Funeral Trip: Day One (January 24)

living room

The trip to Grandma’s funeral was an adventure in itself. I got up early and went with Glenn to take Jaelyn and Sara to school. From there Glenn dropped me off at the Salt Lake Airport and went home to take Corin and Caelan to school.

I already had a boarding pass, printed out the night before, so I went straight to the security lines. I hadn’t flown in more than ten years; a lot was different. Glenn told me that I couldn’t take a water bottle through, but I had a hard time believing something so ridiculous. Sure enough, my water bottle was confiscated. I checked the Departures TV screens but didn’t see my flight. I was pretty early, so I sat down and worked on Age of War proofreading for a while. 

At 9 I still didn’t see my flight on the Departures screens, so I went to the gate printed on my ticket. People there were boarding for Cancun, Mexico. I showed the gate agent my boarding pass and asked if I was in the right place. He looked and said, “Ah. Here’s your problem.” He then circled the p.m. printed there. I had accidentally booked a night flight. Before my brain could finish processing the “ohhhhhhhh craaaaaaaap” thought that was forming, he had printed me a new boarding pass for the next flight to Reno, which was leaving at 11:30, just a couple gates over, and I would still catch the shuttle from Reno to Alturas. He said this mixup happens every day. It was a little after 9 then, so I had plenty of time to wait at the gate and proofread. I bought a water bottled for the extortionist price of $2.38. 

After sitting at the gate a while, I realized I was on the same flight as my cousin Jaime (with her husband and son). They were catching a connecting flight from D.C. I ended up just a few rows behind them. I worked on proofreading through the one-hour flight. The time went fast. 

As we began our descent into Reno, I put the laptop away and got out Words of Radiance, but we were hitting rough turbulence—except it’s not called turbulence anymore, excuse me. It’s now “rough air.” We had a lot of buffeting and some free-fall drops that my stomach did not like. It was very hard to read with all the shaking.

We met my other cousin Jonia (Jaime’s sister) at the baggage claim. (Jonia only lives a few miles away.) She had taken the 9 a.m. flight. Jaime was renting a car and taking Jonia to Cedarville. They offered me a ride, too, but the rental car ended up being too little, so I just hopped on the shuttle as originally planned. I was the only one on the shuttle, which was more like a small bus. The driver was anxious to leave because a storm was blowing in. It was incredibly windy. Shortly after getting on Highway 395 we saw a full-length semi-truck tipped over in a ditch. 

I listened to Moon Called on audiobook for most of the drive. I was dropped off at the Rite Aid in Alturas at 4. I wandered around, going inside and outside because it was cold and windy. I was expecting Mom, but Uncle Jerry showed up instead around 4:10. He said he’d been told to pick up a weird person and asked if I was weird, so I said, “as weird as they come.” It was a little snowy on the Pass, so Mom was afraid to drive on it. Uncle Jerry was on his way home from work.

At Grandma’s house I found Mom, Chris, Uncle Jim, Aunt Helen, and cousin Roy. I hadn’t seen those relatives in years!

Aunt Helen was making dinner; the kitchen has an excellent view to outside. She noticed a weird car, so the rest of us gathered at the kitchen window to watch. It drove to the church next door, drove around the parking lot, drove down Grandma’s driveway, back to the Cooks’ driveway, back again, and stopped. “Let’s all just stare at them disapprovingly.” It turned out to be Jaime acting like a lunatic because she was doing some kind of exercise program like FitBit or something.

It was weird to be in Grandma’s house without her. It still felt like she was in the other room.

west view from house

east view from house at sunset