Tesla Road trip- Oct. 2026

   I’m writing this as we travel through South Dakota.

  We are camping overnight in our Tesla tent at campgrounds.  We hook the tent to the back of the Tesla, put all the seats down, and blow up a mattress that fits exactly in the space, and sleep in the Tesla at night–  we put the Tesla on camp mode, and on the screen, it shows an outdoor setting with chairs and a log fire…it’s pretty cool.  The camp mode keeps us warm or cool as needed.    The mattress isn’t bad, which is one step above it isn’t good… It’s doable, and I’m looking forward to sleeping in hotels for 3 nights once we hit Nashville.  

We’ve seen some beautiful prairie land.  South Dakota and North Dakota are miles and miles of prairie. So miles and miles of nothing- but atleast it’s green. They are some of the least populated states of our 50…and it shows.   We have voted the ugliest state award goes to Wyoming.  If it didn’t have Yellowstone, it would be bleak.    North Dakota has been windy!  

Wayne made it to his 50th state… North Dakota.  We went to Fargo, where he signed the registry and joined the last state club- North Dakota- and got a free T-shirt to commemorate.  It seems so many people do North Dakota as their 50th state that it’s a “thing.”  It’s been an adventure. This is why we started planning this trip in the first place.  How else do you get to North Dakota?

We’ve been driving east and waking up early, so we have seen some beautiful sunrises.  This is a 4600 miles round trip with 8-10 hours of driving every day.    We have the Starlink hooked up as we drive, so we have internet, and i can do my schoolwork, and we can watch movies and get General Conference in real time.  It’s been awesome having a car that drives itself.  And it’s fun to hear Wayne argue with Grok– the AI voice in the Tesla as we go.  

We are having a protein drink for most breakfasts, eating “healthy” snacks in the car and having one sit-down meal a day as we drive.  Once in Nashville, it will be different– the Grand ol Opry and Dollywood! I’m currently in my 3rd day of the same outfit… It’s comfortable, but kind of messy at this point. I figure– hey I’m camping!

Oct 5–We woke up in the dark at the Missouri State campsite.. ( we also set up in the dark)  we have no idea what this campsite even looked like.  We are getting faster at setting up and taking down; that’s for sure.  We drove to Nashville, TN.. and made it there by 5:00 pm.  Finally SHOWERS and a good bed.  We unloaded and were able to meet up with one of our old YSA’s Emma Hicks at Martin’s BBQ for dinner.  She got her MBA at Vanderbilt University and has stayed here for work.   We caught up and then she took us down to Broadway where all the nightlife and Honkytonks are.  There are a lot of bright lights, a ton of people and live music coming from every bar front.  We settled in at Rovert’s Western World– which features the “old’ country music.  Wayne and I danced and then settled in for drinks and listening.  This place serves a fried baloney sandwich on cheap white bread with chips and a rootbeer for 6 bucks.  It’s called the recession special.  This is a fun honkytonk!  I also danced with some old dude who moved me around the dance floor like a pro.  It was fun.  More wandering down Broadway. We ducked into candy shops and boot stores and more honkytonks.  We landed at Chiefs– it’s 4 stories of different bars and artists playing live music.  We got to the roof and enjoyed the view!  It really is a fun city and so good to share it with Emma. 

Next morning, we got the tour the city trolley  hop on hop off pass and saw all the historical sites.  We ate an amazing 100-layer donut at 5 Daughters Bakery.  It’s a cronut with cream inside and outside.  It was heavenly!   We wandered Broadway for a bit in the daylight– not many people in the honkytonks–but still live music happening.  It’s kind of sad with no audience, but you can see the musicians just want to play.  We got a giant chocolate turtle to eat and ice cream as we wandered.  We saw the State Capitol and the Ryman Theatre ( where the first Grand Ole Opry was located) and the new Dolly Museum soft opening–   and met some nice people along the way.  We ate at Arnold’s restaurant for lunch– which is a Meat and 3 place– so you pick out your meat in a cafeteria style line, and get 3 sides– we got roast beef, mashed potatoes, roasted brussel sprouts and Corn pudding– it was all over the top delicious. We wandered some more–the got back to the hotel for a nap.  We headed back out for dinner at Hattie B’s Hot Chicken.  It was so good.  We love eating our way through a new place. 

We made it to the Grand Ole Opry and Opry Mills, which is a big outlet space.  We found some great shoes- 2 pair for me and 2 pair for Wayne.  Then settled into the Grand Ole Opry.  It really is so cool!  I had to pinch myself.  We got there on a good night where Mitchell Tenpenny was having a raise-the-money-for-cancer night, so there were a lot of artists playing.. We had Jackie Lee, Jo Dee Messina, Lee Brice, Ernest, Devin Dawson and Chris Young all performing.  The caliber of talent in voice, songwriting and instrument playing is truly amazing.  

