September started with us continuing to frantically finish getting Emily ready to go off to college. Her driver's license actually did arrive in time for her to get in the mail here for her. The stickers for her car did not.
Emily procrastinated packing up her stuff until the last couple of days. Of course, she ended up forgetting a bunch of stuff in the end.
We woke up early on Thursday to head out for Idaho. We just drove up the 15 as it would be the most direct route. We made pretty good time but we still ran into some traffic jams in a couple of different spots in Utah. Our plan was to stop near the Utah/Idaho border and camp off some utility roads but, as usual, we found that the roads that lead in the direction we planned to go were gated off by private companies/individuals or even by the BLM themselves. We could not get to the open land that we found on maps. We knew that once we got into Idaho, there would be even less of a chance to find public land to camp on as it is totally covered with farms and ranches through this area. In the end, since we made good time, we stopped to pick up dinner and continue on to Rexburg. So in the end, we made it in one day but we were terribly tired and disgruntled about it all. We camped out by the dunes as we had scouted out during the summer.
It was pretty cold out there. We had planned to camp at the border because of where it was located and it should have been at least 10 degrees warmer there. We got onto the campus in the morning to check Emily into her apartment shortly after they opened. There was one roommate already there. Apparently she'd been there since the Spring. She seemed pretty nice. She got her pick of space after that. We got her half unpacked before lunch. Christian still had meetings on Thursday and Friday so Christian got a data pass to attend to his meetings while we were on the road. He had another one in the apartment while Emily unpacked.
Her actual apartment was not left quite that clean which we were not that pleased about. The complex itself was a bit old and could be taken care of a lot better. The grounds itself seemed to be taken care of fairly well but the parking lots were not. We partly rushed up here so that she can check in early and get a good spot but also so that we can make sure that she got a parking pass as it was a possibility for them to run out. We probably didn't have to worry though as the complex was not entirely filled up yet. We took a break and went out to Fong's for lunch. We took Emily's roommate out with us so that they can get to know each other.
We came back to the apartment afterwards to drop off her roommate and the leftover food and headed back out to get Emily's school ID and books. Christian came to find some shade and finish some work he had to do on the computer while he waited outside for us. It was all a bit overwhelming and confusing but there were lots of very helpful and friendly people there.
We did run into one big problem while we were trying to get everything set up for Emily. When Emily tried to pay her rent for the quarter, the bank wouldn't let her do it. We tried updating her address, we talked to the management for the apartment a couple of times, we called the bank to try to find out what the problem was since she has the funds for it. In the end, we found out that the idiot banker that we have been dealing with here in Moreno Valley did not take the daily limit off of her account when she switched the account from a teen account to a normal adult account. We could not do it over the phone so Emily had to wait until Monday to go to the bank to sort it out. Then she had to make an appointment with a banker and go back again to get it done. What a hassle that banker here caused us over and over again. She made us waste so much time and energy because of her incompetence.
Afterwards, we went out to shop for a few items Emily realized that she needed at the apartment and a few groceries to get her started. That actually took a while but to be honest, in the end, I think we went on a a quest for some items just because we wanted an excuse to stick around a bit. Emily was still scared and a bit stressed about being on her own but she got a text from her friend from California and they were planning to meet up so we finally decided to head out and make our way back home. We did not want to take the 15 back and wanted to explore a little. It was more difficult than I thought to leave Emily there. I think we all had a difficult time with it but we know that the experience will be good for her.
We took the back roads to head out of Idaho. Because we left so late, we actually did not make it out by the end of the day. We drove until we were tired and found a place to pull over. We camped near some windmills. The next morning we got up to continue on. We stopped by the Castle Rocks National Park area to investigate. It seemed like a pretty neat area and we wanted to investigate as they are supposed to have some good climbing in the area.
It was still pretty early in the morning so we thought we can scout it out a little, but shortly after we arrived, some park ranger came by and wanted to give us a ticket since we did not pay the entrance/parking fee. We did not plan to stay but just wanted to look around a bit. But during all this time, cars started to stream into the area and we decided to just move on out. Thankfully, Christian managed to talk the Ranger guy out of giving us a ticket.
We then drove into the City of Rocks area and it seemed to be packed with the worst sorts of tourists from Utah. We didn't bother stopping. There were, however, some good camping possibilities in this area as there was nothing else out here but open land. It was a bit smokey in this area though but we did not know where the fire was.
