Happy Labor Day! (One day too late, I know.) Did everyone enjoy their long weekend? Did Tuesday come too soon?
Spens and I drove out to eastern Oregon for the holiday weekend to go camping with his lovely family: the parentals, Maddie, Moose and Bails. It was a great time, and somewhat of an induction for me, as I had the pleasure of experiencing for the first time many time-honored DeLong camping traditions. Among them:
- Cheese/onion/mayonnaise/roll breakfast (delish - give it a chance);
- Heppner Branch sacrament meeting (cozy);
- Afternoon jaunt to Gibson Cave (hot/educational);
- Fishin' (competitive).
Overall, we enjoyed the family togetherness, vacation time, lack of cell phone service and distance from recent stresses very much.
I spent my entire life from age 0-18 in the Pacific Northwest, and I must confess that the climate and surroundings of everything east of the Cascades used to seem nothing but barren and ugly to me. It's brown, it's dry, and it's flat! Eventually, I moved to Utah for college (Utah is kind of like Hermiston + mountains) and the desert climate definitely grew on me (no pun intended...ok, I'm sorry - I'm sorry! Stop looking at me like that). There's something inspiring about that hardy desert flora, and no humidity = perfect hair all day long; what's not to love?
Despite my acquired taste for the desert, the comment did escape my lips at one point while traversing a particularly dry, brown patch of land that perhaps God got bored when creating this part of the world. My soon-to-be in-laws chuckled graciously, but I had to eat my words a few hours later when the sun started to go down and everything that was brown and dead a few minutes before became flush, golden and almost on fire with color and reflected light. Beautiful!
Spenser and I had plenty of time to enjoy these gorgeous eventide views as we dealt with the truck's untimely break down right outside of Lexington on our way back to Hermiston :(
We left a bit early on Sunday night (Spens's family was staying through Monday afternoon) hoping to get back to Beaverton in time to handle some routine errands and wedding preparations (11 days - impending!!). On the way out, the truck started struggling. Spens would put it in gear but it wouldn't really accelerate - even with the pedal to the floor. It also started to overheat. So we coasted down the hill to get as close as we could to civilization and cell phone reception before we had to pull over.
Once stopped, we contacted insurance to arrange a tow (Spenser's phone had hardly any battery but good service, and my phone had lots of battery but no service; haha - isn't the biggest benefit of a cell phone supposed to be that it's there for you to use in case of an emergency? Sigh). Post-insurance company phone call conversation:
Spens: Guess what the name of our towing company is?
Me: ...Lexington Towing Company.
Spens: Nope. Loose Lucy Towing Company
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Dan from Looslie Towing showed up about a half an hour later. I guess the insurance lady must have stuttered a little bit when she told Spenser who to expect. ;)
Long story short (yeah right, haha - you've already asked yourself three times when this post is going to end), we made it back to Hermiston with a blessedly cheap tow bill (seriously), and Ma & Pa DeLong are helping us sort out the truck issue out there in Hermiston. Spenser and I have been introduced to an American family tradition far less enjoyable than camping breakfasts and long afternoons on the lake: the auto mechanic repair invoice. Haha/uuuuuugh. Despite the hassle with the truck, it was still a very fun weekend, so thanks to the fam for that! :)
