Krauss Haus: June 5, 2011

I love my Grandma G. dearly. When there was ever a time that my own mom couldn't be there for me, my Grandma G. (her mom) always was. I grew up next to her and Grandpa. I saw her daily growing up (usually with homemade bread and jam in hand). Years ago when mom and dad sold the business, sold the house and became full-time RVers, Grandma's house became our home away from home- even when she downsized and moved. I love my Grandma. SO, when we got the call that Grandma's heart was failing (we knew she had a poor heart but we didn't know to what extent) and that she'd been put under hospice care, we knew what we had to do - GO HOME. With heavy heart and minds full of worry, we packed up our new-to-us trailer and hit the road (after a snowstorm that dumped 6" of snow just two days before). Our mission was to get home as quickly as we could, not knowing if time would be on our side......it wasn't..... but not for the reason you think.

Sven had worked all night on his new shift schedule. He got off work at 0530, home at 0630 and we were on the road by 0900. The plan was for him to drive until we got north of Denver and then trade drivers. Good plan-- except I'd only driven his new truck and trailer around the RV storage lot. I was nervous but determined to get us home. Within an hour of me taking the wheel (and it's all so clear in hindsight), Nikolas said, "I smell something burning." "Me, too, sweetie, I think it's that road construction we just passed through." A few miles down the road as I was passing an 18-wheeler, I felt a large pop and pull to the right (towards the trucker, of course). I held on tight (and held my breath) and maintained a straight path passed the trucker and back over into the right lane. Sven awoke at this time. I was so proud of myself that I had listened to dad all those years when he was driving the motorhome and telling us how you can be 'sucked into' the big rigs when passing. I knew just what had happened and all was well. Sven even commented how "smooth" it rode (hysterical in hindsight, I know). Another mile down the road, a young guy passing us was waving madly and pointing to the back of our caravan. Sven's like, "do you see anything back there?". "No, I don't know what he's talking about." So I pulled over to the side of the interstate and this is what we saw (you can only imagine the words that came out of our mouths....):

Yep, hindsight is 20/20. Through fumbling and error and the help of a good samaritan, we got the spare on and were on our way. 45 minutes wasted....45 minutes we could have made it farther down the road and closer to Grandma.

So, being a little shaken, Sven insisted on driving (no argument there.....I swear I won't be driving that thing ever again...!). 45 minutes down the road: POP!!!! "(insert 4-letter word here)!!!!" Sven pulled over (is this all sounding familiar?!) and this is what we saw (NOW imagine the words coming out of our mouths):

You ever heard of the phrase, "Up @#it creek without a paddle"?! Yep, know it and lived it. So here we are 45 minutes north of Casper, WY. (The words I told Nikolas prior to the trip were haunting me now: 'Wyoming is the middle of the end of nowhere'. Yep, that's where we were.....at 4' on a Sunday afternoon. (insert more 4-letter words). So, a few phone calls to the insurance company and towing company and 2 hours later, help arrives....with four brand new tires.

Not a sight you want to see when you're on "vacation"

umm.....isn't there something supposed to be attached to all of this so the...umm...waste can come out?! (remember that creek I was referring to earlier?!)

I must say, the guy who came and saved us was super nice. (He probably could have been a clone of the devil and I still would have thought he was a hero under those circumstances.) And, I am proud to say that of all the people (well, ok there weren't that many seeing as how we were in the middle of Wyoming....) that passed us sitting on the side of the road, the tow truck guy and 2 Army guys were the only ones who stopped. So the tow truck guy was getting paid to stop, but I give credit to the 2 guys coming back from a drill weekend who stopped and checked on us.....maybe I shouldn't have been so hard on the Army when we lived in Maryland....!! Gotta love our men (and women) in uniform!!

So now, two flat tires and four hours later, we were back on the road. We only made it as far as Cheyenne before stopping for the night at a Walmart (yes, like I said in a previous post, we've become one of them). Let's just say that we stopped at 10' and were back on the road at 4'. Yes, we were in a hurry to get home, but the reason we couldn't sleep was because of the hurricane force winds blowing around us. Honestly, the deck was beginning to seem really stacked against us.

This one's for all you city folks and those people along the way who have always made fun of me being from Montana- this one's for you: Morning rush-hour in Montana. Loving it, right?!

Seeing as how we were on the road at 0400, when we passed by the Custer Battlefield Museum it was still obviously closed. I took pictures anyway, proof that we were there.

Two full days of driving, two flat tires, four new tires (only I can spend that kind of money in the middle of Wyoming with no retail establishment in sight), and three RV Service Centers later.....we made it into home territory. This is the primary school in the town of Corvallis. Imagine me 7 years old and posing on those steps with my classmates for our class photo. Talk about a walk down memory lane. Sadly, this same week my 5th grade teacher passed away from cancer. She was a fantastic woman. When you're from a town this small, memories (of everything) are everywhere. But still, I miss it!

Beyond Corvallis lies the metropolis of Hamilton. Ok, maybe not so much metropolis as 'a town that's a little bit bigger'. This is where it all takes place locally and the home of my Granmda. We have arrived.

