Homeward Bound

After leaving Nauvoo, we headed west on I-70 determined to drive as long as we could stand to.  We drove about 10 hours and made it as far as Hays, Kansas ... when this happened.

We could see dark skies ahead of us as we drove, and then the rain started pouring down.  Semi trucks were pulled over under the underpasses.  Cars were driving very slowly with their emergency blinkers.  I pulled this up on my phone, we were right in the middle of it.  We decided it best to pull off in Hays, just to be safe.  We took refuge in IHOP!  The storm passed as we ate dinner and we continued down the road.  We stayed in our first hotel of the trip that night because none of us wanted to set up the trailer again.  😜

Mat trying NOT to raise the trailer to get a
few things out that we needed for the night.

The next day we made it to Colorado where we spent some quality time with my friend Olivia in Lafayette.  I've known Livi since we were teenagers.  When I was 16ish, her family moved into our ward in Kaysville.  She was a beehive, so I was sure she wasn't cool enough for me.  After we both got married, her little family moved into our ward in Bountiful.  Her oldest is Isaac's age so we would get together occasionally for play dates and lunch.  One day when she was walking out my front door, she said "I've decided we need to be friends!"  And so we are.  They've lived and traveled all over the world and I love to hear about their adventures.  I'll always remember her frankness, like "Duh, we should be friends!"  I've retold that story a number of times over the years, because isn't it just a no brainer to be friends with everyone?!

She is a gracious host and took great care of us.  We had awesome food and went to an ice cream place called Sweet Cow.  I had gingersnap ice cream (on her recommendation) that was the best!  It was so fun to catch up and see her nearly grown up kids and awesome husband.

We had a scary/great experience on the way down I-70 in Utah.  When I passed through Green River, I saw a sign that said the next services were 124 miles away.  I looked at the gas tank that said we had 118 miles left on our tank.  I should have turned around.  But those "I just want to get home" thoughts creeped in.  "Maybe our car will go a little longer than it actually says".  About 60 miles further into the nothingness of Grand Staircase, I told Mat I wasn't sure we would make it to a gas station.  I didn't admit that I saw the sign and figured we wouldn't make it when we were back in Green River.  It didn't help that we didn't have a signal, so no Googling the nearest gas.  Or town.  Eventually we saw a sign that said Emery, UT was 12 miles off I-70.  And since we only had about 18 miles left on our tank, we took a chance.  We didn't know if we would find a gas station in Emery, but we prayed we would!  We were lucky they did have one gas station with one gas pump.  As we drove back toward our route, I ate my humble pie and thanked HF for his help bailing us out of that one.

A view area somewhere off I-70 where we found bathrooms ... but no gas!