A fire in the River Bottom!

Today when we got to church there was a man burning weeds?  Near his house, near the river across the street and down a way from the Stake Center.  Many of us thought this was not good... after Sacrament meeting I had to go home because I forgot my check book to pay our tithing.  The fire was out of control and had blown down river towards the Merrill Home, the white home right across the street from the church.  When I went outside a flame burst up 20 feet or so taller than the house...it looked like the house was in danger.  Soon members were at the house using garden hoses to do what they could to protect the house.  I went home and grabbed my check book...and my camera:)  This first photo was taken as I was going down the hill on 4th street.

This is how it looked when I got on the bridge.  A police officer stopped traffic at that point. 

A flair up a little down the river.

They had another fire truck come from New Mexico...and after our truck ran out of water, the flames had died down enough they let us go across the bridge.  Most people were still in the church blissfully unaware of  all that happened.  

This was after church, some firemen putting out hot spots.  I believe the Merrill home is fine.

The Adventures of a Returning Missionary

3 years and 7 months ago, in the sweltering heat of July, we went to pick up our first Returning missionary, Josh.  Our radiator sprung a leak, and we did not make it to the airport when our boy landed.  Fast forward....Feb. 20, we headed to Phoenix to pick up Kendall, ..no heat, the Van seemed to be in good condition, and we prayed, and prayed.  We had been watching the weather and there was a storm coming in.  One thought that came to my mind was....bring snow chains.  I thought we were leaving early enough that we wouldn't REALLY have any problems....

 It was raining in Globe but as we approached the Superior Mountains, we were excited and feeling pretty positive.  Then it started to snow, the roads were slushy for a time, then it began to be snow pack.  As the weather got worse we came upon a semi that was diagonal across the road...that didn't look good but the way it was situated we were able to get around it only to come upon 4 cars and car parts strewn on the road...there had been an accident, a small car was significantly crunched but we continued on.

 After a time the car in front of us was slowing, that was frustrating and as we tried to slow, we started sliding.  We really wanted the car in front to keep going, but as we got closer we saw there was a semi that could go no more and the line of traffic came to a stand still.  We watched as a couple of the cars in front of us braved their way around the semi.  Then some trucks from behind went around us.  I told Derek we weren't going anywhere till we put the chains on.  A snow plow came from behind and the clearing was nice, but it also now made a berm of snow that we would have to get over to move on.  A smaller car from behind tried to come around and slid to the other side of the road and was stuck...now blocking traffic going the other way. We got out and put on the chains...and were on our way (ok, it wasn't quite as easy as it sounded...but we did it).  There were a couple of trucks behind us, and we were going pretty slow because of the chains, one of them came loose and was banging in the tire well.  We found a place to fix it and the 2 trucks passed us.  When we got back on the road we continued on ALONE for what seemed miles.  We saw at one turn off point that several cars and trucks had pulled off and were holding up...tilll???? I don't know when.  Eventually we started coming down out of the mountain and saw Semi trucks just stopped right on the road, and then a line of trucks and these funny square spots where there was less snow and tracks that showed that the cars that were stuck there decided to turn around and go back.  We heard a few minutes later that the road we had been on was closed!  

BUT WE MADE IT!!!!!

What great Joy it was to HUG that boy again!!!

 All together again for the first time in over 3 and a half years!  Happy are we!