Adventures with Grandpa – Episode #3

As I mentioned earlier, I was in charge of picking out the audiobooks for us to listen to on the trip. I belong to an audio book club and I have hundreds of them to choose from. The first one I produced was one of my favorites, “All the Best – My Life in Letters” by George H. Bush. Unfortunately, Dad had already listened to that one. Of course, I can listen to that audiobook over and over again, but once Dad has listened to something, he’s ready to move on! My next selection was “How to Talk to a Liberal – if you Must” by Ann Coulter. Of course I have all her books, but I think that one is the funniest. He liked it, but before too long he was complaining that she talks too fast and he was missing half of it. I have to agree she’s a little hard to follow when she gets on a roll, so we made another change. I pulled out a Ronald Reagan biography that I love by Michael Deaver, “A Different Drummer,” only to be told that he already listened to that one, too! So my next selection was “Sarah” by Orson Scott Card. I love his books about the women in the Old Testament. Well, I’m afraid it’s a bit too “girly” and not fast-paced enough for Dad. After listening for quite a while, Dad asked me how long it would be before Ishmael would be born. At that point in the audiobook, “Sarai” was still ten years old and hadn’t even married “Abram” yet. We did listen to "Hostage: The Jill Carroll Story," which is a series of articles written by the Christian Science Monitor reporter who was kidnapped in Iraq a few years ago, but that was relatively short. After that it was obviously time to give up on the audiobooks and find something to talk about! (Or more accurately when Dad is concerned -- yell back and forth!)

We had a fun time in St. John and enjoyed seeing all of LR’s family (except Sarah, who couldn’t make it). We went to Angela's graduation on Friday night, toured the high school on Saturday, and helped LR and Rhonda arrange their stuff in a storage shed. Dad is quite good at directing traffic on this type of thing. “If you turn that chair upside down on that bin, you can squeeze that small box on top of it, and don’t worry, the table top will hold it up.” There was much discussion about when we would be traveling back home. I didn’t want to stay until Monday because it would use up my whole weekend and I would get nothing done at home, let alone any rest. Dad didn’t want to drive on Sunday. So that left leaving on Saturday. Dad kind of wanted to drive through a nearby town called Snowflake, but didn’t say anything more about it when he found out it was a little out of the way. Nevertheless, when we left St. John, he got behind the wheel first and guess where we headed … Snowflake! As the designated navigator, I missed a turnoff, which made the side trip a little longer, but it was a cute little community anyway.

I can’t describe the return trip without mentioning the snack situation. I had visited a grocery store in St. John with LR and had restocked our supplies. The next problem is that Dad must not look at the packages that closely when he opens them because he opened the bag of banana chips on the bottom. I picked them up from the top and dumped them on the floor. He picked them up and returned them to the package; they were all his, once again.

It was the Memorial Day weekend when we took this trip to Arizona, and I was concerned about the “dam traffic” (meaning the traffic backup when you cross Hoover Dam). For those of you that don’t often travel that route, it can get really bad, especially on a holiday. They are building a new bridge to make things better, but if you ask me it’s still a long way from completion.

There was really no trouble crossing the dam on the way down to Arizona, but going that direction isn’t as bad because you can decide to “bail” and go through Laughlin (an extra 30 miles) only five miles or so from the dam (just north of Boulder City). That way, you can turn around and take the Laughlin route without having wasted too much time. Going from Arizona to Nevada, though, is a different story. You have to decide “to dam or not to dam” just outside of Kingman, and if you have to turn around, it’s a long way back, over 70 miles. Usually the traffic gets backed up just because there are a lot of people crossing the dam road to take their dam pictures and stuff. If there’s an accident on that long, windy, two-lane dam road, though, you could get dam stopped for literally hours at a time. (And yes, I am having fun referring to everything like that.)

Jimmy and I drove down to visit Jill and Jared (and the kids!) in Arizona in April and we had the same concerns coming back (also a holiday weekend). As we were driving along, they had some of those electronic signs up with a phone number you could call for dam traffic information. It’s one of the most frustrating signs I’ve ever seen, though, because it changed screens too fast. One screen would say, “Dam construction ahead” and the next, “Expect long delays,” then “Traffic information,” then “Call toll-free 1-888-248-1259.” By the time all that stuff scrolls by, you’ve passed the sign. (If you’re stopped in traffic and can read the whole thing, you already have your answer.) It also goes by way too fast to get the whole number and if you’re the one that’s driving, forget it! The first time I saw a sign on that trip with Jimmy, I let out a yelp and jolted him out of his Ipod-induced stupor. Of course neither one of us remembered any of the numbers on that pass. Another sign came up further down the road and as we waited for the screen with the number to come up, we tried to split up who would remember which part, but first we had to argue about whether it started with 800 or 888, which made me forget my numbers. The next time we finally got our assigned numbers and tried it with both 800 and 888. We eventually got a recording that wasn’t much help, but we thought we had the dam traffic problem solved forevermore.

Not so. When Grandpa and I were on our way back to Nevada, I whipped out my trusty cell phone and dialed the saved number – and it was the exact same message that Jimmy and I got in April. You would think that if they made the effort to post those electronic signs, they would change the recording from time to time – say, when there’s a major backup – but no, the message is the same. We have since found no way to check dam traffic without being there to see it for yourself. And that’s enough to make you use the other version of that dam word!

We stopped in Kingman on our way back to fill up the gas tank and get some real food (we finally maxed out on the snacking). I asked the woman at the checkout counter about the dam traffic and she confirmed that the recording is always the same and there’s no way to check traffic status. I asked if she had heard anything about the traffic that day, and she said that everybody said the dam traffic was BAD. I said okay, I guess we’ll go through Laughlin. She said that she heard that the Laughlin traffic was also bad. Great news! I moved on to the adjacent restaurant to order some food for us. Dad came in and started loudly questioning me about whether or not I’d be able to make it back to Vegas without going to the bathroom again (catching the interest of all of the bored truckers in there), so I gave him an assignment: Go and interview people coming into the mini mart and find out if they have just come from the dam direction. See what they say about the traffic. Off he went without complaint.

He came back with the report that the dam traffic was really bad. Of course, everybody he talked to was coming towards Arizona instead of leaving it (like we were), but they said the backup going towards Nevada looked worse than theirs. We decided to go through Laughlin. As we left the mini mart, we got a merry wave and good luck wishes from several groups of people. That’s Dad for you. Quite the sociable guy. If only he had more time, I’m sure he would have distributed a few Book of Mormons.

Of course, nobody told us that there is major road construction between Laughlin and Las Vegas, and it’s a single lane going each direction most of the way. But we eventually made it home and were happy to make it!

The trip to Arizona was over but the adventures with Grandpa weren’t. More still to come!