Never Again Utahrd!

We left Phoenix at 5:22 AM Tuesday Dec. 6th, nose hairs froze at our first pit stop in Flagstaff. Once we hit Page we had beautiful sunny weather all the way until Mills (small town? consists only of two mills, hence the name Mills, UT) when the flurries started. I'm not sure if it "flurries" anywhere else, but in Utah when a snow storm is blowing in it starts out with flurries. It's like tiny cotton ball snowflakes that flurry around but don't stick to your windshield or the road, they just interfere with your cop watching abilities. By Spanish Fork the real snow was falling and sticking to the road and as it seems every year, everyone forgets how to drive in the snow. You have those drivers that slow down to 35 mph and slam on their breaks every 10 seconds because the car 10 car lengths in front of them tapped their breaks. You also have those drivers that continue to speed and enjoy watching your eyeballs pop out of your head when they cut you off and spray your car with salty snow. Then you have those like me, we slow down to a safe speed and stay a few car lengths back. So our 12 hour drive from Phoenix to Logan ended up taking us 16 1/2 hours. Four and half of those hours were from Spanish Fork to Layton with top speed being 30 mph. And this was just the beginning of our bad luck.

Of course Utah was having record cold temperatures during our visit. Logan had a high of 13 degrees on Wednesday, good thing we kept our winter coats! We ventured into town and purchased a doggy coat for Mazzy and ran into Christopher's best friend Derek and his wife. Every time we visit Utah and go into Petsmart we see Derek, weird. Went back to the house and prepared for the gathering/open house/come see Jory and Joey like a zoo exhibit party. Saw some friends, ate a lot of finger food and bonded with Sara's "daughter" Leslie over Harry Potter.

Bad luck Part 2: Thursday Jory woke up in extreme pain and because we don't have insurance yet, I told him to take a Lortab which he did and went back to sleep for awhile. Later he woke up feeling OK, took a shower and just as we were packing the car and getting ready to leave he doubled over in pain. He decided it was bad enough he should go to the hospital. On the way to the hospital I called Robby and Regina and told them we were going to miss the party they were so graciously throwing for us. Thankfully my aunt Nora works at the Specialty Hospital in Logan and she was there waiting for us when we arrived. They tested and found Jory had kidney stones. A shot of Morphine in the ass and a prescription for Lortab later, we were sent home. For a second in his drugged up state Jory actually thought we could go to the party in SLC, then the Morphine sunk in and he hit that sack.

Bad luck Part 3: Friday we headed for Salt Lake and tried to meet friends for dinner since we missed our party the night before, unfortunately everyone already had plans. So much for seeing our friends, damn kidney stones anyway. We were able to hang out with Regina and the boys for a few hours on Saturday. Eli and Charlie are so smart and so much fun to play with, Happo Happo! Hopefully Jory and I will be blessed with kids as great as they are. We enjoyed a smoke break with Jen at my old stomping grounds. Then we were off the Provo to hang out with Jory's dad and his brothers. We ended up staying the night and going out for breakfast at Mimi's for Casey's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY Casey!

Major Bad luck Part 4: We left Provo for our 9 hour drive home around 1:30 PM. After stopping for gas in Beaver Jory took over driving and was pulling off the exit ramp to turn on to SR 20 and the car died. At this point our bad luck had passed laughable altogether and we looked at each other with the "Are you Fucking kidding me" expressions. We tried several times to get it started and ended up calling Beaver City Chevron for a tow. 30 minutes later, Rick the tow truck driver showed up and found that the timing belt had broke and because it's a Honda it probably took out the head which could cost $1500. Funny enough Rick asked us how lucky we were feeling because he could tow us back to the station in Beaver to fix the timing belt, but if the head was broke he'd then have to tow us to Cedar City to get it replaced hopefully on Monday. As luck would have it, my brother Colby lives in Cedar City so we would have a place to stay. After a $245 tow truck ride Colby picked us up and took us back to his house.

The bad luck continues...Seriously! Part 5: The next morning at 6:30 AM we dropped Colby off at work because he so generously offered his truck to us. We decided to go back to "Above All Auto" and get the cigarettes we left in my car. I was feeling a little nervous about leaving the few Xmas presents we left in the car so I decided to move them into the truck. I turned the truck off to open the back and couldn't get it opened because my hands were either frozen or I was too sleepy so I ended up putting them behind the seat. Went to start the truck and nothing...Colby had schooled me on his funky computer chip key and how it sometimes acts funny so he has a back up key. I swapped out keys and this time it turned over but acted like the battery was dead. Tried a few more times and still no success. Finally I called Colby to see if there was a special button to push or dance I had to do in order to get it started and he apologized for us being stranded again, he thought when he charged his battery the week before it was good to go. It would have been, had we not come into contact with it, apparently everything we touch turns to shit. By this time it was 7:30 and the auto shop would be opening at 8:00 so figured we could get a jump from an employee. A few minutes later Colby called us back and told us we could jump start his truck with my battery without turning my car on. Jumped the truck, turned my keys in to have my car fixed went back to Colby's and took a nap. Woke up and got the call we were hoping for that my car was fixed and it was ONLY the timing belt which would only be $350.

$595 later we left Utahrd and headed home. The minute we got home I changed into shorts and a T shirt and enjoyed a cigarette on my porch. Awe...how I love Arizona!

Bad luck Part 6: Unfortunately not all stories end with "And They Lived Happily Ever After"....nope at least not for the Johnson's. That's right folks, Jory ended up catching a horrible cold and he's sitting at home suffering without a sweet topless nurse to wait on him. Don't feel too bad for sweet Jory, he still has a full bottle of Lortab to help sweeten his days.

The End.