THROUGH THE FIRE

Yes, we had an adventure on our drive home. About an hour after leaving Provo I was woken up to the words, "Don't tell mommy where we're going." Of course I immediately sat up and asked, "Where are we going?" I looked around for a moment and saw orange filled skies along with a road worker in the median typing on a computer. Directly in front of him was a sign that read, "Detour ahead." Because I have been blessed with advanced reasoning skills I posed the question, "Is there a fire out there?" Of course with that statement the excitement in the van grew, as if now that mom had said it, it now must be true. At this point our cell phones began ringing with calls from different friends we had visited in Utah and from my sister who lives in Cedar City. The news had been reporting that people on I15 had been caught up in the fire as it hurled from the west of the 15 to the east. Everyone we talked to said that they would call someone they knew to find out where we were being re-routed to. Of course again, because of my advanced reasoning skills, I thought why wait to hear back from them and just call the highway patrol myself. I spoke with a very kind woman who explained the detour, I thanked her and she told me that if I had any other questions to please call back. Imagine that, a courteous and helpful state employee. Well we ended up over the river and through the woods, oops, wrong story. I meant to say that we ended up winding our way through some back roads of Utah then to I70 almost to Panguitch then back to I15 just before Cedar City. The smoke was so thick that we could only see on outline of the tops of the mountain. We still have a residual odor in the van. We heard that right after we made it through they closed that route. In the almost seven years I lived in Provo and in the years since, I've made, at least, 40 round trips on I15 and I have had many adventures, and yet I had never thought of veering off the main road. I realized that I've missed some very beautiful places. Utah always has more to explore.

Now we're back to our uneventful lives which we're were grateful for. We've had more excitement in the past several years that we're good for a long while. The girls cleaned the refrigerator and freezer today while Cooper played them music on the piano. Steve's at work probably sewing someone's ear back on. (He actually did that on Friday.) I'm cutting coupons and doing the laundry. We bought the new Harry Potter book on Saturday and Kylie had it all devoured in eight hours. We need more talented writers for children of her age. We have the elders for dinner tonight, Bar-b-que beef sandwiches. In a little bit I'll take the girls over to my mom's to help her clean. I love days like this.