It is a universal truth that young men are alarmingly determined to carry out bad decisions. If they are lucky, they have a canine best friend to act as the fall guy. The first dog in my life (and truly first happily willing scapegoat) was a medium sized rust colored female vizsla named Rika (ree-kah). While I was recently dining with my parents in their home, our conversation turned to fond remembrances of Rika.
“You remember, Brian, how Rika was such a good dog?” my mom asked. “She was always wanting to be with me and gently play and…just a very good natured dog. She was my companion while I was single and waiting for your dad to come into my life.”
My mom’s semi-absent gaze conveyed she was enjoying a distant agreeable memory. “She would sleep at the foot of the bed and lick my feet.”
“Ewww,” I responded, trying to salvage the enjoyment of my last bites of dinner while blocking the imaginary vile concoction of dog’s breath and sweaty feet.
“No, It was great!” said my mom, “Felt like someone was washing my feet with a warm washcloth.”
“But it was the dog….” I began to recall this particular foul habit of Rika’s.
“Yeah,” interjected my dad, “but your mom enjoyed it. I just made sure Rika only licked her feet. She only licked my foot one time….”
Mom took over. “You’re dad’s feet are so ticklish that the lick forced his knees to his chest and knocked the wind out of him for a few minutes. His yelp and thrashing woke me up thinking he was wrestling an intruder. In my half-asleep haze, I saw Rika running so fast I imagined she was running only on her hind legs. I think it scared her half to death, but she came back a while later and nuzzled under the covers again like nothing happened.”
“Hmmm. How odd,” I responded in a nonchalant manner that betrayed the memory presently re-assembling from the long-term storage of my brain.
“BRIAN! It’s Wednesday!” One of my mom’s favorite weekly phrases. (I don’t remember a week she didn’t like to chant about Wednesdays.)
“Yes mom, I know!” I blithely continued to jab my thumbs in various combinations of contortions on the game controllers, in the hypnotic glow of the television.
“Well?”
“After this level, please!?”
“Fine, but you have to get the trash out to the curb before tomorrow morning’s pickup. That means emptying all the waste baskets in the house, too. Put a new liner in them when they’re empty!” (Looking back, I’m astounded that the juvenile me needed such specific, thorough, and emphasized instructions each week for a unfailingly recurring task.)
“Yeah, ok, no problem,” came my hypnotized reply.
Some time later I realized that my bedtime was approaching annoyingly fast. Then I processed my conversation with my mom.
Sigh. “Well, better do it now,” I surrendered.
Trash duty wasn’t a particularly difficult, time consuming, or disgusting job. I just enjoy a daily dose of procrastination. Wednesdays simply happened to conveniently offer a subject for my procrastination regimen.
When I visited the trash in my parents room, thoughts of video game strategy to which I let my mind wander were abruptly interrupted by a glint of light reflected from something in the trash. I looked closer, shaking the trash to expose more of the shiny object from underneath a tissue.
York. Peppermint. Pattie.
Then I saw a second wrapper and realized there was probably a stash hidden in the room. I took up solving the mystery of the location of the stash without a second thought. The most obvious place would be the…the…
I wasn’t sure. Sock drawer? No. Dressers are the most obvious place to hide something. Closet? I didn’t find a hanging candy stash. Under the bed? Dust an inch thick except for what looked like a snow-plowed road with drifts cut sharply perpendicular against the floor. The would-be miniature snow-cleared road led to an unassuming shoebox.
I carefully slid out the box along the same dust-cleared path and lifted the lid free. Jackpot. I had just acquired a chest full of shiny silver treasure. I slowly savored one of my chocolate encrusted prize until I recognized my parent’s voices were in the stairwell.
My mind raced through a half-dozen options for an unseen retreat. It was impossible to both clean up my treacherous evidence and escape. An either-or situation. I regarded the next thought that entered my ineffably short-sighted mind as sheer genius. The plan took shape as if on its own and I went along as a grateful inmate, invited on a jailbreak masterminded by the prisoner in an adjoining cell who needed an extra set of hands to boost him over the final wall to freedom. Predictably, such a plan would conclude with the mastermind pausing perched atop the wall taking a final unscrupulous look at the unwitting pawn then dropping to freedom on the far side.
