sad to leave

i for one was really sad to leave phoenix.  we seemed like such a small group. with evan in japan and jake in washington, d.c., the rest of us piled in the car and headed for st. george.  part of the drive was really very beautiful.  at one point we were on a reservation in northern arizona and we stopped at a convenience store.  it seemed like we were in the middle of nowhere, but we ran into two missionaries in the store.  i was in the car when caroline told me so i sent her back in with $20 to give to the missionaries for lunch.  she came back and said that craig had just given them $20 too, so they had $40 for lunch.  i know people are taking good care of evan in japan, so we were just paying it forward.

unfortunately, our karma from this act didn't help us when we took a bit of a wrong turn in northern arizona and instead of heading over to st. george through hilldale, we ended up driving through zion's national park.  this is a beautiful place for sure, but it is not the fastest way to get to st. george and we had to pay $20 for the priviledge of "cutting through" a national park.  the car was rather quiet for that part of the drive.  the speed limit was 25 mph.  i'm not going to rat out the person who chose the route.