’t like it so I turned on another audiobook I had downloaded called Ticonderoga: The Story of Early Frontier Life in The Mohawk Valley. I wasn’t getting into to that one either.
Little Bit started nudging my arm. I asked him what he wanted. He usually doesn’t act like that. Suddenly I realized I hadn’t fed him breakfast. I told him I would feed him next time we stopped Angel said she was hungry too so the next town we came to we found a restaurant. It was a very small town and there was only one tiny restaurant. We went inside and sat down. I asked Angel what she wanted and she said pancakes. I looked at the menu and there were no pancakes. I asked her if she wanted hash browns, she didn’t. I asked her if she wanted a taco, she didn’t. I said we would have to go to another restaurant then and it might be awhile before we get to the next town. Angel was fine with that. I went and told the waitress we were going to go because we were in search of pancakes. She said they could make pancakes even though they weren’t on the menu. Wonderful! Problem solved and now we didn’t have to find another restaurant.
While waiting for Angels food, I went out to the truck and fed Little Bit his food. I was parked right outside the restaurant window that Angel was sitting at so I could see her and she could see me. Bits was happy to finally get fed but even though he got fed later than usual he ate slowly and politely like he usually does. I’ve never had a dog before that was such a polite eater. When he finished eating, I walked him around to go to the bathroom. By the time I went back into the restaurant, Angel was halfway done with her pancakes. I watched her eat and downloaded another book onto my phone.
Other than us, there were only 4 other people in the restaurant. The 4 other people were men and looked to be old farmers. I listened in on their conversation. They were talking about how strong, hot and dry the wind had been lately. It reminded me of Christopher. He loves to talk about the weather, he could talk about the weather all day every day. Angel finished eating and I gave the waitress a big tip for accommodating us.
We headed out and started listening to the new audiobook I had downloaded and this one I liked right away. It is a memoir by Mary Higgins Clark called Kitchen Privileges: Memoirs of a Bronx Girlhood. I really enjoyed it. I drove for another couple of hours and began to feel tired. I pulled over in a dirt area in the middle of nowhere and told Angel I was going to sleep for a few minutes. I locked the doors and leaned my seat back. I fell asleep for 20 minutes and woke up feeling completely refreshed. I let Bits out to use the bathroom and started driving again. It’s amazing what a 20 minute nap can do.
The scenery was beautiful on the drive. There were colorful plateaus and various mountains. Rock pillars dotted the land, some were wide and some were small. At one point there were huge mounds of rocks covered in smaller stones that looked like big cow patties. I told Angel they looked like big dinosaur poops. Angel took all kinds of pictures with her phone but I didn’t get any because I was driving. I did stop at the state lines and the continental divide to take pictures of the signs.
About halfway through New Mexico, I stopped at a big store called Flying C Ranch. There were all kinds of billboards advertising it and I thought it would be fun to stop and check it out. It sold t-shirts and blankets and Native American souvenirs. I bought a t-shirt for me and a Native American doll for Angel that she picked out.
It was sunny and windy most of the drive. When we got into Colorado we drove into a big rain storm. The clouds were so dark it looked like it was nighttime. The rain was pouring down but not so much that I couldn’t drive it in. Not like a Texas rain or what I call a Costa Rica rain. One time when I was in Costa Rica, it rained so hard it was like looking at a solid wall. To this day I’ve never seen rain like I did that time in Costa Rica. Texas has some pretty good rains though, rains that come down so hard you have to pull over because driving is impossible.
We didn’t stop to eat again after breakfast. Angel snacked on things and I had my leftover smoothie and nuts that I ate on the road. When we’d stop for gas, we’d use the bathroom and we’d take Little Bit on a walk to the nearest patch of grass so he could go to the bathroom. Twice I missed exits because I wasn’t paying attention to the gps. One of them, I had to go 10 miles to get to the next exit and back to get to where I supposed to be going.
I decided I wasn’t going to go all the way to Salt Lake City that day. I feel like I could have made it but with all the stops we made, we wouldn’t get there until 9 pm. Once we crossed the Utah border, we had been on the road 11 hours. It was 4:30 pm and we had started out at 5:30 am. I stopped at the first town we came to which was Monticello and got us a motel room. We got the last room available. They said there was an event going on in Moab and even though Moab was an hour away, the overflow trickled in when Moab’s hotels filled up. I had almost driven to Moab and was going to stop there. I’m glad I didn’t, because there would not have been any rooms available.
Angel wanted to go to the park but there was an icy cold strong wind blowing and there was no way I was going to the park. I brought all of our stuff into the motel room and we got settled in. I took everything out of the coolers and put it in the fridge and put the ice packs in the freezer. Then I called Christopher. We talked for quite a while until Angel said she was hungry. There was a Mexican restaurant next door and we walked over to it. It was a really fancy restaurant which I hadn’t expected but I was glad because they had good salads. Mexican restaurants aren’t known for having good salads but the fancy ones usually do. We ate and shared what we were grateful for. When we finished eating, we walked back to our motel room. We took a bath and got into bed early. I called Christopher again and we talked until we lost connection. Angel played on her phone and I wrote my blog. My 23 year old daughter called and talked to Angel for quite a while. I wrote my blog some more and Angel played on her phone. I finished writing at 9:30 pm. Angel had fallen asleep a half hour ago. I turned off my phone and fell asleep right away.
Thank you for reading my blog and being a part of my life. I dearly appreciate you.
Love,
Victoria
P.S. This blog post was inspired by the Holy Spirit.