Travel Musings

Last week, I flew to Indiana (I should say Indianapolis, but who can spell it?) to pick up a car and drive it to Maryland. I was going to be driving all day anyway, so why not help out?

The Weather Channel was pretty excited about the big storm that would be covering this route, but, as it turned out, I had sunshine almost the whole way. It started drizzling when I reached Route 29 at the end of the trip. Apparently I was a few hours behind a small storm and a few hours ahead of a big storm.

This was a nice visit. Evan doesn't mind playing with Grandpa. He greets me with a "Come on!" and sets me right to work playing with super hero village people and reading about "Swampy Critters" in the swampy swamp.

It must be a sign of getting old, but spending time in the car with no distractions makes me reflect on my life and how it could have been different. I can't really call it regrets, because I wouldn't necessarily do anything differently if faced with the same decisions, but here are some items of advice:

1) Don't slip into debt for "operating expenses" and needless things. Education and home ownership may require going into debt, but those are investments that could provide for the family. We seem to have slipped into debt just by living. If I didn't need a high-paying job to stay even, we could pick up and go anywhere we wanted. Golden handcuffs are pretty, but freedom would be nice.

2) Stay in touch with your friends. I sometimes wonder what has happened to the people I knew in high school. The ones who didn't die in motorcycle accidents and in Vietnam are probably still out there. Are they happy? Did they find the Church after all?

3) Have fun while you're young and single, but get serious about preparing for the future, too. I was a great student in subjects that I was interested in, but I wasn't self-disciplined enough to complete something like English 111. So what if the teacher has an affection for her local rules of punctuation? (Maybe you can tell that I am still ticked off that the West apparently had a different opinion than the East on the need for a comma before "and" in a list. I now randomly do it both ways.) If you can learn where a computer prefers to have a comma, you can adapt to where a teacher wants one.

4) There are things that you can do when you are young and single that you may have to wait a long time to do later. Like a mission. Don't let your fears or someone else's bad experience scare you off.

5) When you are working day and night to provide for your family, stop to ask yourself if you are providing for their needs other than monitarily. Did I spend enough time doing what the kids wanted to do? I could have been a better leader.

6) Read the scriptures every day. You don't know what you are missing until you try it. Last year's challenge was a good experience and we can do it again.