The Expedition

Twice a year, I take a journey over mountains, skirting around red cliffs, and trudging through a desolate wasteland of sagebrush and outposts (where you can purchase authentic pieces of pottery made from the finest horse hair) to come back to my home sweet home. In winter I come back for Christmas and in the summer I come back for an annual family camp-out. Both of which are noble causes and serious expeditions.

This year's excursion was more adventurous than most, and there are some details that I wouldn't mind forgetting. 


-Over the two weeks and two days that I have been absent from Provo, I have spent over forty-three hours driving.
-I have discovered that I do not possess a  general sense of direction, as made more U-turns on this trip than I care to count.
-Though normally an overly cautious driver, I tend to be somewhat absent minded. This resulted in my getting pulled over (for the very first time!) in Colorado City (probably by a polygamist police officer!) and receiving my first speeding ticket. 
-Many glorious hours were spent on my sister's back porch in the evenings.
-Nephews who have just learned how to properly give zerberts (I haven't the slightest as to how to properly describe what that is) are very effective alarm clocks, and are (not surprisingly) more persistent.
-Watching my nephew throw up all over the kitchen floor makes me lose my appetite for bean burritos that have the same consistency as the muck I just witnessed forcefully exit my nephew's small body.
-I received one of the strangest sunburns of my life: a small two and a half inch strip of skin just below my hairline. The peeling of said sunburn just made it look like I had a severe and quite disgusting case of dandruff. 

-Even though the official ordinances performed in temples are all exactly the same, each temple decides to do the minimal details in radically different ways. I think they always want to keep you on your toes or keep you feeling humble or something of that sort.
-No matter when I come home, my parents' house always exceeds its capacity by several bodies stacked into the living room. It makes needing a midnight drink of water very exciting.
-I have found that nearly all of my family members are poor cheaters and sore losers. We can't even play Red Light, Green Light in a good mood.
-I forgot to take my tennis shoes to our family camp-out, so I spent four days traipsing about the forest in a pair of spongy flip flops. A most ineffective choice of footwear.
-Unbeknownst to me, moths are the real terrors of camping trips. All these years I've been scared of bears, wolves, and bigger bugs, when I've really needed to be worrying about the common moth.
-In my family there is no such thing as a secret or a private conversation. If you tell one family member anything at all, the rest of them will know about it before you can turn your back.  
-Flying beetles the size of tennis balls have the unique ability to effectively interrupt any mental tranquility.
-The tan that I thought I had acquired via countless hours in the Arizona sunshine was effectively washed off in the shower.
-Reuniting with friends and family is the best reason to visit Arizona.

The drive back to Utah was one of the longest of my life. I spent the last four hours of it routinely shining the light of my phone on my speedometer in order to ascertain my speed as the lights in my dashboard do not work at all. Every sign that I passed provided little relief. Provo: 40 miles. And then an hour later (or what seemed to be an hour): Provo: 38 miles. Another hour later: Provo: 35 miles. It seemed as though I would never make it. When I finally crossed the overpass from the freeway into P-Town at midnight, I had never seen a more beautiful sight. Provo seemed to me to be particularly beautiful and even slightly shimmering (over-exhaustion?).

Now it's back to office work and bowls of oatmeal. How I've missed you Provo.