My Grandma, God love her. She's so awesome. I was surprised when we arrived at how good she looked. Yes, she's slower. Yes, she's weaker. But she's got too much life yet to live and too many things to do to be taken from us yet. Prime example: We drive from CO to MT to be with her and help care for her. My brother Thad drives over from Idaho. What does she do? Decide she needs to bake a cake. I kid you not. The lady is being cared for by hospice and her priority is to feed us with the foods that have comforted us over the years. Love her. Well, her balance is not so good and if she bends over she gets dizzy and falls, so Thad and I scurry into action and mix the cake together before she has the time to bat an eyelash. Keep in mind that Thad and I have never baked anything together....ever. The scene that played out could have been portrayed in a Seinfeld monologue. It was hilarious. And, the proof is in the pudding...ugh....cake. Take a look at the disaster that we created. The funniest part is when Grandma insisted I frost it. Really??! Frost it?! Yep, don't judge a book by its cover. That cake was darn tasty!

We couldn't leave the baby, Abby, at home for the trip. She's too much of a kitten and too much of a trouble-maker still. We didn't have the heart to kennel her for the first time, so we brought her with us. She stayed in the trailer for the duration of the trip except the day that Sven had to go to Missoula to get the trailer fixed for all of the damage it sustained during our road trip from hell. Grandma is getting loose in her old age, she actually let Abby stay in the house that day. Grandma has always liked animals-- just not in her house! Anyway, here is Abby cuddling up to Uncle Thad (well, if you ask Nikolas, he's "Great Uncle Thad" to Abby -ha ha ha ha!). I think it's fair to say that Thad likes Abby better than he did Cadi (rest her soul!). Those two never did hit it off and he always teased me about my weird cat. I loved her though. She liked me. =)

Here we are making breakfast. Actually, the boys treated us.

We always take a trip up to the cemetary and visit Grandpa. Boy do we miss him.

Does she look like she owns the place or what?!

We love our Grandma!

You can't go back to Hamilton and not visit all (or most) of the family. I wasn't too good at taking pictures of everyone this trip, but I could not let this moment pass by without a snapshot. Sven, Nikolas and Uncle Darryl going wild in the field. If that was any reflection of Nikolas' driving ability, he won't be behind the wheel of a car for a long, long time!

I've gone on and on about my Grandma G., but I cannot exclude my Grandma O. I don't think we've been as close to her over the years as we have with Grandma G. (simply because she was ALL THE WAY ACROSS town vs just next door, hee hee hee). But there's a certain closeness that's nurtured when you lose a grandparent that makes the bond with your existing grandparents that much stronger. Among her many other fine qualities, she makes the BEST chocolate cake EVER. She was sweet enough to bake one for me during our stay (yes, Grandma G's banana cake, Grandma O's chocolate cake....don't ask how my clothes have been fitting since our trip!!). We love her dearly, too, and wish we didn't live so far away. (I thought Denver was closer until we made the road trip, now I'm wishing it were as 'short of a trip' as it was from Seattle.) Here we are visiting Grandpa O. I miss my Grandpa O. We shared the same birthday and that's a bond that can never be duplicated!

I'm so glad that Grandma has learned not to fight the camera. There's always been a certain friction between she and I (in jest, of course) because I am a photographer and she is like a nightcrawler squirming from the light when she sees a camera. She is FAST. She HATES getting her picture taken. But she revealed this trip, that she's realized that fighting it doesn't do a bit of good because everyone takes the picture anyway. Now see, Grandma, that wasn't so hard, was it?! This is a picture of her and Nikolas that we'll cherish for years to come.

I love to walk around Grandma O's yard and admire her flowers. She's got quite the green thumb. I have such fond memories of going to Grandma and Grandpa O's on Friday night (and I do mean every Friday night) and her sending me home with fresh cut sweet peas.....and of course there was always chocolate cake!

Grandma G. and my cousin Jason. You'd never guess we were related, would you? He towers over me and I always think "if I'd have been able to borrow just a FEW of your inches!!"

Bittersweet goodbyes. I'm so thankful for a trip (safe, yet challenging) back home to spend time with family, especially my Grandma G. whose health is so unstable right now. If you hold on tight enough, do you ever have to let go?

It was with heavy heart that we drove away from Hamilton. On trips like this, you always wonder what it will be like the next time you go home. Thankfully, another thing dear to my heart provided some comic relief: cows. Yes, I love cows. And, there aren't too many places that you have to steer around the cows on the road like you would bicyclists in other places. I figured this photo and the one of the MT morning rush-hour would be just too much for some of you. =) So, enjoy.....

Not until we stopped here, just south of Salmon, ID, did I learn that Sacajawea was from this area. I remember doing a wooden map of the Lewis and Clark trail when I was in the 6th grade. Now that we're living in the west again, I hope we can teach Nikolas about their journey and the effect it had on our growing nation. Afterall, we do live on a street named after one of them! (And now, 4 months after being here, I SOOO wish I wouldn't have referred to this house as the "Lewis and Clark house" when we were house-hunting. Do you know how hard it is for me to remember our real address?! Especially when someone from the neighborhood asks which street we live on?! Because, you guessed it, there's a "Lt. William Clark Rd." and "Capt. Merriwether Lewis Rd." in our community!

We have family in Utah that we don't get to see very often... at all. So, on our drive south, we decided to stop in and say hello. My Aunt Lori was working and it was quite fun to surprise her. You should have seen her face- priceless. We were only able to have a short chat, but it was definitely worth the time to see her. Now if only I could have seen my cousins, too!

Abby is such a good little traveler. She cuddles with either Nikolas or me and is lulled to a state just shy of a coma. Can you believe that little kitty has made round-trips from CO to TX and CO to MT. What a traveler!!

WHAT kind of pose is THAT?! My best theory is that's how she holds on for the subtle motion of the vehicle and the corners. But make no mistake, she is asleep!

Not wanting to drive through Wyoming again (gee, I wonder why not....) we drove home another route that brought us in from western Colorado through the mountains. GORGEOUS!