Emergency Death Valley Trip

 So, some time after Christian returned to school, we sat down to do our taxes and found that all of the 2021 federal "stimulus" money were actually just tax credit issued ahead of time. We found out that we didn't qualify for as much credit as we received by the arbitrary amounts they issued, so now we owe taxes for the year...quite a lot of taxes.

We were pretty stressed out and pissed off about it. Although, we were trying to be good and not spend all the extra money on gas to go out on spring break, we decided that for our mental health, we needed to just get away. Away from home and all the things that needed to be tended to and fixed. Away from the neighbors in back of our house that are always fighting and yelling at each other in the streets. Away from the noisy bikers, and noisy vehicles idling in their driveways (sometimes for hours at a time with their music blasting). Away from the noisy kids next door who are always screaming at the top of their lungs and their parents who either ignore them or think it is cute. Away from the barking dogs and the smells of marijuana wafting into our driveway. Yeah, it's been fun. I don't know how are neighborhood has turned into such a ghetto.

Caitlyn had to work, so Christian and I packed up and headed out to Death Valley for the day. We left at 5 in the morning before Caitlyn even got up from bed.

Sunrise

We decided to travel down the Old Nadeau Road in Panamint Valley.

That was actually pretty fun. I don't think any of our other 4x4 vehicles could have made it. The short wheel base really helped getting in and out of the washes. There were a few of them that were pretty steep and crazy but we didn't have any problems.

We did have some problems finding the canyon we wanted to turn off into. All the side roads ended or were blocked by a gate. We finally gave up and went to explore other areas. 

The desert wild flowers are really starting to bloom.

We found some old abandoned mines and had lunch near one.

We took our time exploring the area while trying to stay away from where all the people were. Our last side road took us out to the Osborne Cabin which was kind of neat.

It's not quite historical as the people volunteering to take care of it, ended up getting carried away and added some additions to it that were not quite historical but it seemed like a fun place to stop off to rest.

Just past the cabin, the trail got really soft and rocky and we couldn't quite make it past a certain spot. Luckily, there was a bypass already as other's had the same trouble before us.

It was nice to test out what the Jeep could do. We can definitely do with more clearance on the vehicle and bigger tires. It was a bit nerve wracking to drive down these gravely roads with those decrepit tires. The road eventually ended at another mine.

By the time we headed out, we ran into a huge caravan of vehicles heading in to party at the cabin. There were 6 or 7 fully decked out 4x4's with only 1 or 2 people in each vehicle. Each of the vehicles were easily worth $100k. It was really ridiculous. Farther down the road, there were about 8 or more personal planes in a caravan flying over to the air strip out in the Argus Range. I don't know where these people are getting all their disposable income. It seemed so over the top.

We made it into Lone Pine around 6:pm. We had dinner and sent some messages to Caitlyn to tell her where we were. We got back home at 11:pm. Tires still in tact with probably just enough gas to get back out to the gas station later. I think we are really pushing it with the tires though and I don't think we will be going back out on the trails (or the freeway for that matter) with those tires anymore. They've been doing really good but we don't want to push our luck any more than we already have.

March

 At the beginning of the month, Emily celebrated her 19th birthday! She celebrated with her friends. We sent her a gift and had a video chat with her while she opened it the night before her birthday. On the day of her birthday, we called her again to wish her a Happy Birthday and so that Terry and Jackie could chat with her. They came over to take Caitlyn out to lunch to celebrate her graduation.

They were actually supposed to come the prior week but had to cancel as Terry ended up back at the hospital with fluid in his lungs again. Luckily, he did not have pneumonia or anything but because of his weak heart, his body was unable to get rid of the excess water he has been taking in. They gave him some medicine and extracted like a gallon of extra fluid from his body which seemed impossible. I guess he has to watch his intake of liquid and salts now so this doesn't happen again. He went home the next day but it gave us all quite a scare.

Caitlyn chose to go to Islands for her celebration lunch. Afterwards, Terry took Christian out to get him some boots as a kind of thank you for all his work on his Trooper and keeping it working for him.