We meandered through the back roads into Utah and then Nevada. We saw some turkey vultures and some really neat wild horses.
At some point, we realized that we were just not getting very far very fast and needed to move our time table up a bit. We jumped onto some bigger roads to make better time. It was a pretty grueling journey. We got near Carson City, it was getting late and we were pretty tired from our long day of driving and not much rest. Our plan was to head down the 395 to enter into California near Bridgeport.
As we headed into Minden, Nevada, there seemed to be an inordinate amount of traffic for that road on that time of day. Pretty soon, the traffic was bumper to bumper and there were police lights up ahead. Even if there was an accident, there seemed to be too many cars. We hoped that there was not a fire and people were being evacuated or getting turned around. But our traffic kept moving slowly forward. Next to us, we found lots of cars parked on the side of the road and that seemed pretty unusual as well. Shortly after, we saw crowds of people walking in the opposite direction of traffic. Some of the people were holding signs so we were afraid that there was some protest going on but none of it made sense because it was late into the night practically in the middle of nowhere. All we knew was that we were tired and didn't want to get rerouted somewhere and have to go all the way back to enter California through Carson City. We also didn't want to get stuck in the middle of some big violent protest. I got Christian's phone which still had some data left and tried to find some news report on what was going on.
Apparently a Trump rally for the 2020 election just let out. There were thousands and thousands of people flooding out of the area like at the end of a concert at the Forum. Some were driving and the others were heading back to their cars along the road. I've never seen anything like it. We had planned to pull into a McDonald's or something to get a coke to help us get back over to California but a lot of the people leaving seemed to have the same idea or they were having a late dinner or something. We opted to just keep going and get out to where we could camp as soon as we could.
Bridgeport was really cold. The temperature had dropped down 10 degrees in the three miles it took to get into the town. We continued on until it got a bit warmer and we were too tired to continue on. We just slept in the truck as we were and got moving again when the sun came up.
We stopped by at the Olancha Dunes to do a little exploring.
We had the place to ourselves and had a little bit of fun driving around on the dunes. They were not too big but some of it was really soft.
We finally called it a day and headed back the rest of the way home. Caitlyn had stayed home for her classes on Thursday and Friday so Marian had gone to stay with her and keep her company. We are extremely thankful for that as we were a lot more comfortable leaving Caitlyn behind with someone to stay with her. She was still there when we got back so we got to visit with her a little bit. Caitlyn made us all dinner while we unpacked and got cleaned up.
--------
Christian had to get back to teaching online the very next day so his schedule was really hectic and had no time to unwind before having to put his nose back to the grindstone. We got incredibly lucky that he only had a few meetings to attend while we were away and was still able to do that for the most part on the road which allowed him to be able to drop Emily off for college.
--------
Caitlyn had been stressing about her Calculus class for the last month. In the beginning, Emily was able to help her out occasionally but things were getting more difficult and Emily is no longer here to help her so we got her to drop out of Calculus and go back to Pre-Calculus to reinforce what she was supposed to have learned at the end of the last school year. She is much happier now but she had to add a zero period in order to rearrange her schedules to make it work.
--------
We kind of celebrated my birthday early since Emily would not be around when my birthday came up. I turned 50 this year. Seems kind of surreal. She got me a leg pillow to help me sleep.
Actually, Christian gave me my present even earlier. He got me a new camera.
I actually got it in time to use for Austin and Natalie's wedding. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to really take it out to play with it beyond that. Dropping Emily off in Idaho was just too stressful, I really didn't take too many photos.
On my actual birthday, Christian had to work and Caitlyn had class so we didn't really do too much. Christian wanted to take me out for my birthday so I at least didn't have to cook on my birthday. Since we still aren't allowed to go out to restaurants, we picked up some Poke for dinner. That was actually really tasty.
I also got a lens hood for the new lens that came with my camera. Caitlyn got my old SLR. It was supposed to go to Emily but we could never get her to bother taking pictures most of the time so we gave it to the one who had proven that they would actually use it.
--------
Meanwhile, the weather has not improved around here at all. We have had temperatures around 100 degrees for the entire month. The air quality is still bad from all the fires burning all around us. Christian has been working day and night most days because of all the insane requirements the state keeps piling up on everyone. Everything has gotten insane.
