Trinkets

I wanted to share a closer look at some of my favorite trinkets and collections. Most aren't worth much in dollars and cents, but they mean a lot in memories of loved ones.

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My Willow Tree collection is growing, those sweet figurines my children give me on special occasions. I treasure each one.

One of my most cherished possessions is the little rose-shaped box.

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Inside is my mother's first wedding ring, the one she wore for 20 years, until my dad bought her a bigger one in 1973. He used to joke that you needed a magnifying glass to see the diamond chip in this one. It was all he could afford as an 18-year-old newlywed working at a gas station.

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Yet this is the ring I remember from my childhood. It was so sacred to Mom that the only time she ever took it off was when she had surgery and the nurses made her remove it.

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My sister Karla has Mom's other set of rings.

This small chest was a Mother's Day gift from my mother to my grandmother, Myrtle Butler, around 1970.

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It's carved from incolay stone, a mixture of colored quartzes used for cameos.

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When I admired the craftsmanship, Grandma told me it would be mine when she passed away. Later, when we moved away, she sent a letter to remind me of her promise.
When my mother passed away, many of the old family heirlooms she'd collected throughout her life were divided up among us.

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This tiny, delicate fan belonged to my Great Grandma Elsie Jane Beierschmitt, my Grandma Alta Haley's mother. She died when I was a toddler, so I never really knew her.

The rings at left were also great grandma's. I like to think of them on her rough, hard-working hands.

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The cut-glass necklace was also hers, but Grandma Haley gave it to me herself about 30 years ago. It's one of my favorites.

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Grandma brought me the blue delft pendant from her visit to Aunt Bertha's family in Holland in 1971.

In the center of my dresser is a glass dome bearing the Evenstar of Arwen Undomiel, a pendant worn in the Lord of the Rings films, first by the Elf-lady Arwen and then by her love, Aragorn.

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I've also collected Galadriel's mother-of-pearl brooch from the same films, as well as a Leaves of Lorien necklace.

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I do so love Middle Earth!

So many meaningful trinkets, but I'll end with these.

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My children's baby rings are precious, of course. Sarah's ring was also my baby ring.

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I chose the turtle pins, the rose in the cube, and the heart-shaped abalone pendant because they make me feel like a small child again, sneaking into Mom's jewelry box to peek at them!
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These will all go to my children and grandchildren someday, and now they know some of the stories behind these small heirlooms. I hope they will cherish them as I do.

Back in My Own Bed

It's been so lovely to sleep in my own bed these past two nights.

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One of the best things about our return is that we had deep-cleaned the entire house during the weeks before our departure, so we came home to a very clean (if a little dusty) house.

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Except the bathrooms. We haven't even begun their deep-cleaning, but let's not talk about that...

On the subject of a clean bedroom, I took pictures of my room after deep-cleaning it, but never got to share them in the last-minute rush to prepare for our trip.

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This is a view of my bedroom as you enter from the hall.
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The tall dresser straight ahead used to be Mark's. Now I keep all my family history stuff in the drawers, safe from future leaks!

None of our furniture matches. Mostly hand-me-downs or yard sales or pieces bought one at a time to save money.

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Then one year when we got really good income tax returns and I was tired of continual leaks in our waterbed, I splurged and bought this bedroom set.

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I've never regretted it.

On top of the tall dresser is a set of 3 Harry Potter collectibles that Mark and the kids gave me for Christmas the year the first Harry Potter movie came out.

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Last night we went to see the latest flick, Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince. The film-makers did a great job capturing the conflict and tragedy of the book.
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After living in Arizona for a while, I fell in love with Southwestern decor. I dreamed of having a den decorated in the sky-blues and earth tones of the Southwest, with the paintings and sculptures of Native Americans and cowboys.

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I never did get my den, but I did buy this adorable papoose that hangs on my bedroom wall.

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From time to time, we do actually see young Apache families shopping at WalMart with their babies wrapped in a cradleboard.

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During the course of cleaning, I finally hung Sarah's senior pictures on my wall, after they sat on my dresser for more than a year!

Below Sarah's pictures is a rain stick, a cactus skeleton with dried needles inside. When you turn the stick upside down, the needles fall, producing a soothing sound of rainfall.

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I painted my prayer rock when I was the Activity Days leader (for girls ages 8-11) long ago. Fun!