I quickly replaced the lid on the box, shoved the box along the dust-plowed track under the bed, stuffed the wrappers in my pocket, flicked off the lights, and dove under the covers to the foot of my parents’ bed and pretended to be Rika. I’m sure I wasn’t a particularly convincing dog shape, but luckily for me my parents always slept with thick down comforters which easily obscured my contorted body.
My parents went through their bedtime routine without noticing that the “dog” under the covers was me! The plan was working. Then I saw that I had been self-led into a trap. How was I supposed to get from the bed to the door and safety beyond? My mind scrambled for another genius idea, but nothing came. I determined the best course would be to “wait it out.” I’d let my parents settle into bed and fall asleep, then I’d sneak out. Hopefully Rika wouldn’t come to bed before then.
When my parents crawled into bed, I realized the second major flaw to my original brilliant idea. The presence of day-worn feet incubating under a down comforter instantly created a noxious environment which only hardy bacteria and Rika could survive. I counted the seconds, then the half-seconds, then the tenths of seconds trying to hold out as long as I could. It felt like I had managed to endure hours, but I was unsure of how long it had actually been and more importantly, if my parents had fallen asleep. I needed relief. Soon.
In my acrid, self-imposed torture chamber, I remembered my mom saying Rika licked her feet in bed. I saw my escape. I could lick her foot then pretend to crawl out from under the bed covers in the cover of darkness, like the dog heeding the call of nature. (I sure was a creative thinker back then.) The nauseating fumes prevented me to think of two crucial preparations I should have made. First, I should have bitten my tongue until it lost most feeling before the attempt. Second, I should have tried to identify who’s foot I was about to lick. Instead, I found the foot closest to my head, stuck out my tongue as far as it could reach, and licked.
“EEEEEEeee-aaaaaahhhhhhh-iiiiiaaaa!” Cried my dad, cut short by the distressing sound of his knee thumping his chest, abruptly terminating its reflexive retreat from my tongue.
I immediately determined the decision to lick would consistently rank in the bottom five decisions I would ever make. Besides the partial hearing loss caused by the volume of my dad’s cry, my tongue vehemently scolded me over my bad decision. The taste was every bit as terrible as the precursory odors.
I thought I was done for. I knew I was done for. So like any boy who’s been caught, I ran as fast as I could. In my rapid flight, I could hear my dad’s emphatic (but halting for lack of breath) protests against Rika.
“WHAT…WAS THAT…DANG DOG DOING!…CAN’T SHE TELL YOU…FROM ME ANYMORE!”
“Whatever she did, she’ll never do it again, dear. You’ve frightened her out of the room!” Soothed my bewildered mom.
I was astoundingly unrevealed! I had escaped! I silently finished my procrastinated trash chore and retired to bed a lucky escapee.
“Brian,” my mom got my attention after school the next day, “you forgot to empty the trash in my room. That’s part of the chore. Please go do it now.”
“Ok,” I replied. No need for procrastination today. A reward of minty chocolate awaited, arrayed in shiny silver wrappings.
An old fishing boat captain hired three deckhands. The first deckhand learned from her father how to work a fishing boat. The second deckhand sought to fill his thirst for adventure on the sea. The third deckhand, a young man from the port town, knew that the old captain was a well respected fisherman.
The captain gave each new deckhand a small pamphlet and asked them to study it before reporting for duty. The pamphlet was just a few pages of hand-written bullet points and contained the captain’s rules for safety on the boat.
The following day, the three deckhands reported for duty. The captain met them holding a well-worn notebook.
The captain explained, “Before you board the boat, I ask that you sign this notebook saying you’ve read my rules and that you will follow them. This notebook I’m holding has the signature and date of all of my crew who’s ever been where you’re standing today. If you’ve studied the rules and agree to follow them, you may add your names to this notebook.”
The first deckhand hadn’t really studied the rules because she felt she had learned enough from her father. So, she signed the notebook reasoning that her own knowledge was sufficient.
The second deckhand had read the rules and ridiculed some of them in his head as he read. He thought that some of the rules were a waste of time to follow. However, he was still eager to find adventure on the boat and signed with a half-hearted commitment.
The third deckhand had studied the rules and had questions about some of them. Yet, he was determined to trust the old captain’s words. He signed without any deception or guilt.
One night, a furious storm came upon the the boat. The three deckhands were ordered to secure the deck. They rushed to pull on their raincoats. The first deckhand laughed at the other two as they put on life vests. The second put on his vest then joined the first deckhand in mocking the third, who was fastening a lifeline from the boat to his vest. Only the third remembered that the captain’s rules required that during a storm all deckhands needed a life vest and a lifeline attached to the boat when outside.