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Christian finally got the Jeep TJ back together and in working order. So, at the beginning of his spring break, we headed down to San Diego to take Terry on some 4x4 trails in the Anza Borrego desert. We went to explore some places that Terry was unable to go down with his Trooper by himself.

It was a nice easy day. We wanted to take Terry out and test out the Jeep. We dropped Terry off afterwards and visited for a bit and headed home.

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The next week, we did some more exploring in the Jeep on one of Caitlyn's days off. We hit a trail near Joshua Tree called Pinkham Canyon.

The trail was pretty easy but at some point, the sway bar link popped off on the driver's side. The bushing was damaged so there was nothing to hold it in. Christian initially put it back on, but after going down the trail a bit farther, it popped off again, so he had to just remove it.

We left the right side attached to keep the vehicle from swaying too much but we should probably have removed it as well. 

We had lunch in a bit of shade we found in the canyon and took a short hike afterwards. The trail was relatively short so, we went in search of more adventures. We found ourselves going down the Red Canyon Trail south of the 10.

It started off a little sketchy and only got worse as we went along. The trail is totally ruined. People have been tearing up the trail for quite some time, racing their side by sides and quads up and down the trail obviously. The trail was near undriveable. To make matters worse, we would run into these Mad Max type encampments along the way. It was a bit scary to be honest, so we didn't want to just turn back around. It did pay off at some point quite a bit farther along where the road was less damaged.

The Ocotillos had started blooming, so that was really nice. The trail followed this neat ridge at some point and you can see some neat red canyons down below. You can tell that this was a fantastic trail at some point. 

The trail bordered a military bombing range, so you had to stay on the correct side of the trail as there might be unexploded ordinance out there.

We brought our stove and had dinner out there before it got too dark. We headed out after a long day. With the price of gas over $6 a gallon, we wanted to explore as much as we could before heading home.

There was a beautiful sunset as we headed out. Unfortunately, when we finally back onto the paved roads, we ended up in Mecca which I never want to set foot into again. To begin with, we found out where most of the people that tore up our trail came from as every house nearly had a side-by-side, or three. We wanted to air up our tires but didn't want to stop in front of someone's house to do it. At some point, there was a big accident right in front of us. We were just leaving a stop sign when a car heading in the opposite direction, rammed into the truck in front of it (which was also stopped at the stop sign) at full speed. It then swerved into our lane as we had to swerve to avoid it. We were already on edge as this city bus was tail-gating us the entire way down this road. 

We made it through without any damage and stopped next to the fire and police stations to air up our tires. Both buildings were completely empty and dark by the way, so that wasn't comforting. The bus that was tail-gating us, finally got to the same area after being delayed by the accident. After nearly running us down in it's haste to get here, it just sat there on the street idling the entire time we were there and was still just sitting there after we left. The whole city had a weird disquieting vibe about it and we could not leave the place soon enough.

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Christian ended up spending the rest of his spring break, just tinkering around in the garage. He had a lot of cleaning to do after all the work and tools he had out for the Jeep. He was able to finally address some of the other problems we were having with water getting into the weather seals. We took the hard top off to address some of the issues. He got most of it figured out except for one spot in the front around the windshield. The weather stripping around the windshield area has some damage that cannot be fixed without removing the windshield had completely redoing to seals. This caused some major rust problems hidden behind the dash and will also need to be addressed some time in the near future. 

We drove with the top off and went to harass Caitlyn at work and to get a milk shake. : )

He also did a bit of welding as he started to make his grinder stand. We had other grand plans to get away but ended up putting the plans on the back burner as gas for this tiny Jeep with it's relatively small tank cost over $100 to fill...that's with the fuel rewards discounts from Marian!

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On the weekend before Christian had to return to work, we did go to visit with my family. Immediately after work, we went to do tomb sweeping for our ancestors. We had a quick lunch and then afterwards, we had some more food and sat around to chat and catch up a bit.

