A Long Road Home

For Thanksgiving this year, my family and I traveled to Salt Lake City to spend time with friends and family. With something like 48 nephews and nieces on my wife's side, we enjoy a large family gathering when we go there. Only part of the family was there, but it was big enough to have a good group of family.

Getting to Salt Lake for Thanksgiving was pretty uneventful. The only thing of note being that my wife and I had to trade driving back and forth for a couple hours as we headed for Pendleton, Oregon—a distance of about 300 miles. As we had left on a school day, we didn't get on the road until after 5 pm. The last half of the trip was pretty tiring, but we finally pulled into our hotel around midnight.

Thanksgiving was an enjoyable time. Everybody pulled together to provide the traditional feast of turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce (my favorite, really!), and a half dozen pies. It was nice spending a fairly relaxed afternoon and evening with family. Catching up and enjoying each other's company.

We were going to take it easy on Friday and Saturday. We spent Friday evening with other family members in Salt Lake and saw all the lights up around Temple Square.

Our intention was to leave Salt Lake Saturday and get to our hotel in Boise for the evening. Unfortunately, my two daughters (as well as my wife's brother whose house we were staying at) came down with the stomach flu in the middle of Friday night. They were sick enough that it made it pretty obvious we wouldn't be going anywhere on Saturday.

That allowed me time to get a headlight bulb replaced on the van. That evening my wife came back home to tell me that she had to put air into the driver's side front tire. I didn't think much of either of those things. The stomach flu was a greater concern.

It is an 862 mile drive from our home Martha's brother's house in the foothills of Salt Lake City to our home—a long drive    especially with a van full of family including a six-year-old. Being sick on the road is no fun.

Our plans had changed to where we would be leaving Sunday after church. The girls had gotten much better after a day of rest on Saturday.

When we got out of church on Sunday, we saw that the driver's side tire was low again. That meant that it was more of a problem than needing air. We headed back to the auto parts store where I had gotten the headlight bulb the day before. I removed the wheel while my wife went in to buy a tire patch kit. That was a fairly simple fix, so we were soon back on the road.

Nothing seemed like it would be in our way between Salt Lake and Boise.

Then when we neared Twin Falls, Idaho we began to notice a vibrating sound coming from under the van. We stopped on the side of the road and I did a quick walk around the van to see what the problem might be. There wasn't much light, so I couldn't see anything. All the tires were still full.

But the rattling sound was still there when we got back into the van. We pulled into a gas station and I discovered that we had lost a lug nut off the wheel. I was certain I had tightened all of them. We headed to yet another auto parts store where I soon discovered we had not only lost a lug nut but, the stud for that lug was snapped in two. That changed the problem into a more significant problem, so the rest of the family headed down the street for dinner while I set about replacing the stud and lug.

We were back on the road within about an hour. We pulled into our hotel in Boise around 9 pm. Not a bad time for us.

That night, though, one of my sons got sick. By early morning, I had gotten sick as well. I was sick enough that we knew we weren't going anywhere that day either.

We extended our hotel stay in Boise another day. And I rested in bed.

By the next morning, I was feeling better. Not perfect but good enough that we set out on our journey yet again.

When we got into Oregon, though, we stopped at another gas station, and my wife headed into the service station. After I filled up the van and had spent some time in the convenience store, I began to wonder what was happening with my wife. I sent my daughters into the bathroom to see what was happening. When my youngest came out she told me, "Mommy's okay but she's lying on the floor for some reason."

I went on to find out what was happening and discovered she had gotten sick and passed out. We were later told by a doctor in the family losing consciousness can happen from the dehydration that comes from the stomach flu.

We tucked my wife into her seat surrounded by pillows and with a sleeping bag pulled up to her chin. We were determined to get home, so we could all rest in our own beds that night.

It didn't escape our notice that much of what happened the last several days of our journey home from Salt Lake occurred on what was towards the end of the Oregon Trail.