I have coaxed to see the redwoods for years, but it just never seemed to happen. We planned doing it this year, but we have had too many things to do this summer.
Ann had a meeting with Jack's new teacher on Thursday, September 3. She mentioned the fact that she wouldn't be in class the next day and that a substitute teacher would be there in her place, so Ann asked if it would be alright to miss the day and take Jack on a trip. She arrived home and asked me if we could go that night. I love spontaneous road trips.
We just couldn't get things ready to leave, and we were very tired Thursday night, so we packed everything, hoping to leave at 6:00 a.m. on Friday, September 4. The last thing we did that evening was something that had to be done. A trip like we hoped to take without a camera was not going to happen, and I refused to take pictures with a disposable camera, so we went to several stores. Fred Meyer didn't have the new model Ann wanted. She wanted a Canon, the same brand as her old camera.
While in DC this summer, I lost Ann's Canon digital camera. Cles carried it for me, but he was worried about my walking. I was proud of how much could actually do while there, more than I had done in a very long time, but I was in a lot of pain at the end of the last day, and on the way back to the hotel from the Air & Space Museum, I sat down on a bench. Cles placed the camera down near me, and he went to get some water for me and Jack. An elderly woman and child sat next to me, and the camera was gone in an instant.
It's sad how dishonest things have become, but in this country, it's been that way in larger cities for a long time. Germany was always refreshing, because I never saw it happen there, but during the last few trips, I occurred there too--just not as often as it happened here, but I haven't been back since 2001. Hopefully, things are still mostly the way I remember them over there at least. However, the funny thing about the experience is that we can always replace photographs, and in terms of the camera, the new one is phenomenal.
To make a long story short, we asked the manager in Idaho Falls to see if the Pocatello store had one, and they did. We planned to leave Idaho Falls early so that we could stop and pick it up, and then we went to the Walmart on Utah Avenue, the clean one in Idaho Falls.
Ann and I bought the Canon digital, which they had in stock. It takes better movies and pictures than the older camera, so other than the photographs we lost, everything else is better. We were ready to leave the next morning at 6:00 a.m.
I returned home, called Fred Meyer in Pocatello to cancel the camera they held for me. A girl answered. She seemed confused when I asked her to cancel my hold, and she assured me that people don't come by to get them regularly, and I told her that I wasn't the "usual person." When I give my word to show up to buy something, I show up as promised. Call it another value my father taught me.
"Always remember that your word is something important. Generations of our family have maintained a standard, and it's important for you to continue it. 'Your word' is something that is very important." I never forgot that lesson, and I still think it's important.
At 8:15, we had the car packed completely, and by 8:34, we were driving on I-15, making our way to Twin Falls and beyond.
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