Saturday, 26 December: We loaded up the
car, and were on the road by about 7:30a. It was cold. The car thermometer said
it was 8° F as we left Salt Lake. We stopped at Chick-fil-A in Spanish Fork
for breakfast around 8:30a. Roads had some slush and icy spots but wasn’t bad.
Those conditions continued until south of Cedar City. The wind got worse the
farther south we went though. When we stopped in Beaver, Utah, the temperature
was 18° with a wind chill of 4°. (Temperature in Rock Hill at the point was
mid-70s). But most of the way we were able to travel at or near the posted
80mph speed limit. We got to Vegas around 1:40 PST.
We met the family at my brother
Mike and Kelly’s church for a get together. My dad, and all my brothers’ and
sister plus all of their family were there, except for Chris and Laura and
their family. (Their daughter Rachel had just gotten home from having surgery
so they could not make it.) We ate and visited for a couple of hours. Afterward
we checked into the Hampton Inn Airport and set up transportation to the
airport so Peter didn’t have to get up at 4:30a to take us. We then went to Jason and Sherri’s house
where my dad lives to visit with them for the evening. About 8:30p we started
back to the hotel. RATS!!! We had a flat tire. Somewhere along the way we
picked up a screw in the tread of the right rear tire. Peter got it changed in
about 20 minutes (I held the light!) and we headed to the hotel.
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| Family get-together in Vegas |
Sunday, 27 December: We got up in time
to catch the airport shuttle at 4:30a. No TSA pre √ this time so we had to go
through the full drill at security, but the line was short and it didn’t take
long. We were at the gate by 5:07a for our 6am flight. The flight had only 90 people on it, so we
didn’t have to deal with the center seat being taken. Again we got the
emergency exit row. The ride was somewhat bumpy the whole way (light to
moderate chop) and the fasten seat belt light never got turned off. JoAnne and
several others had to ignore the light to visit the necessary. The flight crew
had to remind everyone that they shouldn’t get up, but were pretty
understanding about being stuck in your seat for four hours. After passing
Albuquerque, there was total coverage by clouds so there wasn’t anything to
look at out the window, so I found some Travel Channel programs to watch on my
tablet. JoAnne signed up for internet on the iPad. We got a hangout message
that Peter got the tire fixed at Wal-Mart for $10 and they were on the road
back to Salt Lake by 8:42a. (Who wants to drive 400 miles at 50mph on space
saver spare!)
We landed at Atlanta at 12:37p EST. By
1:23p we were waiting for MARTA. We missed train that was sitting there
when we got out because the sign on the train didn’t say where it was going!!!
We had to wait about another 20 minutes for the next one. After a 40 minute
train ride, we found the car, but couldn’t find the parking ticket. We were
going through the process of paying without a ticket when Mom found it. I-85 in
Atlanta wasn’t that bad, but once out of town it was BUSY! We stopped in Jefferson
for a potty break and some food. We had
to go the back way around Commerce because of accident on freeway that had it
stopped up. We finally arrived home at 6:58p EST.
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| Doraville MARTA Station |
What a great time we had! We had all the family together and
Jessi, Peter, and Kira and planned lots of fun things to do. Only bust was the
Polar Express train ride, but we don’t control the weather, and we found lots
of other things to do.
Thanks, Salt Lake Burnetts and Tureks for your hospitality!