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We had to get Caitlyn new wheels for her XJ. Christian gave her the tires off of his TJ since they were nearly new and he wants bigger tires. But the bigger tires rub a bit, so she needed wheels with more backspacing so that it would fit better. New wheels are a lot cheaper than new tires. It looks really good and works even better! Her old tires are currently on the TJ until we can afford to get them replaced but I'll tell you, they are scary to drive on. We leave pieces of it here and there when we go off-roading. It is only a matter of time before one (or more) of them fail. They still have plenty of tread, but they are so old and decrepit, that it is falling apart.

Now that the TJ is back up and running, we will let Caitlyn drive that one around while we get back to work on the XJ. Of course, we will have to move her tires over to the TJ at that point as we can't let her drive on the old tires! We need to really concentrate on finishing the XJ so that it will be done on time for her to take it up with her to college. Hopefully no more TJ or Trooper distractions until it is done. Emily is excited for Caitlyn to bring up her Jeep to Idaho...oh, and for her sister to come up too!

February

 We celebrated Chinese New Year at the beginning of the month. Emily wanted to fly back for it but we did not nail down our exact plans with the rest of the family early enough. Several months ago, when she was considering it, the airfare was only a hundred bucks but by the time we made plans, it jumped up to be triple the price.

Caitlyn ended up working on Chinese New Year and could not come with us to visit with the family. She had just started working and was not getting her schedule much in advance and it didn't seem like a good idea to ask for a day off already.

So Christian and I went by ourselves to visit with my family. We made dumplings as per usual. My sister was able to get into town early to help out. One of her boys made it in that afternoon, but the other one's flight got cancelled due to the weather. My brother and his kids made it but wore double masks through out except when they went outside to eat. His wife decided to just work instead and didn't come by.

Yeah, so it was nice to get together but it just wasn't quite the same with all the missing people and changes. We are not sure how many more times we will even be able to attempt something like this since it is getting harder and harder for my mom to help out.

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Christian spent every free moment working on the TJ. He originally set up to take replace the heater core as the heater was not working in the Jeep when we got it and it smelled of radiator fluid. But in order to get to the HVAC box, you have to take the entire dash apart. So he basically ended up gutting the entire interior of the Jeep. He found many broken and missing pieces (bolts, nuts, clips and other small accessories). They basically stole or lost everything that wasn't bolted down and half the things that were.

In cleaning up the brake petal, he found that the brake booster boot was torn and needed to be replaced, so he ended up having to take that out as well, along with the brake master cylinder. We needed to bleed the brakes anyway, so we got it apart to clean but also found that getting all these miscellaneous replacement parts were nearly impossible. It took a lot of time tracking down parts for it and having to make modifications to what we could find to make it work or having to outright make our own replacement pieces. He had to clean, make repairs and check on electrical problems on the electrical system inside the cab.

Christian also had the radiator out to flush it along with all the air conditioning lines since we had to get into there to fix the heater. 

The repairs were snowballing and we ran out of space to even store all the parts we took out of the Jeep. We are storing most of the bits and pieces in the back of Christian's pickup and all the seats that Caitlyn cleaned were sitting in Emily's room. It is becoming completely nuts and have taken over our lives. Even Christian is getting burnt out on this project.

But we hope we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel at this point and will be able to start putting it back together now and see if it all still works or is fixed. 

He was also really sick for about a week. He got tested for Covid but it came back negative.

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Marian finally made it over to visit with us so we had dinner and exchanged presents from Christmas as well as celebrating Chinese New Year. 

It was weird opening presents in February but it was good to visit with Marian as she has been super busy at work lately. 

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Caitlyn finally heard back from BYU Provo near the end of the month and they did not accept her stating they got too many good applicants this year. We were honestly a bit shocked and taken aback by it. She graduated early Magna Cum Laude with Highest Honors with a total GPA of 4.26 weighted and 3.85 unweighted. I mean, BYU isn't some Ivy League school here. The school wasn't even accredited when Christian and I were going to college! I can't believe they had that many students applying that are doing that much better than her.

I don't think Caitlyn was quite as upset about it as we were. She only decided to apply to it at the last minute. We all had reservations about the school because they have become very liberal over the years and we did not agree with many of their policies. But with all the hard work that Caitlyn put into her school work and being a member of the church, we figured that it should be her choice of where she wanted to go.

