AUBURN, CALIFORNIA BOUND

SATURDAY, JUNE 06, 2009 Thursday morning I hopped in a U-Haul (Penske) truck here in Saratoga Springs and headed out for Auburn, California. Francesca Saboe, A ward member and her twelve year old son Dustin were moving. I guess she is originally from that area or at least has connections there. She is a widow. Her husband Scott was killed in Mosul, Iraq 15 November, 2003. She had a few things left to pack in her pickup truck. She told me to go ahead and that she would leave in a little while and catch up—RIGHT! Dustin rode with me back to their house from where we got the truck. He wanted to ride in the truck with me to California. His mother said he could after they caught up with me. I called her from Elko, Nevada at around 1:30. They were just leaving. She had packed her pickup—unpacked and packed it again. She said they looked like the Beverly Hillbillies. Hmm! I needed to refuel. She said she would repay me. I filled the tank and headed out again. An hour or two before reaching Reno a little white car a few hundred yards ahead of me suddenly swerved to the right. She must have hit the rumble strip at that point. She over corrected and flew across the two lanes at a ninety degree angle, still at freeway speed and tore off into the meridian. There was a cloud of dust so thick I could not see a thing. Fortunately the east bound lanes were several hundred yards away at that point. When I got to where they were, the car had turned around and was stopped not too far from the westbound lanes again and two women were standing outside the car hugging each other. The car looked a bit beat up, especially in the front but there were two other stopped vehicles so I kept on driving. A while later Dustin called me on his cell phone lamenting not being with me. It is a good thing he wasn’t with me as by the time I reached their Auburn home they were still three hours behind, and I had had to refuel again in Sparks. That time I only put in enough to safely reach Auburn. She said she would send me a check for the $135.00 but who knows if that will actually happen. Oh well! Wednesday I called Janette, my niece in Roseville and told her what I was doing. She said she would meet me in Auburn and I could spend the night with her and her family. She did and we had a nice visit. They have a lovely family with four cute kids. Eric will be a senior at Roseville high school next year, Nina is thirteen, Adam is ten (or is it eleven), and Kate is eight. Kate was on my lap or sitting next to me that night and again the next morning before school with her webkinz (little stuffed animals) yakking up a storm. Yesterday morning after we dropped Adam and Kate off a school, Janette drove me around the area and showed me the home my parents lived in, in Rocklin, Gerald’s old meat shop, a couple of the housed he and Pauling lived in etc., then she dropped me off at the Sacramento Airport for my flight home. We had a good long talk as we drove. Judy picked my up in Salt Lake and we drove to Chris and Sierra’s and helped them and Niki get ready for Sierra’s Birthday party. Judy and Niki worked downstairs with the food, decorations etc. I helped Chris put up some wallpaper in Sierra’s bedroom. It turned out really nice. Sierra’s friends came, we excused ourselves and Judy and I drove to The Old Spaghetti Factory to eat. Judy drove us home; I hit the pillow and crashed.