Out Driving...With The Youngest

 I've been fortunate enough to help two of my children learn to drive.

Now, I'm helping our youngest.

Some things have changed, and some things have not.

When I helped teach the first two, we lived in an area with many more people. I remember driving the kids to an empty parking lot and swapping seats. Then, they would putter around the lot, practice their turning/stopping/signaling skills. They'd get a feel for the wheel, the brakes, the gas, and after a while, we'd change seats and I would drive us home.

This is when they first learned to drive. Of course, over time, they got better until eventually I would climb in the passenger seat and my child would drive us to wherever we were going and many times, would drive us home, too. But, I did not let them on a busy road with other drivers when they were first learning.

This time, it's a little different.

On Sunday, my son and I pulled out the van and I drove to rural Bothwell, Utah. If you're unfamiliar with Bothwell (rural, or otherwise...), you're not alone. I'm not dissing the place. In fact, I'll bet most Bothwell residents would prefer that people did NOT know about where they live. I chose the area for my son to get in more driving time because, well...there's not much there.

And on a Sunday afternoon in January, I suspected we'd be practically the only car on the road.

I was right.

My son climbed in the driver's seat and we were off. We did not go fast, and my son practiced pulling over and stopping several times just in case someone came up behind us and did not want to travel at the same rate of speed as us. The area was perfect, flat valley, long straight (and deserted...) roads.

The driving lesson was a success. He drove for a half hour, made two trips round a loop of a few homes and sod farms, was passed only once, and even drove by a county sheriff. 

So much different than a church parking lot.

We'll go out again and probably to the same spot. My son liked it--he felt comfortable and confident. Hopefully, that will make me comfortable and confident as well.

Four Trips...Four Items

 In this picture, I see four things--there's actually more, but the three pieces of furniture and the tree are what I'm focusing on. The reason I took this picture is because each of these four things represents four trips I had to make yesterday.

I'm glad I didn't have anything else on the docket. 

I don't work my job on Fridays. Fridays have become our "go pick-up groceries" day. We drive about twenty minutes south to get groceries at two stores. Thanks to the wonderful implementation of pick-up shopping, we drive to the store, open up the back of the minivan, and after the groceries are loaded up, we head home.

Yesterday, we decided to check out a couple of places before we came home, one was an amazing furniture store (subject of a future blog post...), and the other a thrift store. We're on the look out for three things--a cabinet for our living room TV, a beat-up desk for my son's projects, and a table base for my bumper pool table (subject of another future blog post...). 

Yesterday, we hit the jackpot!

We found two of the three things at the thrift store on our first trip out. The cabinet and desk were perfect, but we didn't have time (or space...) to take them home. No problem--I can just come back. We did and I did. The problem was, I greatly underestimated the cargo size of Donk the Subaru Forester. When they wheeled out the desk, I knew I was in trouble. Only the desk would fit = yet another trip south. But, before I left, I did go inside the thrift store (if you know me, you know I could not resist...) and I spotted the third leg of the trifecta...I spotted the table.

I drove home, unloaded the desk, then took out the middle row seats in the van and headed once again south. We loaded up the table and cabinet--they barely fit--but they did fit and I counted that a success.

But, if you think my driving time for the day was done, you are wrong, my friend. Last night an opportunity opened to get a Christmas tree. We haven't seen a lot of trees in our area, so we drove east to Logan, home of the Aggies, and picked up a tree. After we got home, I unloaded the tree and placed it in the garage. 

I snapped a picture. It represents over 150 miles of driving to assemble the four items. Lots of driving, but for us, a very successful day.