While securing the deck, a large wave washed over the boat and swept the three deckhands into the frothing sea.
Even the third deckhand, with the lifeline, couldn’t see the boat because of the wind spitting stinging drops of saltwater in his eyes. He only felt the lifeline towing him through the waves behind the boat. Hand over hand, he pulled himself back onto the boat and into the cabin. He collapsed and gave thanks for the captain’s rules.
The ember leapt into the glowing air, dancing in hypnotizing, quick spirals in the safety of his fire. The heat filled him with happiness and it thought “I will never leave this place.”
Then it felt a subtle nudge from the breeze interrupt his blissful dance. The gentle draft pushed it away from the safety of the fire. “How cold and lonely it is out here,” thought the ember as the wind left it floating in the open sky.
An old leaf floated downward in a contented side-to-side dance past the ember, having been plucked from a branch by the same breeze. “I once gave shade to those warm by the fire. Now I am to become the soil that strengthens the roots of my mother tree. The secret is to remember the good where you came from and see the blessing of where you’re going.”
The goodness of the dying leaf felt familiar and warm to the lonely ember and it wanted to hear more. But the leaf drifted into the flickering shadows on the barren ground and was silent.
The ember was bitterly sad at the wind for blowing the good leaf from it’s branch and for taking the ember from the fire.
“Why do you take away comfort and happiness?”, the ember called into the night breeze.
“What do you mean?”, asked the night breeze in return. “Do you regret meeting the old leaf?”
“No,” said the ember. “But you ought to have let him alone! And me too!”
“Hmmm,” contemplated the night breeze. “The leaf and I knew each other well and danced together in our youth.”
“But how could you have taken it from it’s home?”
“It was time for it to find a new home,” said the night breeze. “And you as well. Where are you going little ember?”
“Upward, into the empty sky,” said the anxious ember. “The sky is no place for an ember, so dark and cold.”
“No?”, asked the night breeze. “Do you see the child by your fire? She is looking at you. She watched you dance and twirl in the heat of the fire and when I pushed you out, her gaze followed you. Now she looks up at you and sees where you are going.”
The ember stared into the wide eyes of the child. They reflected the ember in the sky and it knew the child felt happy watching him dance.
“Now you look up, little ember,” said the night breeze.
As the ember slowly turned it saw the night sky opening beyond the old leaf’s tree. The sky was filled with so many tiny points of light it would never be able to count them all. It was not alone in the night sky.
The child’s gaze fixed skyward as the little ember darkened. He descended in a final contented side-to-side dance to the ground beside the old leaf.
I received an email from Andrew, my nephew-in-law, this morning asking about my experience as a graduate student so far. Specifically, he asked,
Just wondering how you are doing? How is your program and such?
Usually this kind of question elicits a very short response along the lines of,
Good! I’m having fun and doing well.
Today the response was unusually long and opinionated. I felt I answered his question honestly and to the best of my ability. As you’ll read, I have had some disappointments as I started the master’s program. I still am dedicated to my goal of earning a master’s degree, so don’t read into this email too heavily. Instead I wanted to give my raw answers because I think they will help those looking into a master’s program. The following is my response to Andrew’s inquiry. Thanks go to Andrew for prompting me to record these thoughts and feelings.
Your questions are not easy to answer. The short answer is I’m doing great and like getting paid to go to school. I think you want a little more detail than that, so let me try to distill some of my thoughts and experiences.
I felt uncertain as to what direction I wanted to take with my career during the last semester at BYU. I still felt uncertain when I graduated, so I thought it was a no-brainer to take the offer to get a free master’s with a fairly generous monthly stipend. I thought that the master’s program would help me figure out my career path. I don’t think that this is the right approach to a master’s program. I believe that I would be getting a lot more out of the program if I had confidence in a career path.
The geography program is dwarfed by the geology program at the University of Arkansas. Both programs are in the Department of Geosciences. This is unfortunate because it makes the geography students feel like the proverbial red-headed step-children. All departmental emails and notifications are meant for geologists. Most of the outside speakers and job interviewers are from energy companies looking for geologists. This casts doubt on my chance for networking with a more broad spectrum of fields.
