We couldn't pass up the opportunity to attend President Hinckley's viewing on Friday. We'll only be Utah residents for a couple more months, and we'll miss living so close to SLC and the church's headquarters.Allow me to document the sequence of events that occurred Friday night:
We left at about 2:00 pm, hoping to beat the rush of people going to the viewing after the work day had ended. (I was planning on being home in time to spend the entire evening preparing my talk for Stake Conference.) We took Trax for the first time, leaving our car at what we thought was the nearest Trax station. (More on that later.) When we got to the conference center, we couldn't believe the humongous line that curled all the
way around the building. Undaunted, we got in the line and began to wait. Two hours, one very whiny kid behind us, and one Hispanic lady whom we let cut in front of us later, we finally entered the doors of the conference center and left the 20 degree weather behind. When we walked through the doors, we saw... more lines! We asked a security guard how much longer it would be. He said, "another 2 hours. I wouldn't take my kid." Thanks a lot. But he turned out to be very helpful, finding us a room where we could feed and change the baby, and then allowing us to jump in line a little closer to our destination.
President Hinckley was a picture of perfect peace. Rick commented afterwards that this was probably the closest to perfection we've ever seen.
We left the conference center and jumped back on Trax (now about 7:3o pm). We rode it to the last station in Sandy and got off, ready to jump into a warm car. Hmmm, where is the car? We walked all around a very unfamiliar parking lot, desperately trying to figure out where on earth we could have parked. We realized that perhaps this was the wrong station. After riding back and forth on Trax a few more times, we finally wised up and looked at the ticket we'd purchased in the beginning! There in my pocket was the answer to the mystery of the lost car: the name of the station where we had parked. The car was found, and we were on our way with a cold and hungry baby. (As the picture shows, we had squeezed into the only semi-available spot in the lot, involving Rick using his bare hands to clear away some snow.)
I only wish the story ended here. Since we were all starving, and we had a gift card to a restaurant, we decided to grab a bite to eat and feed the baby there instead of heading home right away. Well, poor Carson was all out of sorts from the long and crazy day, so nursing in the restaurant didn't go too well. There were nursing covers, milk, and limbs all over the place. I attempted to go out to the car and nurse him there with little success. We quickly ate our food while Carson snacked on a pacifier and then made a quick escape. As soon as we got to the car, I was hit with an unfortunately familiar sinking feeling. The keys were IN THE CAR. And the car was LOCKED.
Well, we finally made it home barely before Friday had turned into Saturday. Thanks to the Johnsons in our ward for picking us up from the restaurant. :)
As you can imagine, this day was not pleasant for us, save the few seconds in which we paid our respects to the prophet. We had to sacrifice one afternoon to see him. I later realized that he sacrificed well over 70 YEARS in our service. I'm ok with having given up one measly afternoon.
We left at about 2:00 pm, hoping to beat the rush of people going to the viewing after the work day had ended. (I was planning on being home in time to spend the entire evening preparing my talk for Stake Conference.) We took Trax for the first time, leaving our car at what we thought was the nearest Trax station. (More on that later.) When we got to the conference center, we couldn't believe the humongous line that curled all the
way around the building. Undaunted, we got in the line and began to wait. Two hours, one very whiny kid behind us, and one Hispanic lady whom we let cut in front of us later, we finally entered the doors of the conference center and left the 20 degree weather behind. When we walked through the doors, we saw... more lines! We asked a security guard how much longer it would be. He said, "another 2 hours. I wouldn't take my kid." Thanks a lot. But he turned out to be very helpful, finding us a room where we could feed and change the baby, and then allowing us to jump in line a little closer to our destination.President Hinckley was a picture of perfect peace. Rick commented afterwards that this was probably the closest to perfection we've ever seen.
We left the conference center and jumped back on Trax (now about 7:3o pm). We rode it to the last station in Sandy and got off, ready to jump into a warm car. Hmmm, where is the car? We walked all around a very unfamiliar parking lot, desperately trying to figure out where on earth we could have parked. We realized that perhaps this was the wrong station. After riding back and forth on Trax a few more times, we finally wised up and looked at the ticket we'd purchased in the beginning! There in my pocket was the answer to the mystery of the lost car: the name of the station where we had parked. The car was found, and we were on our way with a cold and hungry baby. (As the picture shows, we had squeezed into the only semi-available spot in the lot, involving Rick using his bare hands to clear away some snow.)I only wish the story ended here. Since we were all starving, and we had a gift card to a restaurant, we decided to grab a bite to eat and feed the baby there instead of heading home right away. Well, poor Carson was all out of sorts from the long and crazy day, so nursing in the restaurant didn't go too well. There were nursing covers, milk, and limbs all over the place. I attempted to go out to the car and nurse him there with little success. We quickly ate our food while Carson snacked on a pacifier and then made a quick escape. As soon as we got to the car, I was hit with an unfortunately familiar sinking feeling. The keys were IN THE CAR. And the car was LOCKED.
Well, we finally made it home barely before Friday had turned into Saturday. Thanks to the Johnsons in our ward for picking us up from the restaurant. :)
As you can imagine, this day was not pleasant for us, save the few seconds in which we paid our respects to the prophet. We had to sacrifice one afternoon to see him. I later realized that he sacrificed well over 70 YEARS in our service. I'm ok with having given up one measly afternoon.
5 comments:
Sounds fun. I would have liked to go, but I wasn't brave enough to fight the crowds, and the cold weather with two kids! Good for you. I'm glad you were able to make it!
Cute pictures...and what an adventure?!!! That is so neat that you were able to be there for one last sight of Pres. Hinckley. You will always be able to tell Carson about his busy day!
I am sorry you had a rotten experience. Steve and I knew it would be worse on Friday, so we went on Thursday. Ushers saw us in line in the cold and just walked us through into the conference center because of our baby. Your line was probably longer and had more kids. We were lucky Andy was a bit more calm, so we could enjoy sitting and listening to the music while we waited...So many people loved that man.
I am sorry, but I laughed about your keys in the car.---isn't that how it always works? When it rains it pours!!!
I know about babies being out of their element. It just makes everything harder. You still have a great story and an experience you will never forget!
I deletes my previous comment cause Andy just got on top of me and hit buttons the last second. SOrry!
Doesn't having a baby make it so much more involved to do something like this? Kudos to you guys for the Herculean effort you made to see the prophet.
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