So, apparently, she will be joining Emily in Idaho in the fall. She got her acceptance from Idaho back in December only two weeks after submitting her application. She is mostly dreading the weather there.

Meanwhile, she is taking an online World History class at RCC to get some more college credit in. With this class and the dual enrollment classes she took in high school, she should have nearly a whole quarter/semester of classes done before she even heads over to BYU.

Caitlyn

 Caitlyn had a lot of things going on in January. She had her appointment at the DMV for her behind the wheel test so we practiced as much as we could around the local area. She passed her test and is now an official driver!

She started looking for a job in December but the only company that replied called her while she was still in school. They wanted her to come in for an interview the next morning but it was still finals week. She would literally be done in a couple of days. She told them but they never called her back and it looked like they still had the job opening so I'm not sure what the heck their problem was. I couldn't get Caitlyn to follow up with them again. She applied for a bunch of retail jobs, mostly in the mall but did't get any bites. She was really hoping to be able to avoid slinging burgers at a fast food joint but it seems as if that is the only thing available to 16 year olds with no experience.

Meanwhile, we were trying to get her school to finalize their records to show that she had graduated so that she could get a job and so that she could take some classes at city college. First we had to wait for them to post the grades from last semester and then they had to wait for the city college to send her grade to the district and for the district to turn around and send the grade to her school to show that she satisfied all her graduation requirements.

During all this, the school keeps calling me every day to tell me that Caitlyn has been truant. We finally got her counselor to take her off the school roster so that they would stop calling me but a week later, Caitlyn got a call to tell her to keep up the good work on her attendance this year. The counselor suggested that I pay for the city college to send them her transcript directly so that they don't have to wait for the district to update her records. I didn't think that was fair, so I started calling the district to get them to do their job since I know that the city college has already posted grades for the semester. They must have finally done something because the next day, her grade for the english class she took at RCC got posted. It took another day for them to acknowledge that she had satisfied all the requirements to graduate early. Of course a week after that, I got a letter in the mail telling me that Caitlyn is missing a whole week of school and basically how she is required by law to go to school...freaking oblivious idiots.

Caitlyn graduated Magna Cum Laude with Highest Honors. She will attend BYU in the fall to study business administration. We do not yet know which campus she will attend. Idaho gave their acceptance within a couple of weeks of submitting her application, but we have not yet heard from Provo. 

Marian left a little graduation care package for her. They are mostly supplies for college.

Even though she is done with school, we wanted her to graduate from seminary. They have no fast track through seminary but we thought it unfair to make her get up at the crack of dawn to go to her normal seminary class. I'd been working on trying to get her in to an independent study program which will allow her to do it from home on her own time but the guy in charge of it would not respond to any of my e-mails or text messages. 

We have another friend that wanted to get her two kids into the program as well since they did not have a ride to church but he would not return her phone call either.

Finally, I had enough and went over his head to talk to the seminary supervisor. The supervisor could not even get a hold of him. Finally the stake presidency had to get involved and only got an answer because they contacted the guy's mother! We were all wondering if he had actually moved away, since he was not even listed in the directory. He got called into a meeting with the presidency and we were hopeful that something would be done about this guy at last but apparently, it was too much to hope for. Which is pretty ridiculous since this is not just his calling but an actual paid position that our tithing pays for. We also found out that the kids that were supposed to be in his class last semester did not always even get their assignments from him so he has been slacking off for quite some time.

In the end, he sent us one e-mail and Caitlyn finally got added after missing the first week of seminary. The other two kids still do not have access. We don't know what the problem is and he still won't respond directly to any of us to figure it out. I have pressed the supervisor and the guy above him but nothing has been done.  I know the supervisor has been frustrated with this whole situation but it in not under his control. I do not know anything beyond that.

It is all so ridiculous. I feel like I have spent half the month chasing after well paid individuals to do the damned job they are paid to do.

