Becky M's Place: Was It Worth It?

"Let Adversity Make You A Better Person"

Sometimes you decide to do things for yourself, and then other times you decide to do things for other people. Either way, you make a plan and set the plan in motion. Most times something gets in the way and there are often times when you might decide that it’s something you just don’t want to do after all. But when it’s something that you know that is for the better good for other people, you just decide to do all that you can to see the plan through. Well, that’s what Thanksgiving this year was all about.

Although Jeff is out of work right now because of his back surgery and our money is really tight, we made the decision to go to Oregon to spend Thanksgiving with Ryan, Jenni and Nicole. They are living there while Ryan is going to school. It’s a long ways for them to be away from family during the holidays. Tom and Bobby had a whole week off of school that week and with Jeff not working, we decided to pool our monies together and see if we could come up with what it would take to travel the 13 to 14 hours to spend the holidays with them.

On Sunday night, November 21^st, we had everything packed and we wanted to leave the house by 7 a.m. the following morning. I had a hard time sleeping, so I spent the night on the couch listening to the wind howl outside. I would get up every hour and each time I did I could see the snowdrift in our drive way get taller and wider as the biggest winter storm of the season made its way into our area. I just kept wondering if we would be able to go.

These pictures are of the drift in the driveway. They are about 5 feet tall.

At 5 a.m. I got Jeff out of bed and we talked things over and wondered how we could get out of the yard. I decided to get Tom and Bob up and if they wanted to shovel the driveway out then we could get the Trailblazer out and we could be on our way. So, that’s what we did. We pulled out of our yard at about 7 a.m. with a packed full Trailblazer, a winter blizzard in our faces and headed 800 miles for Klamath Falls, Oregon.

The roads were covered with snow and slick most of the way. Somewhere between Pocatello and Twin Falls, Idaho our 4-wheel drive went out on us. That was not good. It didn’t cause any mechanical failures, but we just couldn’t use our 4-wheel drive.

We would stop every couple of hours for a break because the going was pretty slow. Jeff decided he wanted to do most of the driving. It was hard for him not being in control of the vehicle in the yucky weather.

About 9 p.m. we were on a mountain pass in Oregon, west of Lakeview, in a pretty bad blizzard when we came upon a semi-truck that had jack-knifed and gone off the road and then blocked the road. It had caused another truck to go off the road on the other side. Traffic was blocked on both sides of the pass. We found out it would be about 4 hours before a tow-truck could get there. But it would be 3 or so hours to turn around and go back. Most of the traffic decided to just wait it out. We all stayed in our cars on the pass. We were there for 6 hours. The bathroom situation was interesting, to say the least.

Once we got through and to the next town everything was shut down and all the motels were full. It was about 3 in the morning. We did wake up a motel manager and he let us use a bathroom. All of the gas stations were closed and the pumps locked, because they won’t let you pump your own gas in Oregon. So, we went and parked in front of a launder matt and slept until about 5 a.m. when the gas station opened and we could get gas and get moving again.

We arrived in Klamath Falls at about 9 a.m. The only time that our car even did any sliding on the road was when we were pulling into Klamath Falls, we were coming around a corner and it went sideways. My heart did a little whipdy-doo! It took us 27 hours to make a 14 hour trip.

I will end this posting with our stay of four days there in Klamath Falls, so I will now tell of our drive back home. The entire time that we had been there it had been quite nice, but Saturday morning when we got up to leave it had already snowed about 3 or 4 inches. The entire drive back home we never went over 50 miles an hour. The average was about 35. The roads were treacherous. Sometimes it was blizzarding, sometimes the fog was so thick you couldn’t see at all in front of you. We arrived home Sunday morning. It took us about 21 hours. I know that we had little angels holding on to the car carrying us home.

It had been a constant blizzard at our home while we had been gone and our driveway was completely snowed in, but some wonderful neighbors had plowed us out so when we arrived home we were able to get in to our house.

My brother had emailed me this picture that he took of our driveway while we were gone. Someone had tried to clear it out but the snow was too heavy. We were afraid we might have to come home to something like this. Thank goodness we didn't.

Now…..my question that I put to you at the beginning….”was it worth it?”…..Oh yes!

My Grand-daughter, Nicole Faith Muench

From the front around the left: Bobby, Ryan, Jenni, Jeff, and Tom

Playing games

To spend four awesome days with my son, my daughter-in-law, and my grand-daughter, it was wonderful! To experience what Ryan is doing in his school studies, to hold my grand-daughter as she pats my hand with hers and calls me “grammy” and then to have her tell me she loves me, to visit with all of them….that’s what Thanksgiving, the holidays, life, is all about. I would do it all again!

It was worth every minute of it!

And now, just a little add on......

Since Tom, Bob, and Ryan were going to be out of school for a week and Jeff was not working, they decided to have a facial hair growing contest. So, they all shaved on Thursday, November 18th and then they would see who grew the most facial hair by Friday, November 26th, before we had to leave. Now, this is kind of a big deal, because Jeff has had a mustache ever since he returned from his mission and that's before I ever knew him. I had never seen him without one. I was really surprised that he agreed to it. I learned that he looks alot like his Dad underneath that mustache and that his boys look alot more like him too. Kind of funny, and it was fun! So here are the pictures and I imagine all of you can guess who won.....

Jeff before he shaved his mustache

Jeff after he shaved his mustache

Left to Right: Bobby, Tom, Ryan, Jeff

So, don't let the gray in the facial hair fool you. The boys bought their Dad an A&W Rootbeer Float on Friday for winning the facial hair contest. He has his mustache back. Tom and Bobby have shaved so they can go back to school. I would imagine Ryan has trimmed up his mustache and beard and looks pretty nice!

It was a lot of fun!

Until next time! Becky