BYU really does have a great undergrad program for geography. My current classes are basically review and are not extremely challenging. That said, the quality of education here is really great; I’ve just covered the material before.
Even though I got to know my adviser a little before I started classes, I still feel like we have slightly different expectations. He is heavily slanted toward remote sensing while I feel drawn more toward GIS. At BYU GIS is a legitimate subject of study, while here at the University of Arkansas I have been told that it should only be a tool for your “real” research. I believe this is true to a degree, however I also believe that there is a legitimate need for people who are experts in GIS that aren’t ethno-botanists or geologists or whatever the physical geography one chooses to study. Because I am not a physical geographer I feel that I am an incomplete student, or one that hasn’t really discovered what he’s passionate about. I’m just passionate about different things than everyone else here. This is kind of related to my first point.
My workstation at the University of Arkansas
One of the best things about the program for me is my work. I get paid to research NDVI patterns in the Middle East (Fertile Crescent). Even though it’s a physical geography topic, I am focusing more on coding and GIS models. This is also my thesis. I am lucky that I am literally being paid to work on my thesis.
So, these are my thoughts and grievances up till this point. All of these could have been mitigated by a few simple things I could have done. 1. Decide if you want to get a master’s degree. If yes, commit yourself to it. Really make it your goal. Don’t just go along for the ride like I did. 2. Research master’s programs around the country. Each master’s program will have a bias toward one aspect of geography (or geology in my case). I would recommend ranking schools with independent geography departments above those with geosciences or similar departments. 3. Research the course offerings. If it seems like there are a lot of interesting courses, that is a good thing. I know, this sounds like a “no duh” thing, but here at the University of Arkansas I am a little worried that I won’t be introduced to a lot of new concepts in my classes. 4. Get to know some of the professors at your top school choices. First, before contacting them, get to know their work and interests. A lot of schools post this info on their websites. When you contact them, let them know you are a prospective master’s candidate and are very interested in their field of study. Tell them your interests and requirements of a master’s program and ask their opinion of their program with respect to your interests. Ask some specifics like how many students are currently working on their master’s at the school. 5. Don’t settle for less benefits than waved tuition, and unless you want to work in the industry while going to school, a graduate assistantship (research or teaching). I think these are really common. Sean has a teaching assistantship while I have a research assistantship. He has to help teach the lab portion of a class while I work on a coding GIS model to analyze NDVI of the Fertile Crescent over the last 30 years.
There you have it. I’m sure things will continue to change and evolve as I go through the program, so feel free to ask my feelings any time.
Do you have any questions about anything in this post? Leave me a comment and I’ll try to answer.
So, we woke up at 3 am for our 6 am flight. We needed to drive an hour and a quarter to the airport and then drop off the rental car and then get through security. We accomplished all of these things and were feeling good about the trip, ready for it to be over. When we got the the boarding gate, we found that the flight was oversold and we would not be able to get on that flight. No big deal right? There had to have been another flight to Salt Lake leaving soon. Wrong. The next flight was at 6 pm. And it was oversold as well. Not only that, there was a major snowstorm in SLC which was messing up the flight schedules. We did some investigation and found out that the next possible chance of us actually catching a flight (standby or not) was 6 pm on Friday. Mind you it’s now Wednesday at 6 am.
Frustrated and perplexed at our situation, we decided it might be good to rent a car and drive home. Upon consultation with the parents, we decided that their peace of mind was more important than getting home a few hours quicker than a Greyhound bus. We choose to catch the bus in Oklahoma City(OKC) and ride on it’s circuitous route through OK, TX, NM, CO, WY, and UT. All told, we planned on getting home at 11 pm on Thursday – a 26 hour experience. Because we had not gotten much sleep the night before, we got a ride with Sean’s brother and sister-in-law back to OKC and slept/relaxed until the departure time of 9 pm. Sean’s brother and sister-in-law then were kind enough to drop us off at the bus station in downtown OKC. They were lifesavers for us on the trip!
The immediate impulse upon arriving at the bus station was to hold on to all valuable possessions as tightly as possible. There was quite a variety of travelers, from two wide eyed BYU students to an Indian cowboy to those who have destroyed their lives through drugs and alcohol. We gingerly, yet quickly made our way to the ticket counter and picked up our tickets. We then immediately turned around and waited for the bus to load outside of the building.
