Be careful what you ask for

August 6, 2010 –

The leg of our trip between Seth’s house near Seattle and my Aunt Connie’s house near Pocatello, Idaho is easily going to be the longest stretch of driving on our trip between places where we wanted to stop. It’s about 12 hours of just driving time, not to mention gas, food and potty breaks. We decided to break it into two days of about six hours each, but since we got into Seattle a day later than we planned, we didn’t leave as early yesterday as we had anticipated. We decided that we could make it to Pendleton, Oregon, a drive of about 4+ hours, and we would get in sometime between midnight and one o’clock.

Becky was trying to be a good sport and said she was okay if we slept in the car at a rest area. Because of my finely-tuned reading between the lines from almost 15 years of marriage, I knew that she didn’t mean it. Still, I didn’t want to spend a lot of money for a room that we would only be sleeping in from 1:00 to 7:00 in the morning so I went on the Internet at Seth’s house and booked us the cheapest room I could find in Pendleton. When we got there, we found out why it was the cheapest.

Let’s just say that I could not in good conscious recommend the Rodeo City Inn. We slept on top of the covers using our own blankets and pillows, but I do have to say that the AC worked (although a bit loud) and we had hot water (but not a lot of pressure) for showers in the morning. I got over five hours of sleep so the room served its purpose. I may be kinda cheap sometimes (Beck occasionally calls me Julius – a reference from the show Everybody Hates Chris), but in my own defense, I am a school teacher raising a single-income family of five, and this was the only cheap hotel on the trip. Even Becky agreed that the room in Redmond was nice, and the rooms in Vegas and Southern California will be fairly decent (I think).

We had a long drive today, but we made it. I do have to say that Idaho has really nice rest areas. Just outside of Boise, we saw a sign for a fireworks superstore that is open year-round. I cannot confirm or deny anything, but it is possible that someone might have purchased a few items that may not be completely legal in California. In case any law enforcement officials happen upon this blog, I want to assure everyone that we will be sure to shoot off any contraband just before crossing the California border. Wink, wink.

We made it to my Aunt Connie and Uncle Chuck’s house a little after 7:30. They have one son, Ammon, age 14, who is still at home, and their son Robbie, who is leaving for a second tour in the Middle East soon, is also visiting this weekend. Let me give you a little background about my Aunt Connie because she is kind of one of those really selfish people. Almost fourteen years ago, my mother was suffering from some pretty serious effects of diabetes. She had lost her eyesight and her kidneys had failed – to mention just a couple of her health issues. Given her medical problems, she was not a candidate to be on a general transplant list, and the doctors estimated that people in her condition usually live for about a year or two on dialysis at that time.

My mom and Aunt Connie were only half-sisters and didn’t really know each other growing up. In fact, they only met formally for the first time as adults when they both attended their father’s funeral (although he had left both of their families with little contact years earlier). When Connie read in a Christmas letter about my mom’s condition, she called out of the blue and offered one of her kidneys if they were a match. They were, and after the transplant Mom lived close to 8 years longer than she probably would have otherwise. So while I have not been a great nephew in keeping in touch with all of my mom’s 10+ half-siblings, I do feel a special connection to Connie, and a trip to see her was overdue since we hadn’t seen her since Mom’s funeral over five years ago.

Connie’s family is wonderful and have welcomed us into their home. As my mom always considered herself “an Idaho farm girl”, the kids will get a little closer to their roots while we spend a couple of days here. Yes, those are world famous Idaho Spud candy bar bites the kids are holding. Talk about high culture.

***Disclaimer - The picture above was not from the actual room we stayed in; it was an image from the Internet called "crack house".