Catching Up...

Road Trip Sight Seeing

Sometimes this blog goes neglected because I have nothing to say.  The last few weeks have been frustrating because I've had a lot to say but no time to write.  

Sooo... I drove to California from Iowa.  I thought I could do it in three days and two nights but the third day I visited Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanub, Utah,

Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in a beautiful Canyon Setting

then lost two hours taking the wrong road.   After about 15 minutes I realized it was not the right road, but there was no tower so my GPS did not work, there were no way off the road, nor was there even a shoulder to pull over to look at a map and forget about turning around.  That was pretty frustrating.  I ended up stopping at a Motel 6 in Barstow, California about 2 hours away from my mom's house, but I'd been driving 14 hours, it was dark and I just couldn't go any farther.  This is what I learned about long distance road trips.  You can drive 12-13 hours about two days in a row.  Then you can't. 

 When I got there, I began the rather surreal tasks of going through my mother's things.  She had a lot of things.  She had a lot of nice things.  She had a lot of tacky, stupid things.  Forty three pairs of pants.  Close to a hundred beautiful lace handkerchiefs.   Dozens of cans of beans.  Lots of beautiful quilts she made.  None of which she ever made for her children or grandchildren.  

Then we found the hats.  About 25 of them from the 30s and 40s when she was a Roman Catholic and hats were a must.  25 hats.  This was when my sister was a little girl and she had to steal money out of my mom's purse to go the drug store to buy shoes because my mom never noticed or cared she needed new shoes.

We divided up the quilts.  We invited her friends to come over and take whatever they wanted.  We let the housekeepers take whatever they wanted.  Then we had a two day yard sale.  Sold a lot of stuff.  Made $500 on the yard sale.  But there was still a lot of stuff left.  We dragged it all back in the garage for my brother to deal with.


We were going to leave the next morning.  My sister came back with me.  Since we had a little money I suggested we leave that night, drive a few hours, stay in a nice hotel and then we would not have to drive as far for our first stop - the Grand Canyon.  That was a very good idea.  That house was oppressive.  All that stuff.  All those friends who loved her.  One of the son's of her friends asked to buy something of hers.  He also told a born again story so I offered him her bible.  "You take it,  I can't sell her bible" I said.  He actually wept.   As my brother said "How could she have so many close friends and be so estranged from her own children?"  It was just very freeing to get out there.  That chapter is over.  Done.  Complete.

 

The Grand Canyon was spectacular.  I had never seen it.  Neither had my sister and she's 66.   There are a lot of things I still haven't done or seen but seeing this made me feel good about the chances of me seeing and doing a lot more exciting things in the future.

If you do go, I suggest the Cameron Trading Post and Motel in Cameron - It's about an hour and a half drive from the Grand Canyon but an hour of that is driving through the park and seeing lots of over looks and road signs that warn of mountain lions crossing.  It's a charming little place with Native American decor. Very reasonably priced.  You must have breakfast there - the Huevos Rancheros are the best I have ever had in my life.  And Indian fry bed.