North Carolina Trip - Day 11

I know I haven't been the best about blogging about this trip, but I'll try to give at least most of the highlights of the last week.  They aren't quite as exciting as getting run off the road, but I think it's still pretty fun! 

When we first got to NC, we all pretty much just laid around and slept, David more than the rest of us.  I don't know why, but he took about a 3 hour nap every day for about 5 days.  I got pretty sick of that so unless I was asleep too, I made him come do stuff with me.  David finally got to play some basketball with some friends last week.  He always tries to get people to play with him in Rexburg but it usually doesn't work out.  I think he really liked being able to do that.  I think he's going to try and do that again tonight and tomorrow as well. 

David's parents have been very nice to us.  We are a little short on money because we had to pay for a tow, a hotel, and David's brother because his brother "forgot" his wallet in SLC and so we've had to pay for a lot of his stuff as well.  They paid for us to go to a movie as well as go to a nice Southern restaurant called Smithfields.  David took me to Smithfields the first time I came over here so it was a nice way to reminice.  They have some pulled pork there with the vinegar based BBQ sauce, very different from the honey based BBQ sauce you find in the West.  I think I'm still partial to the honey based stuff, but it's fun to try other stuff! 

For Christmas, 2 of David's sisters came to his parents house and we all got to spend some time together.  I got to talk to Tracy and see how much she loves to tease David (which I think is healthy for that brother-sister relationship!) but David managed to give it back to her every once in awhile so it was good.  I got to make many batches of cookies with Tracy's daughter, Chloe.  She liked the sugar cookies and being able to cut out different shapes.  Her favorite shapes was a foot and the letter "x".  I tried to get her to do Christmas shapes, but she stuck with those.  It made me laugh. 

On Christmas day, we got woken up at about 7 by the little kids.  David and I were pretty groggy because we stayed up till 2 the night before watching A Christmas Story on our laptop.  David's family has a tradition that everyone has to line up on the stairs and get their picture taken before you can open presents.  This was pretty different for me because David's parents were both awake and downstairs before everyone else.  I'm used to my family where we all have to bug Dad over and over and over before he tells us to open grandma's present and go watch it and then he'll get up.  My grandma usually sent us a movie or something like that so it bought him some more sleeping time.  Anyways, we took a picture up on their catwalk (I'm sure David and I looked BEAUTIFUL!!!  We were even wearing our matching Mitchell bowling team shirts!) and then we went down to the couch to get more pictures taken with David's sister Joy.  She had her foot operated on and has pretty much been crippled the whole time we've been here.  So after all the pictures, we finally got to open the presents.  Chloe would scream and get VERY excited pretty much after every present she opened, so I guess she was not disappointed with her Christmas.  David's mom made all of us stockings with our names embrodered on it so that if we ever came for Christmas again we would have stockings for Christmas.  His parents worked very hard to make sure Christmas was exciting and fun for everyone.

The rest of the day went about like you would think Christmas would go. After a nice nap, we had Sacrament Meeting at 3 (a little late for my taste, but that's what they were assigned) and David got to do a wonderful musical number that he played on a cello he borrowed from a lady in his parents ward.  The people he borrowed the cello from were so paranoid about him borrowing it that as soon as the meeting ended and David was packing it up, the husband was right there ready to take it back.  It made me laugh, but it was really fun.  When we got back to the house, David's other sister Mindi was there with her family.  It was great to finally meet all these sisters that I keep hearing about!  We had lots of laughs and a wonderful dinner together to end the day.

The next day we all went to Adventure Landing.  I went there with David when I came a couple years ago, and it was fun to return.  We all got to ride on their go-karts and race each other.  David's dad was very nice and paid for us to go.  They have 1 and 2 seater karts so the kids got to ride with the older people.  I have to say, I did pretty good with it for only having ridden something like that 1 other time in my life!  I wish we had more stuff like that in Idaho because it is a run thing to do if you have an hour or so to spare!    For the rest of the day and all this morning we've just been relaxing.  We went to Wal-Mart a few times (no week would be complete without a few trips to Wal-Mart!  That's what David and I sometimes do when we get bored) and exchanged a few things, but nothing else to exciting happened.  I tried to keep up with what was happening at home by texting my mom and brother, but I think that LISA and MAMA should write a blog post of their own to tell me all about it....(hint hint...)

