Driving Hannah Home

Who would’ve ever thought that I would be making the drive from Utah to Michigan again?  With Hannah needing to return home after her pediatrics and family medicine rotations, it didn’t feel right to have her make the journey alone, so I flew out once again.

 This time, it felt a bit less triggering to fly into the Salt Lake airport.  None of my children lives in Utah anymore, so I am not barraged with stories of the toxic culture which makes me want to strange most anyone who lives in the Beehive State.  Nevertheless, there was still a bit of a dark cloud over my visit.  Hannah had been dating a really nice guy, and I had bought a ticket to come in a day early so that I could meet him….but she didn’t want me to.  This troubled me for a couple of weeks, but eventually I changed my ticket back to the original date and respected Hannah’s wishes.

 

So I flew in on a Friday morning while Hannah was taking her absolute last end-of-rotation (EOR) exam.  She quickly threw her remaining stuff into Reddi, stopped by her boyfriend’s workplace to say goodbye, and drove up to Salt Lake on our way out to Michigan.

 

It was so good to see her again! We have missed her laughter and jokes and help and smile around the house, and it was lovely to see happiness overflowing in her countenance.  Too, she brought Sweet Tooth Fairy cookies, a tradition between the two of us when we need to make the torturous drive.

 

We made a quick stop at Zupa’s for sandwiches to go, and we were off!  One of the first things I noticed was snow on the mountains which surprised me.  Hannah had been talking about how much she wanted to get home to Michigan because it was so warm in Utah.  I guess that situation had changed just days before.  As we crossed the border into Wyoming, I commented to Hannah that it was strange to have cloudy skies, and she responded back that it looked like a storm ahead.  Silly me—I said, “I’m sure it’s not a storm; just dark skies.”

 

Once we hit Laramie, we were in a full-blown storm with four hours left of driving.  The highways in Wyoming are straight and clear so I figured we could press on to North Platte, Nebraska where we had a hotel reservation.  I should’ve known something was amiss when we were diverted off the highway leaving Laramie.  We ended up on a windy and hilly two-lane road.  The next day we would discover that the highway had been closed.  

 

What should’ve taken us 20 minutes took us an hour.  I called the hotel in North Platte, explaining our condition and begging for a free cancellation.  The front desk woman didn’t even blink an eye—she told us to drive safe and that the reservation was cancelled.  Hannah got a bit of internet service, and she booked us a hotel in Cheyenne.

 

Once we were in our room, I checked the weather.  Snow stopping at midnight, temps in the mid-30s by 9 a.m.  Perfect.  We could make up the four hours that we had lost.

 

We woke up to snow, and low 30s.  We waited until 11 a.m. to leave.  It was crazy seeing the highway closed the other direction and trucks lined up for miles.  I was thankful we weren’t heading west.

 

It was a 13 hour drive to Davenport, Iowa but we made it.  We figured we wanted to have Chick-fil-A for lunch and found one, but who knew it was on the campus of University of Nebraska at Kearny??

And the next day, we went to church (and laughed at the no firearms sign in the front window of the church building) and drove the rest of the way home.

 

It was a sweet reunion between Hannah and Hootie, and it was only minutes after arriving that Glo and Hannah were sitting on the stairs, singing together to Glo’s guiltar playing.

 

All is right with the world again.