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And that clock/radio/alarm clock was a gift from my parents on my 16th birthday. The radio plays in stereo, a big deal back then. Can you even find an analog alarm clock anymore, or are they all digital?

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Who would have believed that alarm would still be in use almost 39 years later? It's true, they don't make things like they used to!

This is the view of the bedroom from the office...

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...and the little corner near the bedroom and master bathroom doors.
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This painting is a favorite of mine.

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Back in the 1970s, when we lived in Yorba Linda, California, my brother LeRoy got his first real job. That Christmas he bought nice gifts for all of us. Not just nice in value, but nice in that he put some thought into what we would each enjoy.

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At that time I was collecting ceramic cats. I had many dozens of them. And I just thought this was the most beautiful painting I'd ever seen.

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It's 9pm and that big, comfy bed is calling my name (I think I'm still on Missouri time!), so I'm going to call it a night.

Sweet dreams!

Be It Ever So Humble

There's no place like home!
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We are home at last, and it feels so good to be back!

The final stage of our journey was short and sweet. We slept until 8:15, and then we found that the breakfast room at our hotel was a very popular place!
The kids loaded up the car one last time and we checked out at 10:30.

This picture was taken on July 4, 1995, in Albuquerque. Sarah was 5 and Jacob was 4. After checking out of our hotel that morning, we had breakfast at the Owl Cafe, which we all thought was a really cool place, with '50s decor and a tiny jukebox at every table.

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Now guess what cafe happened to be right next door to the hotel we stayed at last night!

Deja vu! Fast forward 14 years to July 26, 2009 and here we have Sarah, Jacob, and Dylan in front of the same Owl Cafe, ages 19, 18, and 12. The trees around the cafe have grown a lot!

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We didn't eat there this time, but I couldn't resist recapturing the moment.

The most frightening 2 hours of the 5-hour trip were the ones when I let Sarah and Jacob get behind the wheel. I always do the driving on out-of-town trips. I get too tense when my children are driving, and then my anxiety stresses them out. I wasn't sure how any of us would handle them driving 75 mph while sharing the road with aggressive truckers.
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However, everyone told me I need to let my kids have this experience so they can learn and grow, plus I would need a break from all those hours of driving.

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I have to say, the whole idea of giving me a break is bogus. The whole time they drove, my stomach was clenched and my muscles were in knots. Health-wise, I'd have been better off driving!

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Still, I know experience is invaluable, so I gathered my resolve and handed them the keys.

They each drove one hour, 72 miles. Sarah went first. As she drove down the on-ramp and entered the freeway, we were nearly side-swiped by an 18-wheeler that changed lanes right into us. His rear bumper missed the front of my car by less than a foot.

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Then a heavy rain began to pour down on us, the kind of rain where you can't see the road. Then it was road work with bumper-to-bumper traffic. (Both Oklahoma and New Mexico are proudly spending their millions of Obama bucks on highway repairs.)

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I was sure I'd have a stroke before we reached Gallup. However, I survived, and we had lunch from the Taco Bell dollar menu and switched drivers.

Thankfully, Jacob's experience was more pleasant. The weather cleared up, the traffic cleared up, and the road work cleared up. He was doing very well by the time we stopped at the entrance to the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert (in Arizona) so I could get behind the wheel again! What a relief!

We reached the Arizona border (home!) at 2:15 and reset our watches to 1:15. This is a view looking into Arizona from one mile inside the New Mexico side.

The next thing I knew, we were back in our home state! We still had almost 2 hours of driving ahead of us, but it seemed to go quickly once we were on familiar turf. We pulled into our driveway at 3:30, Arizona time.

Our pets were ecstatic to see us. Diego could barely believe his eyes when we drove up, and he jumped all over the kids with joy for at least half an hour.

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The boys who were caring for our pets hadn't seen our cat Gimli since Monday. They were a little concerned, but as soon as Sarah went out and called him, he raced home. He followed us around all night, begging to be scratched and cuddled.

There were many messages on the answering machine and a big pile of mail to sort through, not to mention all the unpacking and laundry to be done, but somehow we got through it all.

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Now the house is quiet. The kids and pets have gone to bed, and my final vacation post is complete.

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Ahhhh, it's good to be home!