David told me that he thinks this trip is too long.  I tend to agree.  We've been here a week and weren't planning on leaving till Friday night (not to drive all night Mom, just to drive to Tracy's a few hours away - don't worry) but David's been talking about leaving early.  I don't know if we'll do it.  Probably not because David's other siblings in Missouri area are having a big dinner on New Years that we want to go to.  I've learned, though, that there really is no place like home.  Our apartment isn't anything impressive or grand.  The 5 rooms that we spend our lives in aren't fancy, but I kind of miss them.  I'm really glad we came here and that I got to finally meet David's family after 8 months of marriage, but it will be good to go back.  That's about it.  Hopefully I'll have more later!

North Carolina Trip - Day 2

Day 2

We woke up and showered and ate at the hotel.  David’s uncle was coming from Salt Lake to take us from the hotel to Autozone and help us figure out what was wrong with the car.  We were all so grateful to him for doing that!  We got to our car and brought our battery inside to see if it was bad.  They said they had to charge it first before they could test it because it was only at about 60%.  While they were doing that, David’s uncle was cleaning off our battery cables because they were pretty corroded.  They brought the battery out, put it in, and we tried turning the car on with our fingers crossed.  It roared to life and we all started laughing!  I turned on everything I could like the heater, radio, lights, to make sure that the battery wouldn’t die again and the car stayed on!  They tested our starter, battery, and alternator and everything checked out.  It’s amazing what a little grime will do. 

Going through that whole thing made me realize that there are a lot of people in this world that will do what they can to help.  They don’t have to be LDS or have a clean mouth.  When we were thanking Anthony for helping us, he said he would hope that somebody would do the same for him or his daughters and just wanted to do a good deed.  We got a lot of help from people that normally don’t get the best rap, but I’m here to say that those people were some of the kindest, most helpful people I’ve met.   David said later that day that there must’ve been a reason for the car breaking down.  Maybe there was a big accident that would’ve happened had we kept driving.   My mom also said that maybe someone needed to talk to us for some reason.  I hope that we gave back a little of what was given to us, because we were given so much.

Well, we made it back on the road.  Most of the other people on the road were truckers; I guess they’re the only other ones that drive cross-country.  David drove first, and then it was my turn.  I do pretty well at driving, or at least staying awake.  My sister Lisa says she likes travelling with me because she can talk to me the whole way because I can’t fall asleep in cars very well.  When we switched drivers, David said to watch the trucks because they like to change lanes a lot.  I had noticed that while he was driving, so I knew what to expect.  While I was driving, David was asleep in the passenger seat and Brian was on his computer in the back.  I came up to 2 trucks that were in line with each other.  I could see the front truck was going a bit slower than the one behind it and I figured the back truck would want to pass it.  I stayed back for a minute to let the truck change lanes, but it never did.  I didn’t want to keep going that slow, so I decided to pass.  I was watching the truck’s blinker the entire time I was approaching it, because I had a feeling it was going to change lanes.  The blinker never went on, so I proceeded with passing both trucks.  All of a sudden, the back truck started coming into my lane.  No blinker or anything.  And he was coming over fast.  I slammed on the brakes, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop in time before we got squashed.  I did the only thing I could think of, I drove off the road into the median.  There was a slight hill going down into the median and I didn’t want to stop so I tried to make it back onto the road.  Looking back on it, I should’ve stopped in the median and got back on later, but I thought I was going to get stuck if I did stop.  Hindsight is 20/20 I guess.  Well, I managed to make it back on to the road, but I was at too sharp of an angle, so I corrected my angle, went a little too far, and almost over-corrected.  There was a big car accident involving some people in my high school while I was there where 2 girls died, all because the driver over-corrected.  That was all I could think about at that moment, so I stopped myself before doing anything stupid, and we made it back to the road, everything normal.  I was shaking so bad that I couldn’t push down the gas pedal, so I was glad I had cruise control.  David had somewhat of a rude awakening, so he was a little confused as to what happened, and all I could say was that the truck came over so fast, I had no warning.  I was a little shaken up, but everything turned out ok. 

