The Final Sabbatical Post

For the kids’ last couple of days I found a fancy campground with every amenity for kids entertainment.  We spent two nights but really just one day there and could not possibly try all the fun stuff!  It wasn’t a great “camp” ground, the sites were narrow and hard to get into and kids were riding their bikes at high speed with no real concern for other vehicles!  BUT, we were right next to the water park and the petting zoo!  Zina enjoyed going to the petting zoo but complained about the rooster that woke us up every morning.  There was also some kind of bird that was whistling like someone who wants to get your attention all the time!  We arrived in the late afternoon and immediately headed for the water park where the kids enjoyed the big slides, the diving board, volleyball, and the climbing wall.  It was really hard to get them out of the pool and get our dinner!  

On the kids final full sabbatical day I told them that we could only go to the pool for 4 hours and thought 3-7 would be a good time.  In the morning Will and Myra tried the playground and thought it was pretty good while Zina tried the petting zoo.  I did my last family laundry of the sabbatical.  My plan for the pool didn’t work out, kids were ready to go at noon. Between David and me we kept Zina supervised until dragging her out at 6:30pm!  It was so fun to watch her master her fear of the big slide on the first day.  She climbed up the big staircase, pausing to consider at times.  Then I could see her at the top letting other kids go ahead of her.  Finally she went down and then could not get up the stairs fast enough for the next run.  There were two slides and she had to go through the same process to try the faster slide but she did it!  Myra and Will got tired of the pool after a couple of hours and went and tried the batting cages.  Will cooked us an amazing “farewell” ribeye steak dinner on the griddle.  We got everyone packed up and went to bed.  

Wednesday we were ready to go pretty much on time. We knew we needed to be at the airport in plenty of time and we knew that we would have to park the truck and trailer at the Mall of America Oversized Vehicle lot and Uber to the airport!  In the end everything worked perfectly though there was never much time to spare.  We were going to eat lunch in the airport but there was only time to grab some food for the kids.  Their boarding passes said “Boarding Group B” but it turns out that unaccompanied minors are the last ones to be boarded since they have to be turned over directly to the flight attendants.  It was a hard goodbye.  We had to wait until the plane was in the air before we could leave the airport.  It took a while for it to leave.  We were plenty happy to finally be able to get us some “lunch” at the Mall of America.  We chose a place called Wahlburger and we had a very good meal.  We can recommend it!  We climbed back in the truck to head out.  By this time it was so late we finally decided that we were going to take North Dakota off our list.  We found a city campground that would let us stay the night for a very reasonable price.  We didn’t unhook, just slept and headed out again the next morning.  There were billboards for the Corn Palace.  I remember going there as a kid and not thinking much of it but we could use some chances to stretch our legs on the journey so we stopped and took some pictures.  We also stopped to see the Dignity of Earth and Sky statue.  It is very spectacular.  Our route to the Badlands took us through Wanblee, South Dakota where my Grandpa and Grandma Campbell served an 18 month mission.  They worked so hard there to help the people but there is not much there now and the nearest church is a great distance from the town.  I was grateful to be able to see it and think of my beloved grandparents.

Friday I had lots of Addium work to finish so we didn’t head out to see the Badlands until late afternoon.  We watched a good video at the visitors center and then headed out to drive the Badlands Loop.  I have no idea why I am so enthralled with the Badlands but I think they are spectacular.  Part of the loop goes back on I-90 to Wall, SD.  Any of you who have driven that stretch know that there are copious billboards advertising Wall Drug.  I wasn’t going to be pulled in but the last billboard before the town said “Homemade Pie”.  So, we went to get some pie.  It turned out that they only had fruit pie (David was hoping for chocolate cream.)  I enjoyed my cherry pie but David was not so thrilled with his apple pie and didn’t even finish it.  He also got really tired of me wanting to take his picture!  $10 for a slice of pie a la mode does seem pricey!  There was a bit of a storm brewing as we drove the rest of the loop.  There was a spectacular view of one mountain in the sunlight with the dark cloud behind.  I was driving but I pulled over for David to get a picture.  The Badlands just don’t translate well in photos. 

Saturday we made the short drive to Keystone, SD so we could visit Mount Rushmore.  I was more impressed with it this visit than I was back in 1986.  Maybe the visitor’s center is better and tells a better story. In the evening the Packers were playing their first preseason game so we ordered some pizza and 1919 Root Beer (very good root beer!) and sat down to watch.  The Packers did not play well.  David was sad about that so he changed the channel to the Mariners just in time for us to see them snatch victory from the jaws of defeat with a Cal Raleigh three run homer in the bottom of the 8th that turned a 2-0 deficit to a 3-2 advantage which they were able to hold through the final at bats of the Tampa Bay Rays in the 9th.

A couple of days previously a friend had told me that another member of our ward, Ayana Glover, had just moved to South Dakota.  I reached out to her just to see where she ended up and she was very nearby so I asked her where we should go to church.  We had three options, the one I had thought best prior to Ayana’s help turned out to be the least attractive and the one where we would get to go to the Glover’s branch was most attractive because it would allow us to leave at 8:30am instead of 7:30! We really enjoyed seeing the Glover’s at church while giving us a one hour head start on our four hour trip to Casper.  Going to Casper was part of our Mormon Pioneer remembrance and we thought of them as we were hit by a crazy thunderstorm that included very heavy rain and even hail.  