We once again got up before the sunrise and headed out to Dollywood– we had a 3 ½ hour drive from Nashville and a time change that added an hour, and got to Dollywood at 10:30– it was a gorgeous weather day.  We have had gorgeous weather for this whole trip ( minus the wind in North Dakota for a bit). Dollywood is an experience.  First off we walked through a Dolly biopic– that went through her whole life with pics, movie clips, memorabilia and sparkle.   There is a lot of “I will always love you” sadness because Dolly died– but it is a clean, well-run, hometown-style amusement park.  It was all decorated for Halloween too– which was cool.   They had real pumpkins lining so many walkways–1,000s of pumpkins, plus all the carved pumpkins and giant pumpkin trees and spooky decor, etc..  Dollywood has a lot of land– and features eleven rollercoasters.  We got the time saver pass so we wouldn’t waste our time standing in line and did all of the coasters we could–  Wayne was being such a good sport.. We did a lot of circles and corkscrews, some with dangling feet, some that went straight up and straight down… it was a lot.  I loved them all.  They had a giant free-fall tower as well.- 230 feet in the air ( 20 stories).  When you are at the top, the view is spectacular! I love that “wee hill” feeling.  The rides were super! 

 The shows were amazing.  We saw two shows- Rhonda Vincent and the Rage– a bluegrass singer and band.  She has won 8 grammy’s for female vocalist of the year for bluegrass and she was excellent..once again the guitar, banjo, and mandolin playing was off the charts!  We also saw a dad and son duo called “the Zinks”–  they sang a lot of covers that we recognized.  Very down-home, and the guitar picking was excellent.   

The best thing at the park to eat is the cinnamon bread– it’s actually a whole loaf of hot cinnamon and sugar-coated pieces of dough baked together- ( like monkey bread) and it was amazing!  They sell 3,000 loaves a day on average! 

Day 7– up and early again— so we would get out and do 10 hours of driving.  We have loved using the self-driving in the Tesla.   It makes it so we are relaxed, watching movies, and Wayne isn’t exhausted.  He’s even fallen asleep a couple of times behind his dark sunglasses…we are totally safe.      We arrived at Graham Cave State Park in Missouri before it was dark– and the campground is beautiful.  We set up our Tesla tent quickly and hung out til dark- then slept, and you guessed it, up early again for Day 8 and more driving….to Kansas this time, then pushing for the long haul home… we decided not to use the reserved KOA site but push on 3 more hours to Denver airport and stay in a hotel!   Day 9…more Wyoming driving...arrived Saturday night back in Layton.  We have seen 7 sunrises over the past 9 days.  They were all gorgeous!   We knew we were almost home when we stopped at Little America in Wyoming and got our $1.00 ice cream cones!  We did it!

Ofrenda

 I put an Ofrenda together for Halloween.  An ofrenda (Spanish: "offering") is the offering placed in a home altar during the annual and traditional Mexican Día de los Muertos celebration. An ofrenda, which may be quite large and elaborate, is usually created by the family members of the person who has died and is intended to welcome the deceased to the altar setting.

 I have my grandparents, Wayne's grandparents, my parents, Wayne's dad and Marcie and Preston on it.  It's important to honor the dead.  

Little Women at CPT

I get to play Aunt March/Mrs. Kirk in "Little Women", and I'm thrilled to be in a show again!  I love meeting new people, wearing costumes, stepping into a character who's not like me, being on stage, delving into a song, and creating a character backstory.   So fun.

It's a good group.  Our Jo's are so good, and everyone else is stepping up too. 

Two casts combined.  My double is Rose-- she's front row in the blue.  I'm the oldest one there, and that's okay.

Straight and Tall

 I can still hear my dad's voice whisper to my sister Marcie and me as we were walking down a hallway, or heading into school, or even just pushing a cart at the grocery store...."Straight and Tall, Straight and Tall." 

Sometimes he would use code, "S and T"  and smile and wink at us.  We knew what he was talking about. As a teenager, it often bugged me, and I was reluctant to straighten up, but it was a good reminder.

Straight and Tall  was about 3 rules for living

1. Stand up straight, but not just your posture.  This applies to your opinions and presence. Stop shrinking yourself to make other people feel comfortable. 

2.   Walk tall.  Go into rooms as if you belong there because you do. Chin up.Shoulders back. Energy first. 

3. Be seen. Take up space. Wear the color. Take the photo. Speak up. Laugh loud. You are the main character of your life - not the blurry background extra.         

My dad's motto:  Straight and Tall. Not perfection. Not pretending. Just living like you matter, because you do.   I love my dad for instilling this in my teenage brain. 

September is all about my dad. He's been gone for 11 years.  Dad was born in September and died in September.  It was his favorite month, and now it's one of mine. 