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful.  We drove and drove until we hit Blue Springs, Missouri and crashed at David’s sister Marci’s house for the night.  We really appreciated her letting us stay there and letting us rest in a real bed!  Thank you Marci!  Having been in the car for so long made us all pretty drowsy, and I don’t think any of us had a problem falling asleep.

North Carolina Trip - Day 1

Day 1

Today started out very nice and exciting.  It was the Convocation ceremony where I would actually walk and get my diploma (cover).  I was so excited because that was what really made it real that I was graduating and I would have my bachelor’s degree.  David, my parents, Joni and Chade, and Lisa and Tyler were all there to support me.  I was really glad to see them all there and to have their support.  After the ceremony, we went over to the Snow building to take some pictures.  It was exciting for me to have those that could come be there.  After all that, we went back to our apartment, packed up the rest of our things, and headed out to NC.  I drove to Salt Lake while David tried to sleep. 

We stopped off at his Grandma’s house, picked up his brother, and then went to dinner with David’s old mission companion and his wife.  After dinner we started the long journey to the East.  Going through Wyoming was going pretty good, at first.  No car problems and we were all in good spirits.  David started getting a little tired and asked if I could drive for a while.  We were also almost out of gas so it was a good time to stop.  We pulled over at a truck stop in Fort Bridger Wyoming.  I went inside to go to the bathroom and when I came out David said “The gas pump won’t work and the car is dead.”  Oh fabulous, I thought.  I knew something bad was going to happen while we were driving simply because we had done everything we could to prevent it.  We got a jump from the lady at the pump next to us and the car started right up.  We found a pump and started gassing the car up.  We sat in the car trying to warm up when the car died again.  We decided to wait till the gas tank was full before getting another jump, but the pump was going sooooo slow.  After about 15 minutes of sitting in the car waiting for the tank to fill up, we looked at the gauge on the pump (it was only up to $35 at this point) when David asked “we didn’t use up that much gas, did we?  Is it overflowing?”  We were worried because it usually only takes $40 to fill our tank and that’s when it’s really empty.  I opened the door and sure enough, there was gas spilling all over the ground.  The automatic shut-off was broken.  David went inside to ask if we could get a little bit of a refund, but they said something about how since we paid with a card they couldn’t do anything.  Just our luck.

After that, we got another jump and managed to make it all the way across the parking lot before the car died again.  We figured it was either the battery or the alternator.  But we didn’t have a way to test either.  I went in to get the number for a tow truck when a Russian truck driver that was standing there started asking me what the problem was.  I tried to describe it the best I could and he asked if I’d done a bunch of tests to see if it was an alternator problem.  I said no and had no idea how to do anything he said, so he came out to the car and helped us out.  We got another jump and he ran his test.  He said it wasn’t the alternator.  That was good, but we didn’t have any way to replace our battery or even make sure it wasn’t the alternator.  About 10 minutes after we got the jump, our car died again.  The Russian truck driver helped us as much as he could for another 20 minutes and we even had one of the clerks out there trying to help us.  We tried everything we could, but the car wouldn’t start.  That began our other adventure.

We all went inside and decided we had to find a tow truck because we didn’t want to spend all night at the gas station.  We tried to call as many numbers as we could of different tow trucks, but apparently there are none that are running at 7pm in Ft. Bridger Wyoming.  The numbers we called were either out of order, busy, or no answer.  My dad had an idea that he told me later and that was to call 911 and they would be able to contact someone, so I’ll have to remember that for next time.  As we were sitting in the Burger King area of the truck stop, one of the girls that worked there asked me what the problem was.  I told her what was going on and she called over to her friend (I’m pretty sure she called him Scraps-hopefully a nickname) and asked him if he knew some tow trucks we could call.  He said he didn’t know and so she took me over to the diner that was in the truck stop as well and got me talking with one of the waitresses that worked there, and she gave me a couple numbers to try as well.  It surprised me how nice and friendly everyone was.  They were all doing their best to help us fix our car. 