Pioneer Spirit

Yesterday was Pioneer Day, the day on which our church celebrates our pioneer heritage. Having spent so many hours traveling cross country recently, I've been thinking a lot about the amazing faith and courage of those pioneers, who often left behind everyone and everything they loved to venture into unknown dangers.
On our way to Texas yesterday, I asked Dylan how many miles he thought the pioneers could travel per hour in their covered wagons or pushing their handcarts. He thought a minute and guessed, "Ten miles?" I told him it was closer to 3 or 4 miles per hour. They could travel all day and only go about 50 miles. Dylan was amazed.
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I pointed out that we were driving almost 80 miles per hour. The pioneers would probably have thought that's impossible. We decided to see how long it took to drive one mile. We were both shocked. It took just 48 seconds to travel one whole mile!
Our family is SO ready to be done with traveling. It took us 5 hours just to get out of Texas this afternoon, and we wanted nothing more than to get out of that cramped car!
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Yet how blessed the pioneers would have felt to travel on smooth, paved roads and bridges across the toughest terrain. To get where they were going in days rather than months. To travel in an air conditioned vehicle and stop for food and bathrooms all along the way. To spend the night in a clean, air conditioned room with a swimming pool and a breakfast prepared for the family--for free! To be able to call those relatives they left behind any time they wanted, and hop on a plane to visit sometimes.
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We really do have it pretty good.
We enjoyed our stay at Holiday Inn so much, we didn't check out until 11:30. The breakfast was great. Along with the traditional pastries, juices, and cereals of a continental breakfast, they served scrambled eggs, sausage, and biscuits and gravy.
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By noon we were on the endless highway through Texas. Hours of unchanging flat scenery and small towns.
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On a sudden whim, I turned back to a Dollar General we'd just passed in the tiny Texas town of Clarendon. I wanted to get water bottles and chips to have with our lunch sandwiches. When I told the lady at the register we were heading home to Arizona, she replied, "I used to live in Arizona, but I lived in the White Mountains, a town called Pinetop."
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What are the odds? She lived there from 1989 to 1997; I've lived in the Lakeside half of Pinetop-Lakeside since 1990. She was a waitress at Branding Iron and Paint Pony, both places I've eaten at many times (although I had to tell her the Paint Pony is now a Licanos restaurant). It seems almost miraculous that of all the little stores in Texas, we stopped at the one a formerly unknown neighbor now works at!
We reached Amarillo and turned westward, crossing the border into New Mexico at 4:45. Then we moved the time back on our clocks and watches to 3:45, because we crossed a time zone and gained back an hour.
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We don't see trains too often anymore, but the rails along Interstate 40 in New Mexico and Arizona are still busy with trains pulling 100+ cars. We passed this train on our way to Albuquerque.
We had clear skies for today's journey, but far ahead we could see the stormy skies over home. This is Arizona's monsoon season, and they've had rain at home almost every day since we left.
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Those storms created some glorious sky-scapes, though.
By the time we got to Santa Rosa at 5:30, we simply had to get out of the car for a while. We found a Carl's Jr. (my favorite fast food restaurant) on top of a bluff and had dinner there after lingering over the souvenir selection in the shop next door. We didn't buy anything, but it gave us a badly needed 30-minute break.
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I told the kids they'd better enjoy their "famous star" burgers, because we won't be eating out again for a very long time after this trip!
We arrived at the Sandia Courtyard Hotel in Albuquerque at 7:30, New Mexico time. We're enjoying the same amenities: 2 beds, a large pool, free wireless Internet, and a complimentary hot breakfast (courtesy of JB's next door).
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The hotel is quite old and not nearly as nice as last night's Holiday Inn, but it has been carefully maintained and, more importantly, smells clean. The vintage furniture and fixtures are straight out of the late '50s, well worn but lovingly cared for. I can imagine a young starlet staying here 50 years ago, when it all seemed so sleek and high tech. Notice the turquoise, short shag carpet?
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$42 on Priceline.
Here are Jacob and Dylan on our little balcony, and our car parked below.
When we walked down to the pool, the extremely long hall kind of freaked me out. It was like the hall in a horror movie, like The Shining or Poltergeist, the one that seems to get longer and longer as the heroine desperately tries to reach the end. I snapped this shot when we were more than halfway down the hall, so it doesn't really capture the full sensation.

The kids swam for about an hour, then returned to the room for some TV and then bedtime.

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Check-out is 11am tomorrow. We'll gain another hour back when we cross into Arizona, so we should be home by 3pm, our time. We can't wait!

