the rest

While still in Chicago, we decided to go to a baseball game. Justin managed to get some White Sox vs. Yankees tickets, up high in left field. For Juma, the best part of the game was seeing the home run and the fireworks that celebrated it. For Justin, the best part was seeing the Yankees get beat 6-4. For me, unable as I am to get excited about baseball, the best part was seeing Juma so excited. It was his first professional ("prossefinnal" as he said) baseball game, and he loved it from the train ride down there to the peanuts, cotton candy, and hot dogs, to the fouls, balls, and hits, to the 7th inning "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" stretch. We bought him a kid-size Sox hat to remember.

The next morning, Tuesday, we headed out in the morning for the 10-hour drive to North Platte, Nebraska. It's a small town almost exactly half way between Salt Lake and Chicago. We made it without incident and falling asleep at the wheel, which is astounding considering how monotonous Iowa and Nebraska landscapes are. Hilly farms. Flat farms. Hilly farms. For 700 miles.

Then we ran into some problems: we watched the weather channel. A storm was brewing across Wyoming, so we drove only to Laramie in eastern Wyoming and staying an extra night in a hotel there. (I recommend Jeffrey's Bistro, downtown.) The waiting did not help. The severe part of the storm was in the Midwest by then, but snow/rain storms were blasting all of central Wyoming. We drove through anyway--I should say Justin drove through anyway, since I'm a wimp when it comes to driving in the snow--and were in the thick of the "wintry mix" for three hours. That doesn't include the hour wait in a truck stop in the middle of the state to let the storm pass over.

We pushed on through and made it to my parents place right at 4pm to drop Juma off to be babysat. We gave everyone there a quick hello, including my newest niece, and left for the first event of our Beckham family reunion weekend, a showing of Les Miserable in Salt Lake City. Our rush was unnecessary, since our ride didn't come until almost 6pm, but that information would have been useful a little earlier. Like when I spent a grand total of 5 minutes with my family after not seeing them since January (Justin hadn't seen them in 18 months).

Les Mis was the kick-off of our family reunion in the moutains, where I am now, enjoying seeing the extended family, cousins growing up, eating way too much food, swimming, chilling, and chatting.

After the reunion is over, we will stay in Utah a few weeks, then California for a few weeks before we head out for a year-long stay in Tanzania.