Draper

Our son Gerald lives in Taiwan.  He and his wife Frances own two homes in Draper, Utah.  They rent one and have the other all set up for living for them when they come to the states.  Or they did until recent months.  They have decided to rent out this second home as well.  That meant that the place had to be emptied.  Imagine a completely furnished and equipped home and what it would take to empty it to rent.  And they are in Taiwan.  The job has fallen to family here, and, this past week, it fell to Layne and me to complete the emptying job.

So, after a couple of days recovery time at home from our Branson trip, we spent Wednesday morning canning peaches at the Church cannery and drove to Draper in the afternoon.  We spent all day Thursday packing things up with the help of friend Beth Hutchings and finished up Friday morning.  What a marathon!  We spent our nights at my sister's.  It was a brief time together but enjoyable.  One of the nice things about living in Idaho is that we are closer to her and her family.  One of the sweet perks of the trip was time at the Berretts and the pile of clothes in my size that Maryanne gave me.  She had quite a collection of them, which she can no longer wear.  So now I have the sweet pleasure of going through all of them and adding to my wardrobe collection.  What girl doesn't love that!

Exhausted, we drove home on Friday afternoon.  All went well until we were 15 miles outside of Boise.  Then, the sparse traffic came to a complete shut-down.  We sat for two hours.  Finally we inched forward and, eventually, arrived in Boise where the freeway widens and all returned to normal.  What was the cause of the delay you may wonder?  We are wondering still.  There was no sign of trouble that we could see.  But our early evening arrival became a late night one for some unexplainable reason.  Funny how we take comforts and ease for granted.  I felt immediately frustrated at the delay, yet we waited it out in complete comfort.  Layne, always the philosophical one, simply accepted what was and mostly exhibited much more patience than I.  Except for the gasoline part.  As we sat still on the freeway, the gas tank moved ever closer to empty.  But, just in time, we inched toward an exit with a gas station.  Blessed again.  We arrived home late Friday night to a full moon, two cats and a welcoming home.  I invited Layne to come outside on the front porch and kiss me in the moonlight.  He was happy to comply.  A full moon is not to be wasted!

I would love to share some pictures of our most recent adventure but I didn't take a single one. So not like me these days.  But the distraction of our work effort took all thoughts of pictures out of my mind.  So included here are some of our Idaho outdoors at this beautiful coming-of-fall time of year.

Black-eyed susans grow wild all over Idaho and I even saw
them along the roadways in Utah.  I've never noticed them before
and think that they are lovely.  But Layne won't allow them
in the yard.  I think they would make very pretty yard flowers!

Here are more of our black-eyed susans growing beside the corn
that spreads out all over the open fields near our home.  It filled
the fields all along our drive home.  Corn is everywhere!