I Retire in 250 days

 I retire in 250 days... and I'm thinking a lot about that.

I have a great job and feel so blessed to have been with Utahonline for over 20 years, and I'm grateful for the time I spent teaching in the classroom at Bountiful High for many years...and I can't wait to be done with it all. So I'm counting down. 

I want to be done with being tied to my house and computer 5 days a week...   It can get lonely and feels isolated working from home with no one else here.  It's a blessing and a curse. 

I want to be done teaching online.  Online is its own challenge.

I want to be done with spreadsheets and secretarial-type work.

I want to be done with "nagging" schools to get their stuff in and tracking programs and chromebooks.

I will miss interacting with people- online and off.   I especially enjoyed UOS training time when we are all together talking, planning and laughing. I will miss money coming in. I will miss having a plan every day and knowing what's expected of me. 

My vision for my future-- or at the end of my first year of retirement..what do I want to say of my year:  We traveled more, and we played with our family and friends and spent quality time together. We helped our kids financially (if needed.) We didn't have any health issues. I learned something new creatively, like taking a class, meeting new people, or performing on stage. I was able to serve in my "ministries" of bringing music to old people with the band, helping people with special needs with a friend-to-friend group and serving in ARP 12-step and with our Branch as missionaries.   I can give more time and energy to all of this.

So... I'm preparing now to get ready, physically, mentally, socially, and financially, so when May 27, 2027 comes, my first day of retirement, I'm ready! I'm having Chatgpt give me daily challenges to address these areas..and it will be interesting to see what the challenges are. Then I just have to follow through.

Wayne's Stake Conference talk

 For the past 14 months, my wife, Melinda, and I have been given a front-row seat to something sacred: we have watched Jesus Christ rebuild lives. We serve in a transition branch composed largely of men who have been convicted of felonies and served time in jail or prison. 

Through this calling, we have come to love people who have made serious mistakes and suffered serious consequences. But we have also witnessed something remarkable: no mistake, addiction, prison sentence, or painful past places a person beyond the Savior’s reach.

The experiences of 3 friends from our branch can teach us the different ways the Savior can restore lives. The first is my friend Kevin. 

For more than 50 years, Kevin struggled with addictions to alcohol and tobacco. He eventually lost hope and made choices that resulted in him serving ten years in prison. He described himself using Lehi’s words as being bound by “awful chains” and carried into a “gulf of misery and woe.”

While in prison, Kevin made the decision to turn to God. He said that through Church volunteers, weekly worship services, scripture study, and the Healing through the Savior addiction recovery program, he came to know Jesus Christ. He discovered that forgiveness and redemption were still available—even to him.

Through the Savior’s grace, Kevin became free from the addictions that had held him captive for so many years. He has been sober now for 13months. Even more miraculously, he witnessed the Savior help heal the family members he had hurt and enable them to forgive him. Kevin’s testimony is that Christ did not merely forgive his past. The Savior freed him from captivity, healed relationships, restored hope, and gave him a new life.

Step 2 in the Healing through the Savior program is, “come to believe the power of God can restore us to complete spiritual health.” I love the word restore. It means to repair, reclaim, renew, and return something to usefulness and beauty. The central message of step 2 is hope. My friend Brad in the branch says Hope stands for "Heaven on planet earth" and that he found it in the Ogden Transition Branch. 

For someone trapped in addiction, burdened by sin, or carrying shame, hope begins with the belief that change and forgiveness are possible—and that the past does not have to define the future, Kevin’s experience is a modern witness of the mission Jesus Christ announced at the beginning of His earthly ministry when He said:

 He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted [and] to preach deliverance to the captives” (Luke 4:18). Jesus came to forgive sinners, liberate captives, heal wounded hearts, strengthen the weak, and restore what had been lost.

That restoring power comes through His infinite Atonement. Alma taught that Christ would take upon Himself our “pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind,” together with our sicknesses and infirmities, so that He would know “how to succor his people.  (Alma 7:11–12).

President Boyd K. Packer taught, “Restoring what you cannot restore, healing the wound you cannot heal … is the very purpose of the Atonement of Christ.”

Repentance does not necessarily remove every earthly consequence. Kevin still had to face the consequences of his choices.  The Savior can also restore us by giving purpose to our suffering and allowing us to bless others.

My friend John, another member of our branch, entered prison at age 63 believing he might never come out alive. Because of the serious mistakes he had made, he also thought there was no way God could still love him. When first incarcerated, several inmates warned John to stay away from a man named Frank, a feared cartel enforcer. But one day Frank approached him. John braced himself for a confrontation.  Frank said, “I have been watching you. You pray before every meal. Could you teach me how to pray?”