Monday we headed out early to get to Martin’s Cove.   The visitors center there is great and celebrates the rescue of the Martin Handcart company.  As David drove out there I read all the articles on the church website that talked about the handcart pioneers.  There were 8 total handcart companies.  Six of them, though their trips were hard, would be considered to have had successful trips. It was just the tragedy of the Willie and Martin companies that most people remember. I had not known prior to then that there were a couple of wagon train companies travelling just behind the Martin Company.  They unloaded much of their belongings at the fort near Martin’s Cove to help carry those of the Martin company who were most desperate.  So many stories of those pioneers.  We pulled a hand cart a few yards but mostly we succumbed to the very hot day and were glad we did not need to pull them any further.  From there we headed to the visitors center at the Sixth Crossing of the Sweetwater which commemorates the rescue of the Willie Handcart Company. We asked so many questions that the missionaries there gave us a National Park Service brochure about Wyoming’s National Historic Trails.  When we started the day I had originally planned to head out to Rock Creek Hollow, the place the rescuers helped the Willie Company to reach and shelter after an arduous 29 mile ascension of Rocky Ridge, perhaps the hardest section of the pioneer trail in a winter storm.  I wondered if going to Rock Creek Hollow would follow Rocky Ridge and the missionaries said no but they could tell us how to get to Rocky Ridge so we went there instead.  It was a pretty rough road so we were VERY glad to have the truck.  Just as we were pondering if we should walk up the trail I got a call from Bob that I didn’t catch quite in time. As I looked at my phone I saw a message from Chris saying we needed to contact the insurance right away because the airport wanted to clear the ramp. That sounded bad and I immediately found out about the plane crash that nearly killed Scott, Takuya, Fred & Philip.  I was in such shock that I just started walking.  In the end we walked about 1.75 miles of the Rocky Ridge Trail.  So MANY of both David and my ancestors would have walked that exact path and it was really thought provoking.  And, I got to see some wagon ruts, evidence that they had been there in an earlier time.  Visiting these sights required a lot of driving and we didn’t make it back to the trailer until about 8:30pm.  We just had cereal for dinner. That was the last “sightseeing” on the sabbatical itinerary.

I knew it would happen that when we had done the last thing on the list that I would be anxious to get home. Though the plan called for us to spend a leisurely day making a 3.5 hour drive toward Billings I decided that we should get on the road early and make our planned temple visit that day instead of Wednesday.  With the new plan we could get home by Wednesday night!  But, 15 miles outside of Billings we got a “reduced engine power” message on the truck and limped into Billings.  We had some time before our session and we started calling repair shops.  Everyone was at least a week out and we wondered what we were going to do but we went into our session with faith.  When we came out we tried a couple more numbers and one of them, Jake’s Auto & Diesel Repair, was willing to have a look the next day at 10:30 to see if it was an easy fix.  Otherwise they were a week out also.  We very luckily found a campground nearby that had availability.  After we got set up we decided to go out to dinner.  We just picked a place, Walker’s, and had an excellent dinner.  David thought it was the best restaurant meal he had on the sabbatical.  

I got up early Wednesday and shopped at Winco!!! I was so happy to have a familiar store that I really smiled at the male cashier and he told me I looked like sunshine!  David took the truck at about 10:15 and I just worked.  They drove him back to the trailer about 11:30.  The report was hopeful, they were going to run a “regen” to rid the exhaust system of its clog.  It was supposed to take about 2 hours but when we called at 3pm they were not quite finished.  They finished about 4pm and we were on the road by 4:30pm.  They had reduced our clog from 80-90% to 5%.  We were SO grateful that they had slipped us in and gotten the problem fixed.  It stayed fixed for 67 miles when we got the reduced engine power message again and the check engine light came on.  We are not sure but it may have been the heat, we were travelling in weather well over 90 degrees.  We limped over hills and made it to Bozeman.  During this time we contacted an online mechanic to find out if it would cause additional problems to keep driving.  He thought we would be OK if we slowed down and babied the truck.  By this time it was too late to find a campground and I just couldn’t figure out what we should do!  Finally I checked and found the Montana rest areas allow you to stay up to 12 hours in their rest stops so long as you only use one parking space.  We found one a half hour away and pulled in about 9pm. The rest areas have nice big truck spaces so we were even able to put out our slides in our one space.  We were tilted a bit side to side but we survived.  I had planned smash burgers on the griddle for dinner and we were so grateful we could just do them on the indoor griddle and have dinner ready in less than 10 minutes.  The air conditioner will only run on the solar power for about an hour.  We cooled down our bedroom but it didn’t last as long as we had hoped and with that and the anxiety of our situation we didn’t sleep incredibly well.  

We set our alarms for 6am because Bryan told us it might be best to make the trip early in the cool part of the day.  I said our morning prayer and prayed that we would be prompted on what we needed to do to make it home.  I wanted to have faith that everything would be fine today.  David had a memory pop into his head that once he filled the DEF and the engine light went off so even though it was still showing half full he filled it up at a nearby station before we set off.  When he turned the truck back on, no check engine light!  We continued babying the truck, keeping the speed at 55 mph until we had made it up all the big hills!  We drove into Pullman at 2:10pm.  Wow! What a trip!