road trip adventures

We reluctantly pull ourselves away from the lake, our car packed high with memories and sandy clothing.

The cousin hugs linger and we pull up the gravely road one last time.

As we drive alongside the turquoise water the glistening ripples seem to beckon us to stay and wave goodbye simultaneously.

We are driving home to sweltering heat and Dave who has been working and hanging with Max who just left for another national volleyball tournament.  And to friends who are apparently withering away without these girls at their sides 🙂

We are late in leaving, but I can’t help myself from taking a detour to recount the story of Dave and Shawni’s dating days at BYU, a stop at the MTC (because that was part of the story too), and a stop at the temple because I can’t help myself from that either.

These stops make our journey stretch before us even later into the night but fill our hearts as my girls mesmerized questions fill up the air around us:  “you kissed on the first date??” they ask incredulously.  And I explain that it wasn’t really the first date because we sure hung out a lot before then so in all actuality it was like the 100th date.  I tell them about the night I left on my mission.  How Dave stood in the back of the church with a smile on his face when I recounted my mission a year and a half later.  How he waited patiently for me to “normalize.”  How those dimples and his kindness with children pulled me in.

At one o’clock we finally reach our destination:  my parent’s condo they rent out that was free for the night.  We deliriously unlock the combination and start to walk in, ready to stretch out and sleep. Suddenly we all freeze dead in our tracks.  There are someone else’s suitcases in the doorway.  Someone else’s clutter strewn across the counter.

Someone was sleeping there!  Someone we probably scared to death if they heard us.

We back out, quiet as can be, eyes as wide as saucers realizing there was a reservation misunderstanding and begin an adventure to find a hotel.

The first one we try has no air conditioning, someone who speaks no English at the front counter.  Luckily my “try not to hurt feelings” still allows me to ask if I can see a room.  The man I am using hand signals with to communicate shows me one that is dirty with curtains half way ripped off the window and I tell him as nicely as I can that I think we’ll stay somewhere else.  I hop back in the car speedy quick and tell my waiting girls we should splurge at the Best Western I found on my phone.

The girls think it is a palace and we stretch out in the dark at 2 o’clock in the morning, stifling giggles so Lucy will go to sleep but unable to help how funny it was in hindsight: our step-in-the-door-and-freeze incidence at that condo and how glad we were not to be in that first hotel.

The free breakfast is a hit in the morning and now we step out, to hit the road once again, ready for a new adventure.

Nothing like a great road trip gradually taking us into the sweltering oven that awaits us with love back at home.

More road trip adventures from last year here.