One Adventure After Another

We’ve had enough ‘adventure’ in the last few weeks to last us a really long time (we hope). Thanks to a couple of great neighbors and Jordan’s parents, we were able to get our 24’ Budget truck loaded and on our way to California. Jordan and his father were driving the truck and I followed Jordan’s Mom to the airport with McKay to drop off their car for when they flew back home on Sunday. After a few detours, we were on our way to catching up to the guys in the truck. We figured it shouldn’t take too long since their max speed was 68 mph. We underestimated just how long our detours took and were quite a way behind them… even with them stopping for a steak dinner at a casino in Wendover. Everything seemed to be going okay… Jordan and I had just exchanged what mile markers we were close to (we were still 30 miles behind them) when I got a message from him saying they had a problem and were on the side of the freeway 10 miles from Elko, please stop. Apparently all the rubber I had been seeing on the freeway was from Jordan’s car we were towing with a dolly behind the moving truck. After I stopped seeing the rubber it was another 5-10 minutes before we saw the big truck on the side of the freeway. The back left tire on his car had blown, almost all the rubber was gone & the car had been dragging on the rim. The worst part of the damage isn’t visible. The guys put the donut on the car and we slowly drove the remaining miles to Elko where a Les Schwab changed the tire immediately. There was just enough rubber left on the rim for the rim to be bent but still usable, a good thing since the rims have been discontinued. We drove the rest of the way to Reno and got to our hotel (thanks for booking it for us Dad) around 9:30 pm. (BTW: we left Orem at 9:45 am). We were all SO exhausted and hungry so we ate dinner and got to bed around 11:30 pm (remember we lost an hour getting to Nevada… )

Poor little McKay did NOT want to get back into his car seat the next morning! Who can blame him? After driving through a spring storm over Donners Pass (yes, snow there) we finally got to our little duplex in Santa Clara. Everyone was hungry so I set off to find the Subway Jordan and I went to when we were here looking for a place to live. We were both sure it was on Homestead (a major street near where we live) and that it was on the corner by Safeway. I looked for that place for a solid hour before I just stopped and got something else. I even went into a bagel store to see if they knew where it was. Talk about frustrating. Right after I got back with something other than Subway and everyone was taking a break to eat, 3-4 guys from our new ward arrived to help us unload. ‘Dinner’ was put aside until about 45 minutes later when the truck was empty and the guys had gone home. We were all so grateful to see those guys. It would have taken 4+ hours for us to do it alone!

That night (still Saturday the 24^th), Jordan was outside in the dark looking in the trunk of his car for his dad’s sweater. There is a hole in the trunk now so everything was wet, including his golf clubs, his guns, the laptop bag and a few other things. Nothing was ruined and it was mostly just the cases everything was in that was wet. As Jordan was going through everything in the trunk, he set the laptop on the side of the car, between the tire and the curb, in the gutter… and forgot about it. He didn’t realize what he had done until the next day after church when he wanted to type up all our relocation expenses to turn in to the company. Talk about a sick feeling. We looked everywhere for that bag but to no avail. It was gone. We asked a couple of neighbors as we were leaving for and returning from dinner (one of the elders who helped us move invited us over for dinner and to use their internet. Oh yeah! We do have to eat! It was fun to meet them, they are a nice family.) if they had seen anything at all. No luck, though everyone felt bad for us. The biggest thing I was sick about was that all of our pictures are on that laptop. We decided I could pull the heart strings the best and so I started knocking on all of our new neighbors doors, starting with our landlady. Both she and a lady we spoke to earlier said that the man who lives two doors down from us would be a good person to ask, they had seen him out the night before. The landlady said he looks rough and is in a band but had been nice anytime she had spoken with him. I figured I didn’t have anything to lose. I walked up to the door and knocked on the screen. The door was open and I could see a man sitting on the couch inside. After my knock a gruff voice said ‘is that my door?’ The man on the couch said it was. Then ‘Who is it?!? Who is it?!?” to which I replied with a ‘Hello!’ A little less gruffly (very slightly less) he said, Oh, I’ll be there in a minute. As he comes around the corner drying his hands he asks what he can do for me. Imagine if you will, I am down on the doorstep so he looks even bigger and taller to me. He is a big man, with long curly hair and a partial goatee, just the part on his chin but the hair is divided into two sections and twisted together to be pointy and resemble fangs. I start out by saying I have a strange question for him, we just moved in yesterday (he nods… like everyone else in the neighborhood he saw the truck) and we left a black bag next to our car… at which point he cuts me off with ‘I’ve got it here for you.’ I couldn’t believe it! We were so worried about it, not to mention that we would have to buy a new computer, an expense we aren’t ready for right now. I was so relieved and told him he made my day and that I might cry to which he responded that he would get me a tissue. He said that his girlfriend found it in the gutter last night and that it was all wet. He didn’t go knocking doors because he figured people would say they had lost a laptop even if they hadn’t and he figured whoever lost it would come asking. If not, he got a new laptop. The guy on the couch asked why where we were coming from (we have found that people look at us and it is obvious we are not from California… J) I told him Utah and that Jordan is in Construction Management working on the airport. Turns out that this guy is an estimator for cabinets. So now we have a new friend. Yes, we did find a good neighborhood to move into. Whew, what a relief!