ROAD TRIP #2

This past week has been a wonderful week. I've gone from here:
to here:
to here:
(I entertained myself on a VERY long car trip by taking pictures while I was driving).

I drove to Provo in a day, picked up Michael, and the next day we drove to Idaho together. I was glad to have him along. It was nice to have 5 hours of uninterrupted time to visit with (interrogate?) my son.

My sister-in-law(Karen...Kevin's sister) has a cabin in Island Park, Idaho. The term cabin is a bit deceiving....see?
It is more like a resort that can comfortably house more than 2o people with beds and bathrooms for everyone. There were a lot of us Benson's there off and on during the week.

My days were spent hiking, reading, eating, sitting by the lake while the others kayaked, going in to "town" (West Yellowstone) to see a cute production of Guys and Dolls at the Playmill, and even white water rafting (OK, it wasn't white water, it was a VERY mellow cruise down the river on a raft). The weather was in the 60's and 70's. One day we had rain and it brought the temps down to the low 50's and we put a fire in the fire place that night.

My darling niece, Ashley, even got proposed to up there: (Sorry Ashley, I don't know what happened to the picture I took of you and Trevor, but at least I got a shot of your diamond!) Unfortunately, the week ended too soon and I drove home yesterday leaving a cool, rainy morning in Provo, Utah and ending up in Arizona to temperatures of 112. UGH! All good things must come to an end!

But the story doesn't stop there. When I got home, I started a few loads of laundry. When I went to get in to bed at 11:00 pm, I found my bathtub full of dirty, mucky water and my toilet overflowing. I ran in to my other bathroom to grab the towels and found the toilet water running down the hall and that tub full of water too. I bailed water for 2 hours, plunged toilets, etc. and finally went to bed at 1:00 am, exhausted with the problem still not solved. Not to mention the fact that every towel and rag in my house was soaked and smelly and I couldn't run the washing machine.

When I got up this morning, the tubs were cleared and the toilets seemed to be working so I hopped in to the shower and immediately, it started filling up again. I washed my hair in the kitchen sink and got ready for church as best as I could thinking I would have to call a roter-rooter man. As I was complaining to someone about my plight, a man in the ward said that there must be someone on the ward who could root out the main line to the house. He started asking around and quickly found a powerful snake and someone who could come over this afternoon to fix it for me. I had barely stepped in the door from church when two men were there to help me out. Within fifteen minutes, they had cleared out the drain and everything was working properly. I am SO grateful that there are always so many people willing to step up quickly to help one another when we need assistance despite the fact that it wasn't convenient and it was very hot outside. It does my heart good.