Still Moving Around

Salt Lake City

Hello,

We were on the road for three days with an overnight stay in Bismarck, ND and in Billings, MT. there was a computer available in Billings, but not the time or inclination to write. For almost three weeks we will be stationary in SLC. That is great, but I would rather be settled. This living out of a suitcase is for some other type of bird. At least we are not living hand to mouth. We are well blessed and have more than enough.

Just a note to bring you up to date. On September 1, Leroy will start to work as an interim pastor at Bethany in Burlington, IA. This is Leroy’s home congregation. It should be an interesting experience. I have only visited in this place so it will still be some learning for me as I acclimate to a new place.

Your Interstate Highways are being repaired and prepared for your pleasant, comfortable trip across the country. Every day we witnessed this fact up close and personal. Generally it was relatively painless just to be funneled down to one lane. The farther west we went the speed through these areas was dropped to 35 mph. That seemed excessive especially in those places that no work, machines, or people were visible carrying on any meaningful endeavor. Some spots did not even have machines or people around just 5-6 miles of cones. Least you thought to speed through any of these spots; you should know that in the far west a police officer was often seen talking to someone in their vehicle pulled off to the side of the road.

At first I groused in my head about the 35 mph and in two places after traffic slowed to 10 mph for a couple miles, I declared, “I would be happy to go 35 mph.” It was good to laugh. Perspective changes emotions.

For reasons I did not understand motorcycles were sometimes warned that they might want to use an alternate route because of the unsafe road surface. Nothing looked different to me.

Leroy read that only three states in the country do not have a helmet law for motorcycles. It seems that was a moving target as every state sported cyclists without helmets. But I suppose is that no different than many people feeling that speed limits are suggestion rather than a law. Seems to me that we just think the laws we break are the ones that are ok to break. Others, choose the wrong laws and should “have the book thrown at them”. Or is a speed limit indeed a suggestion rather than a law and I just do not know that?

Paula