The Recruit in Wichita Falls

The original plan for our return trip was to drive from Missouri to Oklahoma City for our first night, but Tamera had another suggestion. As it happened, she was already planning to take Jessica and Natalie to visit DJ at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas, for this weekend. Would we like to join them?

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Although it added 2 extra hours to our drive home, we happily agreed. Jacob and DJ have been best friends since elementary school, but they haven't seen each other in years.

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Above, DJ with his wife Jessica, their baby girl, and his mom, Tamera. You can hardly tell how thrilled Tamera is to see her baby boy, can you?

At first we planned to travel together, but when Tamera mentioned she wanted to leave at 5am today, I suggested it might be better if we travel separately! I'd have to get up at 3am in order to leave at 5am, and then I'd be too exhausted to make the 3-day trip home.

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Jacob was anxious to see DJ, so he elected to ride with Aunt Tamera. They were on the road by 5:30. I got out of bed long enough to say goodbye, but then I went back and slept in until 7:15.
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We finished loading the car and said our final farewells to Darryl before we left Aurora at 9:30. We reached Tulsa, OK, at 11:30 and Dylan filled the tank (above photo). It felt funny to be traveling without Jacob.

We got back on the freeway at noon and reached Okahoma City at 1:30 before turning southwest. It was 3:00 when we crossed the border into Texas.

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We were only 15 miles from Wichita Falls by now, but we were running on fumes and stopped at the first Texas gas station we saw. It was my own fault, but I was fed up with Oklahoma by that time. Oklahoma is in love with their turnpikes (toll roads). We were stopped 5 times to pay tolls totaling $11 for the privilege of using their badly maintained roads. I wasn't about to spend any more money in their state!

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Since we were already stopped for gas, we decided to have a late lunch at the Braums next door. (Above, Dylan and Sarah after lunch).

Meanwhile, Tamera's group had arrived at the air force base at 1:00. DJ knew Jacob was vacationing in Missouri and soon to head home, but they hadn't told him that Jacob was coming along to see him today.

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When they arrived, Jacob hid in the car until DJ was close, then he popped out and gave his old buddy a big shock! They had a great, long visit all afternoon.

It was 4:o0 when we finally checked into our room at Holiday Inn. Dylan and Sarah had to unload the car and wheel everything up to our room on the 3rd floor without Jacob's help.
We're every happy with our accommodations this time around. For $48 on Priceline, we got 2 beds, a pool, free wireless Internet, and a free hot breakfast in the morning. The room is very nice.
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I hope we're as lucky in tomorrow's hotel!

When we called to let Tamera know we'd arrived and settled in, she said everyone had fallen asleep. So we took the opportunity for an hour-long nap before Tamera's crew came to join us in our hotel room.
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Above, Jessica, Natalie, and DJ. They are expecting another baby in just 2 months.
Our hotel room was pretty crowded once we were all together again!

We had a buffet dinner at Golden Corral at 8:00, and we all ate way too much! It was so good to see DJ and spend a little extra time with Tamera. After the meal we said our goodbyes and went to our different hotels. Jacob came with us this time.
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In the morning we will be on our way to our next hotel in Albuquerque, a seven-and-a-half-hour drive from here. (Groan...) That will put us just four and a half hours away from home for our last leg of this very long adventure.

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Yesterday when I woke up, I passed Dylan eating his breakfast cereal. Suddenly he reached out and gave me a big hug, declaring, "I was just thinking about all the things I miss at home." We have a had a terrific time, but we are very ready to be back in our Arizona home!

Saying Our Farewells

Our last day in Missouri was made extra-special by family stopping in to say goodbye. Brittany came and spent the evening with us. Darryl built a fire and we had a marshmallow roast. This is Brittany with her dad, Darryl (ages 46 and 20).

Tamera's daughter Tanya came by with her 4 children (her husband Jake was at work) and spent the afternoon. Left to right: Adrienne, Hunter, Tanya, baby Kendall, and Krissa.
Jessica and baby Natalie also came to spend the day.

The kids enjoyed their final fun in Uncle Darryl and Aunt Tamera's pool all afternoon.

It was so great to be here and see everyone. Goodness only knows how long it may be until we see everyone again.

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Thanks for feeding us and putting up with us, Darryl and Tamera! You made our visit great, and we will miss you all. Come see us in Arizona sometime! We love you!