After we had tried all the numbers we could, we sat down in despair.  The Russian truck driver came over and told us there was an area at the back of the truck stop where we could watch TV and wait until morning to find someone to help us.  We thanked him for all he’d done for us and headed back.  David and I started listening to our audio book on his computer when a guy came around the corner and said he had saved our day!  We were both confused because we didn’t know him at all, but he said he had heard us talking and he got ahold of a tow truck and it would be there in 45 minutes.  We were all so grateful to him for helping us out!  His name was Anthony and he was a truck driver that was on his 34 hour break.  He told us that truck drivers are on for 70 hours and then they are required to take a 34 hour break.  He said some trucks have something on them so that if you reach your 70 hours the truck will automatically turn off.  He was a VERY talkative.  I think he was getting a little lonely because he stayed to talk to us the whole time we were waiting for the tow truck.   Here are some of the things he talked about (I edited out all the swearing):  He has 3 kids that he has to pay child support for (I got the feeling it was with 3 different women too) and that in Ohio if you didn’t pay child support they throw you in jail which is totally whack because it’s hard enough to pay for your own stuff.  One time he was in Florida and he was with this guy who attacked an alligator.  He went to Canada for about 3 months and there were all these people selling weed and prostitutes all over, he managed to get a lot of day jobs to pay for stuff.  He traveled around the country because one time when he was high his friend told him that traveling is amazing because you get to see so much more stuff, and while you’re high everything is so amazing and such a great idea so he just got on a bus with nothing else and went across the country.  My favorite story was how he got put in jail.  He said he was in a bar and super drunk when some guy started giving him this bad look.  He asked him if he wanted to go outside to take care of things and so him, this guy, and the guys friends all went outside and they were all beating up on him.  He said it wasn’t a fair fight because it was 8 on 1 so he pulled out his knife and started stabbing people.  He said in California (where he was from) it would’ve counted as self-defense but since he was somewhere else he got 2 years in jail.  Luckily, when he was helping us he was 7 years sober.  When he found out that we were Mormon, he said his mom was too, but she wasn’t a very good one because she also practiced Wicka.  Apparently she always tries to cast spells and stuff.  One day she was trying to cast a spell and she fell down the stairs and gashed her head open.  Anyways, Anthony was a very nice guy that did help us out.  When the tow truck got there he gave us all knuckles and we were on our way.  The tow truck driver reminded me of my dad in about 10 years.  He had a huge gray beard and this little dog in the cab.  David and Brian thought he said the dog’s name was Varmint, but I’m pretty sure it was actually Nikki.  The dog rode on his lap the entire way to Evanston.  We had our car dropped off at Autozone and we stayed at a hotel.  That was our first day of vacation.  Pretty fun, huh?

Gym Observations

I've recently started going running again (I still can't run very far or fast, but hey, at least I'm going!).  I don't usually go at the same time every day because of class schedules and work and all that.  I usually go either around noon or at 7pm and it's really interesting to see the differences between the people that go at those times.  When I go at noon, it's usually a lot of older people that are on the track.  Lots of strollers and teachers.  Most of them walk so I feel really fast and amazing because I lap all of them multiple times! 

When I go at night, I feel like it's a beauty contest.  There are usually a few groups of girls or couples that are walking around the track, taking their time, not getting much of a workout,  but at least they can say they went.  It seems like everyone at night has to go in groups.  Sometimes I can't pass people because there is such a big group that they take up all the lanes (the track is only 4 lanes wide so ti's not too wide, but it's still annoying). 

I've realized that I am not the usually college girl.  I hate going to work out with other people.  I don't like to talk while I'm going running and I hate it when people watch me.  I've gotten past the fear that everyone is judging me while I run and that makes it so I don't get so paranoid, but if I see someone I know all those feelings start coming back.  I do like to go with David, but only because he doesn't go running with me.  He plays basketball so while I'm running I can watch him play (the track is above the basketball courts) so that's pretty fun!  But you know, it doens't bother me that I don't have someone to go with.  It's nice to be able to be in my own world for a little bit.  It's fun to watch the other people that are there, especially when they have dodgeball games on one of the basketball courts!  I doubt I'll ever make it to any kind of marathon, but I'm ok with that.  I'd rather cheer on other people anyways!