Anyway, after a couple of weeks, Caitlyn finally caved on her idea of getting a retail job. She finally started applying for fast food type jobs. Once that got set in motion, she got job interviews left and right. Some didn't work out because they wanted her to work late nights. Others wanted her to work long term and when they found out she would be leaving for college in the fall, they opted to look elsewhere.  She got offered a job at McDonalds like her sister. She applied for the Day St. McDonalds but they called her to interview at the Sunnymead one. We are not sure if she clicked on the wrong location, or they just lied to her because they wanted to hire her for that location. Both locations were severely short on help. She said that she would contact the other location and gave her paperwork to get started but it was very vague about where she would be working. Sunnymead is not in as good of a location and we did not want her working there. 

Meanwhile, she interviewed and got offered a job at Jack in the Box. She decided that she would much rather work at Jack in the Box that try to figure out the fiasco that is McDonalds. The manager seemed more professional and so she took her chances with them. It has gotten off to a bit of a shaky start because they scheduled her to go in for orientation but later postponed it to the next day. The next day, it got cancelled. The manager decided to just start scheduling her regardless, so she has gotten to work 3 days a week so far. She said that she would give her more time as she learned the ropes and that is what we are praying for now.

Christian had also finished Caitlyn's back bumper and got it painted and installed at the beginning of the month, so now she is able to drive her own car around to work by herself!

We still have quite a bit of work to do on the Jeep, but she is able to use it for now. Once we get the TJ back together and running, we will have her drive that one while Christian finishes up the work that needs to be completed on the XJ.

We are so very proud of all the hard work Caitlyn has put in and all her accomplishments. She ended up missing registration for the winter quarter for RCC because they have a hold on her registration. It took several more weeks for her to even get an appointment with the counselor to find out what the problems is.

Meanwhile, she has enrolled in a fun coding class at La Sierra University. There are no credits but she will get an introduction to Python to see if it is something that she wants to pursue. We have tried to get her into several other so called coding classes over the years; one with the girls scouts program and another at UCR but they were all jokes. They didn't teaching anything of any substance. This online class at La Sierra University seems to at least use actual Python code even though they are just coding little games to learn it. She seems to being having some fun with it anyway.

In addition, at the end of the month, she agreed to play the prelude and postlude music on the organ at church, so we were excited to hear her. The lady that plays on the fifth Sunday of the month is an accomplished pianist that is learning to play the organ, so she asked Caitlyn to help her out with the prelude and postlude so that she can concentrate on learning the songs for the actual program.

January

 Shortly after we returned from Idaho, we found out that our water heater was leaking. It wasn't super obvious at first. But Christian noticed that the floor in the bathroom was getting warped in places. After a bit of hunting around, he found that the water heater had a slow leak so we don't exactly know how long it has been leaking. We spent the New Year hunting down a new water heater and getting it installed. That was really expensive.

Christian spent the rest of his time off of work working on the TJ. He gutted the whole thing. He started out taking the dash apart to get to the heater core since it wasn't working. One thing led to another and we found out that anything that wasn't bolted down was stolen off of the Jeep and half the things that were were also missing including the bolts and nuts.  It was very disheartening. Yeah, we made sure that the Jeep ran well. The engine and transmission seems fine, but not much else. The worst thing is that the frame around the windshield, where it meets the dash, is rusted to hell. Not even sure how that much moister got trapped up there to cause that kind of damage. So this is all on top of the obvious things that we knew had to be fixed, like the suspension. The whole thing is becoming a money pit.

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Emily was working two jobs for a while to try to get enough money to stay out in Idaho and pay her bills. The seasonal job that she had was supposed to end the week before Christmas but they had her come in after Christmas for a couple more weeks. Meanwhile, she had taken a second job at a daycare facility in preparation for losing  the seasonal position. She worked there part time while she worked at her original job. When the seasonal position finally came to an end, she was able to get more hours at the daycare center. She really likes the people that she works with there. Her roommate, Lanie, helped her get her foot in the door there. The kids and some of the parents are a bit of a challenge though.

