November 2007: Lets give thanks

We decided that my parents need to buy property in the small town of Fillmore, UT; a drive-through town on the trek down the I-15 from BYU to home. Jesse and Liz drove down and had a tire blow outside of Fillmore. They were on the side of the road in the middle of the frozen night for 6 hours - did I mention the car battery died? - lets just say Liz got a little closer to our family friend Garrett than she ever wanted. Unfortunately Jesse had a similar dilemna his Freshman year (which I'm sure he would note was the reason he did not want to drive home this time!!)

My Freshman year at BYU - that must be it!!! it must be a Freshman thing, a rite of passage-on the way back from Thanksgiving our car broke down in a blizzard (Let me be more specific - The guy's car did not have a front grill so all the snow got sucked into the engine causing some major problem). We (the guy and 3 girls) had to push the car to the next offramp where we could see the illuminated "Chevron" sign and wait for them to fix it- in good old Fillmore. Then the freeway was closed down, so 8 of us BYU students had to stay in the last hotel room in town-can someone say Honor Code violation-I think they made an exception in our case. The next morning we discovered that 3 of the 4 doors were frozen shut. We each had to climb in through the front passenger side over all our luggage (jam packed which prevented any of us to be able to straighten our legs on the long 9 hour journey). Then when we actually thought we might make it, the hood flew up on the on ramp, propelled by some sort of engine geyser. I can't remember how we actually made it back!

So lets this Thanksgiving give thanks for cars with properly inflated tires, batteries that work, front grills, body heat, Chevron stations, California weather, and air travel.

We enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner all together with my family for the first time after three years. What a wonderful day of thanks!