Why The Heck Did I Drive To Texas??

Author: Lyara Tieran, May 2018

Why the Heck Did I Drive to Texas???

Every year I make a decision on where to go for vacation.
Every year, for some unknown reason, I make the decision to drive someplace 4 days away. Then I swear I'll never do that again.
Then I do it again.
This year was no exception.

The announcement that North American Anniversary Party 2018 was to be held in Gooding, Idaho was, to me, shocking and very amusing. The first thought through my head was "What the h#&! is in Gooding?". Having grown up in Idaho and spent a lot of time in that portion of the country, my answer to myself was "A whole lot of nothing!". However, I became very excited because I would be able to go to Gooding easily. And I would be able to visit my parents in their home in Idaho a few hours from Gooding.

Then they moved. :|

My parents decided it would be grand to spend the winter in Texas on their brand new piece of property they bought and not come home till the middle of April.

So, I requested days off from work to stay and visit, and had them approved, and now they weren't even going to be there! So I did the next best thing... I talked my husband into driving to Texas to spend the rest of vacation. Little did I know that it would turn into an epic adventure all across the states and be a 5500+ mile round trip.

So, when vacation time arrived, we drove to Gooding and spent a wonderful Anni weekend. The week before we left on vacay we got really good news: my boss rearranged my schedule so that I didn't have to be back on the first of April, but instead on the 5th of April. I had an extra 4 days of vacation!

So, we drove from Anni to Salt Lake area and visited my sister there. Then we went to Moab and Hole 'N' the Rock and down through southern Utah to New Mexico and stayed a night in a last-minute-decision hotel. Then onward through Lubbock to my parents new place in the middle of Texas! Literally, their place is almost the dead center of Texas. It's pretty great, really. We spent a couple nights there, then went to Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex to see hubby's family since we were "in the area". We had dinner with another Tower member, a sister of my Ajah, and had a great time. Then we drove on down to Abilene and spent the night, went to San Angelo to see more of my family and spent the night, then I randomly decided to interview for a job in Abilene and drove back up there the next day to do that. BTW, didn't get it or want it after the interview....

Finally, we spent the rest of the week at my parents place, visiting with them, looking at areas surrounding them, fishing and exploring and just actually vacationing for once. We left early enough to take several days to drive home and went west through El Paso, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Reno back up to Oregon where we started.

I then thought to myself "Why the h#$% did I drive to Texas??"

Then I answered myself:

"Because I can"