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We celebrated Chinese New Year with my family towards the end of the month. My sister and her husband just came back from Jamaica. Christopher was supposed to fly back from NY but his flight got cancelled because of the weather. Jared made it in in the late morning. 

Emily looked into flying back but we did not have a concrete plan when she first thought of it and by the time we did make concrete plans, the price of the flight tripled in price.

Caitlyn had to work so she could not come.

Norman and his kids made it but they sat there wearing double masks and went outside to eat. His wife didn't come. As usual, she was working on month end close but I doubt that she tried very hard to come over. 

Luckily, my sister made it back about mid-week so she was able to help my mom prepare food. It is just too much work for my mom nowadays. 

We left in the middle of the afternoon. My sister had plans for the evening with her in-laws and we wanted to bring food back for Caitlyn.

Christmas and more

 We celebrated Christmas a little early here at home before heading up to see Emily. Marian could not make it as she seems to be always at work these days.

We certainly didn't want to drag all our presents up to Idaho just to open them with Emily. I don't think we even had the room if we wanted to. Terry left us a Christmas card with our gift in it when he was up earlier for our Christmas dinner. Cheri sent Christmas gifts back with us when we were up in Oregon. Even Marian had previously left a few Christmas gifts for some of us when she was here a few months ago.

Since we opened  our gifts early, we let Emily open hers the same evening we arrived up in Idaho, even though it wasn't quite Christmas yet. It took us only 12 hour to get there!

Caitlyn basically got a lot of things for college. Emily got a lot of things for the cold wet winters of Idaho. Caitlyn made neat grab bar handles and a new keychain for Christian's TJ out of 550 paracord. They turned out really neat. I was the only one taking pictures this year so no pictures with my presents. 

All of Emily's roommates were gone for the holidays so we were able to stay with her at her apartment. We certainly would not been able to camp in that weather. It was so cold and the wind seemed to be always blowing.

The next day, we went out for a drive to see if we could explore more of the area. Unfortunately, as with previous explorations in Idaho, we could not find a whole lot of places off the beaten path to explore. None of the smaller dirt roads were plowed, so we could not even attempt to enter them as the snow plowed on the main roads would have piled up a huge burm at the beginning of the trail that we would not be able to go over. The only useable roads are used by snowmobiles. We even crossed over to Montana several times in our search.

We did find a road on the Montana side that looked promising and Christian put on the chains to see if we could get through, but the snow was too deep here. It didn't help that we forgot our tools and the tensioners for the chains so Christian froze his hands trying to get the chains on in the first place. We were able to get down a little ways and have some fun in the snow, but decided that the snow was just too deep in sections to continue. 

It was Christmas Eve. We stopped by the store on our way home to stock up on a few supplies to last us through our visit as Emily didn't have much at home. I had brought some groceries with us to make our annual "reunion" or winter solstice soup. We used the bowls that Marian gave us for Christmas. It's everybody's favorite soup and unfortunately, we usual eat until it hurts and then eat some more.

Even though it was butt cold, we went for a short walk around the temple while Caitlyn stayed in, hiding in Emily's room. We watched movies afterwards using Christian's laptop and Emily's bluetooth speaker.

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On Christmas morning, everyone slept in as there were no presents to open anyway. We already opened them all! We took a walk on campus and I forced everyone to pose for family pictures since we did not send out Christmas cards again this year since we normally take it in November to print cards on time. 

When we got back, we had lunch and sent pictures and greetings out to family and friends. Emily made us some curry for dinner. We watched another movie and called it a day. The weather forecast said that it would snow almost the entire time we were there, but it only snowed a little bit but mostly the wind just blew the existing snow around.

The next day, we decided to try our hand at exploring the area one more time. This time, we were just going to stay somewhat locally. We found some alternate camping areas for when the weather is a bit fairer. 