John and Frank began meeting each evening to read scriptures and pray together. Frank later confided that he had planned to take his own life, but their scripture study had opened a window of hope he had never imagined. After his release, Frank and his wife left their former lives behind and were eventually baptized.

In John’s story, the Savior was restoring two lives. As John helped Frank discover God, John began to rediscover his own worth as a son of God. Serving Frank helped lift John from the depression and shame that had convinced him he had lost the Savior’s love.

That is what Jesus Christ does. He meets us in our prisons—whether those prisons have walls or are made of sin, addiction, despair, or shame. Through His Atonement, He restores hope, identity, purpose, and the possibility of a different future.

Not every broken heart, however, is the result of sin. Some hearts are broken by grief, betrayal, physical or emotional illness, or prayers that appear to remain unanswered.

The Book of Mormon gives us a beautiful picture of the Savior’s desire to heal every kind of affliction. When the resurrected Christ appeared to the people at Bountiful, He said: “Have ye any that are sick among you? Bring them hither. Have ye any that are lame, or blind, or halt, or maimed, or leprous, or that are withered, or that are deaf, or that are afflicted in any manner? Bring them hither and I will heal them… We later read, “And he did heal them every one” (3 Nephi 17:7, 9).

If the Savior were standing among us today, perhaps we would hear His invitation in language such as this: Have ye any who are discouraged? Have ye any who are worried about their children or grandchildren? Have ye any who are grieving, lonely, anxious, or depressed? Have ye any whose marriages are strained, whose prayers seem unanswered, or who have questions about their testimonies?Bring them hither.

Or perhaps His invitation would be even more personal: Are you discouraged? Are you afraid? Are you burdened by guilt? Do you have questions? Then come unto Me, and I will heal you.

His healing may come immediately, as it did for the people at Bountiful, or it may come gradually. 

Another member of our branch, my friend Luke, has helped me understand that restoration does not always feel dramatic. Luke committed serious sins. His choices nearly ended his marriage. His Church membership was withdrawn, and he was incarcerated for several years. Luke once expected the Atonement to produce a momentous spiritual experience. When he read Alma’s question, ‘Have you experienced this mighty change in your hearts?’ he wondered why he had not felt some overwhelming transformation (Alma 5:14).

But a mighty change does not always arrive in a single mighty moment.

From the first day of Luke’s confession, small evidences of the Savior’s grace began to appear: a message arriving when he desperately needed it, a telephone call timed almost impossibly to answer a need, and people placed in his path at the right moment. Luke was re-baptized last Sunday.  Luke still says he has not received the dramatic spiritual manifestation he once thought he was supposed to have. But he can see what the Savior has done in his life.

Sometimes we do not recognize the Savior’s hand because we are waiting for thunder while He is sending daily bread.

The parable of the good Samaritan teaches us something more about this healing. We all know the story: a wounded man was passed by several individuals, but a Samaritan stopped to help. When we are wounded, that Samaritan is Jesus Christ. He comes to where we are, has compassion on us, binds our wounds, carries us, and pays the price for our healing. When others are wounded, the Savior gives us the opportunity to follow His example—to become a good Samaritan ourselves. We stop, show compassion, help bind their wounds, and point them to the Savior, who is the true Healer.

That is something Melinda and I have learned in our service in the transition branch: we are not the healers. Jesus Christ is. Our privilege is to help bring people to Him—and then witness what His grace can do. No life is beyond the reach of Jesus Christ.

We may see ruins; He sees something worth rebuilding.

We may see failure; He sees a disciple who can still become holy.

We may see weakness; He sees an opportunity for His grace to become manifest.

Brothers and sisters, let’s take Step 2. Come to believe that the power of God can restore us. Turn toward Jesus Christ.  Repent of what needs to be changed. Seek priesthood and professional help when needed.  And then allow the Savior time to perform His work in us.

His invitation is both tender and direct: “Will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you?” ... Behold, mine arm of mercy is extended towards you” (3 Nephi 9:13–14).

I testify that His arm of mercy is extended toward each of us. Jesus Christ lives. Because He rose from the tomb, death will not have the final word. Because He carried our sins, repentance is real. Because He experienced our pains, we never suffer alone. And because of His grace, broken lives can be forgiven, healed, restored, and ultimately made whole, leading us into a future filled with hope. Heaven on planet earth. 

Uintahs with the Branch

 Saturday we took some men up to Mirror Lake in the Uintahs for a day of hiking, canoeing and nature that our District put on for the 3 transition branches. We spent the day with Scott Wilson, Brad Phillips and Kim Hildreth.  Wayne climbed to the top of Bald Mountain with 2 bald guys ( Brad and Scott) and a very determined special-needs man Kim.  Kim is slow and wobbly but he doesn’t give up.  We had lunch and a gorgeous lake to sit by.