Flat Landia

I’m still working on a name for our new town.
My mom suggested
‘East Earwax’ 
– which isn’t bad or too far off the mark.
I may use it.
But I’m not certain yet.

I thought
’Little Town on the Prairie’
might work
because we will definitely be living in the prairies of our great country!
But I just don’t know.

I’ll keep you posted.
Not that you’re sitting around holding your breath, or anything:
{What will she name the new town?
I can’t stand the suspense!}

Yeah.
I know.
Not really.

Anyhoo….

Scooter and I went to visit Flynn for the last weekend of the summer.
Sadly, there wasn’t too much to do.
Flynn was on-call for his job, which meant we had to stay within 1/2 hour of town.

Ummm….

Have you seen where town is?
To get ANYWHERE requires a drive of an hour or more –
in all four directions.
North, South, East, West.
The closest town is 50 miles or more away –
in all four directions.

Plus
Saturday morning, Scooter woke up vomiting.
That limited us dramatically.
We think it was a food borne stomach issue, and not the flu,
but we needed to stay close to the apartment in case he got sick again.

Sunday dawned bright and beautiful.
We went to church.
We’re not introduced as visitors anymore.
We almost have callings, but our records aren’t actually there.
(I figure I’ll be doing music in Relief Society and the High Priest Group Leader has his eye on Flynn.)

After church, Flynn, who was tired of sitting around, decided he was going to call
a co-worker to see if she’d cover his on-call for the afternoon.
And we went on a Sunday Drive.
Flynn wanted to see the nearest reservoir, which he thought was 120 miles away.

Somehow, we missed the memo that it wasn’t 120 miles!
Either that, or we missed a turn somewhere.
It turned out being 196 miles.
Yes, 196 miles on a Sunday Drive.
Which equals almost 400 miles round trip.
(The drive from Zion to East Earwax is 450. Yes, we went a stinkin’ long way!)

On our drive we realized that we weren’t anywhere near our mountains any more.
Not even close.

It was mile after mile of prairie.
Of buttes and knolls.
Dead grasses, rocks and sagebrush.

We were the only car on the road, or so it seemed.
We didn’t overtake a single car in our lane for a couple hours.
And the oncoming traffic was almost as sparse.
We turned the stopwatch app on my phone on and started timing how far it was between car sightings.
Several times it went 10+ minutes between sightings.
That’s a lot of loneliness, IMHO.

I had to stop the car once and stand in the middle of the highway and take a photo to document
the bleak beauty of our drive.
Because, yes, it was beautiful. In a different sort of way.
Much different than what we’re used to, but pretty none-the-less.
Oh, and it wasn’t dangerous for me to stand in the middle of a highway.
Not out there, anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

   I’m certainly not used to all the flatness. Scooter loves it
   because it might mean there might be a tornado there some
   day. And we all know how much he wants to be a
   meteorologist storm chaser on Mars when he grows up!

 

 

 

 

The weekend wasn’t all vomit and driving.
Scooter and Flynn decided that it was time they tried the classic science experiment:
Diet Coke and Mentos.
Perfect for a 10 year old boy and his fun loving dad.
(Sorry for the blur)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The best picture of all.
Look at the happiness on the boy’s face!
He’s so lucky to have Flynn for a dad!