Trip Update...

Just about the only time I can think of a blog is in the wee hours of the morning when I am in between sleeps and not even really quite all the way awake!

We left at 5 am on Thursday morning, loading up our suitcases into Jims pickup and heading out into the dark morning.  The trip was actually a very fast one between Waldport and Boise. We stopped in Sisters at "The Gallery" restaurant for breakfast and then along the highway in the beautiful Malhuer Valley, arriving in Boise by dinnertime. The next day we didn't get outta Boise until almost 10 am, after we picked up our SUV we rented and loading it up (it was ffffffrrrrrreeeeeeezzzzzziiiiiiinnnnnnggggg) and headed out.  We stopped in Buhl to see an old family friend, Randy Kruse, who owns a big trucking company and credits our dad in getting him started on his journey into trucking. I didn't remember him at all but I do remember his mom and dad and certainly could see the resemblance.  On to Twin Falls to meet our other sister and Bill, her guy, and then hit the road.  I can't remember the stops we made but we finally made it to Laramie Wyoming somewhere along midnight and collapsed into beds for the night. Got up at 8 the next day, ate and headed out again. We stopped at the Cabela's headquarters in Sydney Nebraska and then in Grand Island NE, for my oldest sister Carol and her husband Cecil and to say hi to dads niece, Charlotte.  Then on to Oneill.....

I have had lots of time to think, laugh, and be so grateful for our family.  Before Penny ever called me about dad I had been thinking about all of my sisters, about the uniqueness of each one of them, about the love that they have lavished on me over the years and even about the arguments we had! yeah, with five of us there were just a few! haha!  One day, a few weeks ago, I printed out some pictures of the last trip that we took here, I had been thinking about dad alot and wanted to make a layout for my scrapbook with those pics. I must say, I am so so so grateful that I took those pictures! I have a plan to make a pic layout titled "Daddy's Hands" with closeups of those hands that I loved so very much. Hands that reached out to grab mine this summer, a hand that would come up to touch my head and hands that he would sit and rub together when he was thinking about something.  They were work worn hands.  They are hands I will miss for the rest of my life.

I took this picture of dads hand and mine on the last day we were ever with him.  Its one of the ones I want to scrap...

So many things I want to say but I feel like I need time to be alone and get all my thoughts together in order to write them down.  Tomorrow is the funeral and then we will have to make a trip out to dad's house and take care of some legal things at the same time.