When we boarded the bus, it seemed nice enough. It had WiFi, electrical outlets, and plenty of leg room. At this point, the passengers were fairly calm and the first leg of the trip was uneventful. We made it to Amarillo, TX at about 1:30 am and just had to wait until 3 am to catch the transfer bus. 3 am came and went and the transfer bus did not show up. People started getting worried and grumpy. I was just standing against a wall waiting, with my backpack at my feet. That is when the dirtiest, nastiest man sat next to my backpack. He had blood smeared across his cheek and every time he sneezed, the entire front of his shirt would be flecked with liquid. His leg slowly got closer and closer to my backpack, eventually touching it slightly. I picked up my backpack at that point and basically held it for the rest of the trip. I’m all for compassion, but I don’t need the sickness this guy had.
Also during this wait time, a man who had been sleeping in the corner woke up and started freaking out about how he is bipolar and schizophrenic. The Greyhound worker had to stand next to him until he left the station because he was “a threat to the safety of the other passengers”. The bus eventually came at 4 am which made everyone stressed out because we had another transfer in Denver which we knew we were going to miss since the bus was so late.
When we got on the bus we noticed that it was nothing like the nice new bus we had done the first leg of the trip on. It was old, dirty, and cramped but we were just happy not to be in that nasty Amarillo station anymore. By now, I was exhausted and it was still dark outside. I slept intermittently until 7 am when we stopped at a McDonald’s for breakfast. The redeeming quality of the old bus was that the seat cushions were so broken in that I was able to get comfortable enough to sleep – something all the other buses lacked.
We eventually made it to Denver around 1 pm, an hour after the transfer bus was supposed to leave. Amazingly, they had held it back just for us. (I think 90% of the passengers were on my bus – that’s why they held it back.) Denver was just getting the snowstorm that had messed up our flight plans, so the drivers immediately put on snow chains (which we lost about an hour and a half later). We started out from Denver on I-70, a major highway but before I knew it we were winding our way down mountain roads covered in snow and ice heading towards Steamboat Springs, CO. That was the most tedious portion of the trip because it was near white-out conditions on a narrow road whose markings couldn’t bee seen. Yeah – not fun.
We slowly crawled our way to Kremmling, CO where we stopped at Subway for dinner. There was one poor girl working that night, and 40 ravenous, grumpy bus passengers. She quickly called in backup and, although we were there for an hour or so, we all got served. While there one of our fellow passengers fainted while in line to buy food. Thus, an ambulance was called and the man had to be treated while the rest of the bus waited. All I can say is that it was unwanted excitement. I know that sounds callous, but if you’re going to judge me, ride a Greyhound bus across 4 states first. (Plus, he was just fine after about 25 minutes.)
The going was slow from then on. There was just too much snow to drive fast safely. The drivers did a good job of keeping us safe, if not entertained. We provided our own entertainment: watching Terminator Salvation on Sean’s iPad. We weren’t supposed to play music/movies without headphones, so we shared a pair. About 3 minutes into the movie I sense a presence near my left ear (between Sean and me). At about the same moment, the man behind us says, “Hey guys what’cha watching?” We told him. “Well, turn it up then!”, was his response. We explained that we couldn’t and he understood but decided that he wanted to watch it anyway, so for the next hour and a half we had an old guy peering over our seats watching a soundless movie. Weird.
About 2 am we rolled into Roosevelt, UT and the bus driver unabashedly announces that both he and the co-driver had run out of hours for the day. That meant that we were stuck for who-knows-how-long in the parking lot of a convenience store. We found out how long who-knows-how-long is. It is almost exactly 6 hours. That’s right, we sat on the bus for an additional 6 hours while it did not move. That might have been the worst part of the trip because we were so close yet so far.
Eventually a backup bus driver arrived and drove us the rest of the way to SLC. If you do, after reading this story, decide to take the Greyhound bus anywhere I would recommend starting at SLC and ending in SLC because the SLC bus station is BY FAR the nicest bus station we stopped at. I made it to my apartment approximately 39 hours after boarding the bus in OKC. Ugh.
Sean and I came up with these titles as we were on the last leg of the trip yesterday at about 3 am. I don’t know when I’ll get to actually writing the tragic events of the past week, so enjoy these for now.
The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round…and Round and Round and Round
How Many Smoking Breaks From Tulsa to Salt Lake City?
