I’ve just come up from the cafeteria with my soup and soda. I’ll use this
time to try and catch up a bit on the past week. I am REALLY tired, even
after a fairly good night’s sleep. The past week has certainly worn both
Nina and me out!!

The drive between Colorado Springs and Soda Springs is a very long day no
matter how it’s sliced. It’s right close to eleven hours of driving plus
whatever stopping time is required for food and gasoline. From Laramie to
Soda Springs last Tuesday took a full eight hours and driving back here on
Saturday was ten minutes less than twelve hours.

We arrived in Soda Springs on Tuesday about 4 p.m. and put the trailer up in
the driveway. Dawnmarie was driving down from Spokane, Washington, and she
arrived about 9 p.m. that evening, several hours longer than she had
anticipated. Her kids were pretty worn out when they arrived. During the day
on Wednesday Heather and her kids arrived, LeeAnn and her kids drove up from
Logan, and Daryl and Jared (along with Daryl’s roomate Jason) came up from
Salt Lake City. That meant we had 18 people there from our family including
11 grandchildren. In addition to our folks, my sister Eileen came up on
Wednesday and my brother Perry and his wife Chris drove over from Green
River. In total we had 23 people needing places to sleep on Wednesday night.

Daryl, Jared, and Jason pitched a tent in the back yard. They were
originally going to go camping somewhere, but waited until it was too dark
to decide what to do. So they ended up in the back yard!! We had our trailer
and my sister Terry had brought over her pop-up camper. LeeAnn and her crew
slept downstairs in the basement. So, we did manage to get everyone into a
reasonable bed.

During the day on Thursday, July 4th, all of Terry’s crew began arriving as
well. They didn’t need beds, but include a number of folks. Terry and Allan,
Amy and her husband Jeff, and Jenifer and her husband Josh plus kids. As the
day progressed, people began to leave for home. However, not before we had a
very enjoyable time!

Perry, Chris, Eileen and I went to the Lion’s Club breakfast on Thursday
morning. We saw a few schoolmates that we recognized. We then staked out a
place to watch the parade, and then I walked up to the Jr. High School to
find the float I was to be riding on. Each of the classes involved in the
All-Class-Reunion were invited to enter a float into the 4th of July Parade.
Several classes do so, including my class, the class of 1963. Essentially we
had a flat-bed trailer with some chairs. A few streamers and a couple of
flags later, and the float was complete. The parade started at the Jr. High
School, came down Highway 30 past Main Street, and then turned north on 1st
West. We went around the block to Main Street, and then past the city park.
The entire route took about 20 minutes at parade speed. It was fun to see
all the kids whooping and hollaring when the float went by. We didn’t have
anything to do on the float except wave! Some of the groups had candy to
toss to the crowd. Judging by how much candy all the kids brought home,
there was plenty of candy to go around.

We had hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch after the parade. Later that
afternoon Perry, Chris, Nina, Eileen, and me went out to Hooper Springs Park
for the next part of the reunion which was a dutch oven dinner. That didn’t
come off very well. It was very hot. The catering company was singularly
unprepared to handle 250 (and possibly more) people. The food was pretty
poor considering that we paid $10 a person for it. Nina and I stayed for
dinner and then left to go back to my folks’ house to be with the family.
There weren’t enough people that I knew who I wanted to stay around and
visit with.

After the kids were settled down, the same crew that went to the dinner went
out to watch the fireworks. There were a lot of people out for the
fireworks! The program included music and narration, but from where we were
sitting, we couldn’t hear the music and narration. The fireworks themselves
were very nice and the City of Soda Springs had done themselves a very nice
display.

We spent the day Friday doing some small errands and visiting in the
morning. In the afternoon Dawnmarie and her kids, LeeAnn and her kids, along
with Nina and I, drove out to Chesterfield to visit the old ghost town and
take some pictures. While it was very hot, we had a good time learning about
the history of that old town. One of the restored homes we toured was owned
by a fellow named Holbrook, who also ran a general store. He would be a
distant cousin to Nina.

Saturday was the long twelv-hour drive back to Colorado Springs. Dawnmarie
followed us in her car and we switched kids back and forth through most of
the day. When we got to Ft. Collins and onto I-25 Freeway, the traffic was
enormous! I don’t think Dawnmarie has seen that much traffic in many years.
We were plenty tired when we got home. We left Soda Springs at 8:00 a.m. and
arrived at 7:50 p.m. The route took us from Soda Springs through Montpelier,
Idaho. Then we went through Kemmerer and joined I-80 outside of Green River,
Wyoming. We followed I-80 across Wyoming to Laramie where we took Route 287
south to Ft. Collins. Then it was down I-25 through Denver and Castle Rock
into Colorado Springs.

Sunday was a hot and tired day. It started with a 7:30 Melchizedek
Priesthood Committee Meeting followed by the meeting block from 9-12. After
church we had the Temple Prep Class at our house and then the rest of the
day was free. I used the time to catch up on the 600 e-mails that had piled
up during the previous week. I think one more good night’s sleep will catch
my body back up and I won’t be so confounded tired!

Transferred from an older journaling system on 29 November 2002