At one point, we were playing around and tried to get up a steep hill. We didn't quite make it at first and the vehicle started rolling back down the hill. We tried it a couple more times and we would have made it the last time, but the computer freaked out and put the transmission in limp mode. We couldn't get any real power to the drivetrain. We started to panic. We were not sure if something happened to the car or if it was just a computer problem...either way, we didn't have enough power to make it back to Emily's much less home. We tried turning off the car several times to try to get the stupid computer to reset. We were searching through the manual for a way around the problem. Finally, Christian just disconnected the battery to reset the stupid computer and it was fine after that. Emily had meanwhile found a fix on YouTube on how to get around the problem, but it was pretty convoluted. It's like turning around and doing the hokey pokey while holding down this button or something. 

Anyway, we were not very happy about the situation and it spoiled all our fun while inciting a great deal of stress. We would have been stranded in the middle of nowhere 1,000 miles from home in the middle of a snow storm because when all this was happening, we all got snow squall warnings on our phones!  As soon as we were able, we fled the area we were at and moved away from the more immediate weather systems and we went into the sand dune area. That area was fine for a while, but the squall moved in and covered our road with snow again. Caitlyn was getting some practice driving in snowy/icy conditions. At some point, the snow got too deep and she drifted off the track a bit. We got stuck in the snow. It was pretty deep. Christian went out to dig our tires out. While he was working on that, a beefed up Jeep pulled up behind us. Christian just told them to go around. The made it around us, but got stuck just ahead of where we were. They had huge knobby tires, so they tried several times to continue, but only got a few inches each time. They finally gave up and backed back out. They offered to pull us out. Although Christian had us mostly dug out, he went ahead and let them pull us out with our dynamic rope since we've never used it yet. It didn't take much to get us out. We got turned around to head back and the Jeep gave up and left as well.

Christian was hurting pretty bad from the cold and wind. He drove most of the way out and Emily took over as his head hurt too much. She would plow into these drifts and the snow would totally cover the windshield so that we could not see where we were going. It was a bit scary but she kind of got the hang of it and went a bit slower.

By the time we got back, Christian got warmed up and was feeling better. Even so, we mostly just stayed in for the rest of the day. It was Sunday, so we didn't want to pick up any more food or supplies. Since Emily's kitchen isn't very stocked, we through together some pork fried rice for dinner and packed up our stuff to return home. 

Originally, we were supposed to head into Utah and do some camping, but because of the weather, we decided to just head home. We were supposed to have a small window (about half a day) of clear weather before the new system came in so we got up very early and headed out, hoping to stay ahead of the weather system. As usual, the forecast was useless. We got snowed on just after leaving Rexburg and it continued through most of Idaho. We had to deal with snow, ice, rain and a constant head wind but we made it through to Las Vegas okay. That's when things took a nasty turn. Not so much the weather, but the traffic. It was stop and go traffic all the way through to California. We finally jumped off the freeway and headed out into the Mojave on smaller roads and cut down into Joshua Tree and Yucca. Lots of crazy drivers on those roads still. Once we hit Moreno Valley back on the main freeway though, it became a literal parking lot. We just sat there with the engine off for a while before we were able to proceed the rest of the way home. 

It took us 12 hours to get there, but it took us 15 hours to get back! 

December

It seemed like we had a lot of things going on December. We hit the ground running by doing an early Christmas dinner with Christian's dad and Jackie at the beginning of the month because we only had a few weekends available and everyone gets busy this time of year. 

We had to smog Caitlyn's Jeep...which seems oddly early since we didn't buy it until after Christmas two year's ago. On top of that, we had to get Christian's Jeep smogged as well so that we could get it registered. After Christian replaced the oxygen sensor, we had no problems getting it to pass the smog check. We still had some problems getting the Jeep registered though. We went to the DMV add they wanted additional paperwork from the dealer saying that the vehicle was never registered in Oregon. The paper trail for that Jeep was really ridiculous. It was last titled in California but it was sold to a dealer in Nevada. I believe the woman traded it in for something else at the dealership since she worked there. The dealer didn't want to deal with it, so they sold it in an auction to the dealer in Oregon. When we bought it, they didn't even have the title yet, but obviously, the vehicle was physically in Oregon when we bought it and brought it back to California. Anyway, the paper trail was really sketchy. Christian's mom got a letter from the dealer stating the problem and Christian was able to take it in with the title and bill of sale to finally get it registered but we totally got reamed in sales tax for a vehicle that was not every sold or bought in California!!!

