Episode 30: In Which Jessica Has Car Trouble and Goes To Slide Rock

My goodness, seems like life has at least been a little more exciting since I got back from Utah. I'm not sure what to attribute it to, but I'm sure that I could have done without the excitement yesterday. =P

Yesterday, I was assigned to drive my sister and 3 of her friends to Slide Rock State Park up near Sedona, Arizona. We were supposed to leave around 10 but we didn't leave until 11 because my sister and her friends took their precious time eating breakfast and getting ready to go. Once we finally got going it was pretty smooth sailing out of Phoenix...aside from some of the very young music coming out of the speakers. I certainly felt like the uncool mom taking the kids out.

As we were climbing a hill outside of Phoenix, I was stuck behind a really really slow truck so I pulled into the left lane and hit the gas. I accelerated slowly so I shut off the air conditioner and shifted into 3rd gear. Still I wasn't accelerating very much but I was approaching 60mph and it was enough to pass the truck.

Suddenly, I felt something change in the engine and I wasn't accelerating at all. I let off the gas and sure enough, as we crested the hill, my "check engine" light came on. Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaantastic! We continued driving, but I felt like something really wasn't right.

We made it to Slide Rock in one piece, but found out that everyone else in Arizona had decided that Slide Rock was a fantastic place to spend a Saturday afternoon. There was a line about 30 cars long waiting to get into the park and 6-7 miles up and down the road there were people parked and walking in. That's desperation right there.

Brianna and her friends got out and walked while I waited in line. I waited for probably about 45 minutes to get into the park. As my car was idling I noticed the power slowly failing. I figured the alternator was working because when I stepped on the gas, everything worked fine...I couldn't figure out what it was. But, as any fool might do, I pulled into a parking spot and turned the car off.

Oops. The battery was so dead, I couldn't even get the doors to lock. I shrugged it off and went down to the river, I'd ask for a jump later. I had my own jumper cables so I just needed somebody's car to hook them up to.

The river was nice, aside from being crowded. I had fun for about 15 minutes playing with my Nikon D70 which I am proud to say, I think I have finally managed to figure out. I used my telephoto lens and got some fun shots of Brianna and her friends. Then I decided I was hot and wanted to jump in the river. No way I was going to leave a 900 dollar piece of equipment on the shore with no one to watch it so I walked it back to the car at which point I also changed into my swim suit.

The water was cold but refreshing. The water level was fairly high and so the slides were fun to go down and the only casualty suffered was a rip the size of the Grand Canyon in her pants. I unfortunately did not get a picture of that, having already put the camera in the car. Sad day. It was pretty hilarious.

We only stayed for a couple of hours despite the trouble that it took to actually get to and into the park; we wanted to get home by dark so I didn't have to use my headlights. We packed up, jumped the car, and headed home.

Driving home was the most ridiculous thing ever. I would have given anything at that time to be driving in Utah, and that is saying something because Utah drivers are TERRIBLE!

I was going 85 and people were passing me right and left (depending on which lane I was in) I got cut off and nearly run of the road at least 6 times and that is no exaggeration. To top it all off, my car was doing so badly that it could only do 35 up hills and if I didn't shift down to 3rd gear, it shook uncontrollably like it was going to blow up.

I did make it home safely, obviously. And I was very glad to be home. Tim and Adriana came over to visit for about an hour and after that I watched Sleepless in Seattle for the first time. It wasn't the most exciting chick flick I've seen, but it was good. I've decided that no chick flick is really great when your own life is a Romance better than even Jane Austen could write. :)

Today was church and while its usually fairly routine and I don't see fit to mention it in my blog, today was wonderful and very much an important part of my week.

In Sacrament, the theme was temples. There were two wonderful talks given first on temples themselves, and then baptisms for the dead. One of the things that really stuck out to me was that it is very important to participate regularly in ALL the ordinances in the temple and not just the endowment sessions. I HAVE done things besides endowments before, but I can definitely do more. I rarely do baptisms these days, but I could try harder.

Then we sang "Families Can Be Together Forever" and I just got completely giddy and smiley at the last line of the second verse "So I can marry in God's temple for eternity".

WAH! I can hardly wait!!!