Another Circuit Vacation - Days 1-6

As my year as Utah Rotary District Governor was nearing its end, we decided we needed to do another circuit vacation – a road trip which took us to 7 states in 2 weeks - to visit family and friends we haven’t seen in several years (including the year+ of the worldwide pandemic of 2020).

We left St. George on my birthday (July 15) with a stopover in Parowan for lunch with new friends Margarita and Dale Martin. We had a lovely visit and a nice lunch together before they headed back to California and we headed north to Kelly and Gary’s home in Clinton, near Ogden, UT.

SIDENOTE:  Margarita is a Rotarian member of the Monarch Beach Rotary Club in San Diego, CA and was the one who reached out to me as Governor to offer District 5420 more than 3300 pieces of new clothing (long and short-sleeved polo shirts, shorts and slacks) for some of the tribal communities in our state.  Of course, the question was how to get this valuable gift from California to Utah.  The answer:  call Jim Andrus – founder and longtime owner of Andrus Trucking who offered to have one of his drivers “throw it on the back of his load” and take it to Bountiful, UT for FREE!

 

On Friday, even with summer temperatures over 105, Kelly, Gary, Ed and I could hardly wait to meet up with Jessica, Joshua and his best friend Ethan for a day of carnival rides at Lagoon.  Michael suffers from motion sickness and Lilly woke with a headache, but Jessica LOVES the rides.  He told her she didn’t need him because “my mom will go on everything with you.” so he joined us after work. I usually LOVE the rides, too, but this time, I must have been dehydrated because 5 minutes on the Tilt-A-Whirl about killed me.  Still, we had a really fun time … and here’s a coincidence.  While at Lagoon, we ran into Terri MacDonald (to whom I am a ministering sister) and Ursula Davies (with whom I worked long ago at Dixie Regional Medical Center) who had their 12-year-old grandsons for a “10-days with Grandma” trip.

 

SIDENOTE:  On Saturday, we enjoyed time with Kelly and Gary and in the afternoon attended Judy Zone’s induction as Utah Rotary District Governor at the Cottonwood Country Club (Cottonwood, in pioneer times, was known as Mississippiville) where I presented the Clubs of the Year for RY2020-21 (Dixie Sunrise as Large Club of the Year and Hurricane Valley as Small Club of the Year … each one of 7 Rotary clubs in Washington County but definitely deserving for amazing efforts to “grow Rotary” and for “bigger, better, bolder service which changed lives” in our challenging COVID year).

 

On Sunday, we traveled the second half of the 731miles between our St. George home and Anaconda, MT where Kaytee – our baby girl – and her family live, and where we spent 4 days together celebrating the holidays – birthdays, Easter, 4^th of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas – we missed during the extended COVID year. Adyn, Skylar and Thoryn were busy with “work,” haircuts, dentist appointments, swimming and friends, but we had fun celebrating with holiday foods, crafts, table decorations and getting caught up on Kaytee’s growing family.

 

SIDENOTE:  Last year Josh’s parents, Mark and Kim Postma, purchased the property where his horses have been boarded.  The property included two small houses, one which the senior Postma’s renovated for themselves and the other they are planning to promote as an AirBnB.  They offered it to us – which we gladly accepted – on the condition we became their guinea pigs determining what they had not yet purchased for the use of their guests, such as dish towels, potholders, smoke alarm, and “other” items. The really nice thing about their property is it is immediately across the street from Kaytee and Josh’s 5-acre property on which they are planning to build a new home.

 

Although Ed frequently describes himself as “an Idaho boy” he had never been to Coeur d’Alene, a bustling community in the northern tip of the Idaho panhandle.  While nothing memorable occurred in our overnight stay, it was fun to get lost in Idaho’s beautiful scenery.

 

From Coeur d’Alene, we traveled to Leavenworth, WA for an overnight stay with BJ and Marty Summers, with whom we served as missionaries in Guyana, South America.  Our missions overlapped by about 6 months during which time, we traveled several times to their area of assignment in Linden where they provided “member and leader support” (MLS) or they traveled into Georgetown to shop and socialize.  They are both remarkable people and it is always fun to see them, even if it is just overnight.