In addition, we found out that the key and ignition was worn out because, at some point, the key fell out with the engine running and the engine kept running without the key being in the ignition! We went to several locksmiths and the dealer to see how we could fix it. It was a costly nightmare in itself. The first locksmith wanted to get the parts from the dealer and wanted to charge a ton to get the work done. They e-mailed Christian a lower rate but quoted us a totally, much higher rate when we went in. We then went to the dealer to order the parts and decided to keep looking for another locksmith since the dealer wanted an exorbitant amount to do the work as well. We found out that the second locksmith we went to could have done everything for us at a much lower rate. He did a great job for much less so we went back to order some more spares.

It was raining the day we ran around to get all this done and we found out that the hardcover and door seals on the Wrangler leaks like a sieve. We are now looking into getting those replaced. Christian managed to change the engine oil, the transmission fluid and the back differential. The front will be next on his list.

In between all that and finishing up with school, Christian continued to work on Caitlyn's bumper. We originally started to put the thing together a couple of months ago but found that the bumper didn't fit. We thought that stupid JCR sent us the wrong parts again and since we bought it like a year ago and hadn't gotten around to putting it together, we were SOL. We cut some pieces of metal to extend the bumper so that it would fit the vehicle only to find out that we actually mixed up the main part of the back bumper with the main part of the front bumper, which is actually why it did not fit. We had to cut the spot welds off and switch the parts. Luckily, he had only spot welded the pieces together, so it was not too much of a chore. 

It still did not fit as well as it should have so we had to cut out notches in it and shim other parts so that it would fit better. We are pretty disappointed with JCR because of the quality of the products and their very crappy customer service. I don't think we will buy from them again, even with another Jeep to work on.

It looks nice now that Christian had to tweak the crap out of it to get it to line up and fit.

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Meanwhile, we found out Emily decided to drop all her classes even though she was nearing the end of the semester. A good friend of hers got hit by a car in the crosswalk near her apartment complex and died. She was pretty distraught. She really needed to be able to concentrate and pull through this semester with good grades since she did not do so well last year and she didn't want to risk it. This is the first time someone close to her has died. Her grandfather didn't really count since she was never that close to him.

We understand her choices but we are a little worried about her. Luckily she is still working at her temporary job and is able to stay and support herself, if only barely. They have agreed to keep her on a little longer after the holidays so hopefully that will turn into something good for her. She won't be coming home during her break though, so we will join her in Idaho for Christmas.

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Caitlyn finally hunkered down and filled out her college applications. Although, at the last minute, after visiting with our friends for a Christmas get together, she decided that she was going to apply to Provo as well as Idaho. Except Provo requires four essays in their application, so she was scrambling to get it done in time.

At the same time, she was getting ready for her finals and she had her last behind the wheel driving lesson. That's not to say that she was totally overwhelmed. She did have to study a little for a couple of her finals but for the most part, she could have nearly skipped some her finals and still gotten an A in the class.

After classes were done, she and her friends got together for a luncheon and gift exchange. They were also sort of celebrating her completion of her classes for high school. She won't get her final grades until the beginning of next year and no actual graduation unless she wants to return in May to walk with the rest of her classmates, but basically, she is done.

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Before leaving for Idaho, we had a little extra time and decided to go test out the Wrangler off-road and spend some time with Christian's dad. We met up and headed out to the Anza Borrego desert. We did not go very early though as we did not want to get stuck in the morning commuter traffic.

It was a pretty nice day out. Rain is expected soon so the timing was pretty good. We were trying to find a road out to a huge trestle bridge out there but apparently, you can only go so far in vehicles. The rest of the way needs to be hiked. I don't think any of us were ready to do that on this day.

We wandered through the trails a bit more and called it a day. 

We returned to Ramona for some Mexican food for dinner. Christian's dad sprung for dinner. We packed sandwiches and chips for our drive. The Jeep handled everything great, even though the suspension is shot and we put on Caitlyn's old decrepit tires on it.