Words That Should Never Be Spoken In Front Of Or To Children
The Scream of the Cat-Child and Other Long Stories Which Will Keep You From Sleeping
If You’re A Californian or A Mormon, Prepare to Be Insulted
Eye For An Eye, Tooth For A Tooth: Greyhound Owes Me Its Back
Why I Never Want To Be A True Frugal Traveller
1001 Diseases Unique to Greyhound Riders and Where They Fester
Giving the ‘People of Walmart’ a Run For Their Money
Bad Parenting 101
Life or Death? Choose the Opposite of Greyhound
Ripening With Strangers: A Fruit of the Loom Tragedy
My Phone is Not the Only Thing That Died on the Bus (Sean)
1000 Miles on 1000 Calories: Giving Ghandi a Run for His Money (Sean)
Like the Hogworts Express with Herpes Instead of Magic (Sean)
Like the Hogworts Express but Strands You in the Middle of Fricking Nowhere (Sean)
Like the Hogworts Express but People Bring a Different Kind of Magic
Like the Hogworts Express Except the Puking Pasties are Puking Children
Greyhound, Almost as Much Fun as an Enema (Sean)
Please Get Me Back to School So I Can Do Something Fun Like Homework
How I Learned That the Sickly, Emaciated Dog for Which Greyhound Was Named Refers Less to the Service as Their Poor, Unsuspecting Cargo (Sean)
Greyhound Is Named After the Racing Dog to Make You Think ‘RUN’
Want to Know What It Feels Like to be Treated as the Scum of the Earth? Ride a Greyhound (Sean)
How I Made One of the Worst Decisions of my Life
Brians Theory of Time Dialation: The Closer You Get to Your Destination, The Longer it Takes to Get There
We woke up early on Tuesday morning to make the 4 hour drive from Oklahoma City to Fayetteville. The drive was fairly uneventful; the most interesting thing was passing trough Ozark National Forest, which is just outside Fayetteville. Upon entering Fayetteville, I was not very impressed with the cleanliness or tidiness of the homes. There were some nice neighborhoods, but I imagine we just saw the poorer properties because they were right next to a main road. The town is not that large, just about 70,000 people.
It was fairly easy to find the University and meet up with the professor who extended the assistantship offers to us, Dr. Jason Tullis. After meeting, we toured the building that the Department of Geosciences is housed, Ozark Hall. It’s a good thing that building is scheduled for major renovations next year because it doesn’t look like it has had any modifications since the 1950’s. I wasn’t planning on spending any time in that building if I went, so that won’t affect me if I go. Next we walked down to the 3 year old JB Hunt building which houses the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST). This is the building where I would work on research and take most of my classes. It was a super nice facility. We met up with the director of CAST, Dr. Jackson Cothren, and both he and Dr. Tullis briefed us on the center, it’s future direction, and how we can best prepare to be successful graduate students there. Both Sean and I were greatly impressed with their approachability and genuineness. One of the neat things they showed us was the “bullpen”, or a room full of nice desks separated by 4 foot tall partitions. This is where all the graduate students are given their own designated workspace. There will definitely be perks to being a grad student as opposed to an undergrad. After we toured that building we were treated to lunch at a local grilled cheese restaurant. Sound odd? I though so too until I saw the menu. In my book, there are enough variations on the grilled cheese sandwich paired with soup or salad to warrant the existence of such a restaurant. The main benefit of the visit was to get to know the professors that we would be working for. I think I am comfortable with both of them now and the perk of getting to know the University did not hurt.
After we were done at the school, Sean had orders from his wife to check out an apartment complex in the area. It was just about a 10 minute drive from campus (with no traffic). The apartments were nice, but the one bedroom version was pricey for me, a guy who has stuck with really low-rent apartments for the past year. When I say pricey, I mean compared to sharing utilities and having 4 roommates which drops the rent to $250. There the rent was $500, not including utilities. It will be interesting trying to find a balance between nice/comfortable and affordable on a student’s budget. I definitely don’t want to end up in the wrong neighborhood either.
We headed back to Oklahoma City after that. Once again, the 4 hour drive was not a problem and I noticed that the Arkansas portion of the drive was more scenic than the Oklahoma part. We arrived back at Sean’s brother’s house around 10 pm and went to bed. We had to be up and ready to leave the house by 3 am to make our 6 am flight which we had standby tickets for. I was glad for the trip and was ready to get home to Provo, but little did I know, that was just the beginning of the trip.
Bribunk 