Another one bites the dust

 Oh hi Jacob!

So, this weekend was pretty event filled and fun. With some unexpected stuff thrown in. I’ll start with Friday because I can’t think of anything worth writing that may have happened on Thursday. Friday I got up early to take Ben, after, I decided to take Joey to school since I was going to pick him up after school. Before I dropped him off, we met mom at McDonald’s for breakfast. Even though I was off of work, I did a few things when I got home. After that I went for a walk. I got a new Audible that I think you’d like. It’s called The Perfect Pass, by S.C.Gwynne. He’s the guy who wrote Kingdom of the Summer Moon. But this one’s about this guy who Emphasized and perfect the Forward pass. He was a coach that was inspired by early passing teams like the Chargers and a few college teams, including ehhum, byu. His assistant coach was Mike Leach, who coached at Texas Tech and recently Washington state. Anyway, it’s really good and you’d like it. I may buy the paperback so you guys can read it. 

Anyway, after my walk, where I listened to that book, I showered, packed, washed the 4Runner and went to pick up Joe. The timing worked out perfect because it was then time to pick up uncle tim then perfect timing to head up to the U to get Ben. Just as we got there, I got a call from Artie that aunt Patti had a scary breakdown on the freeway. She wasn’t sure what happened, but it was really scary. She was hauling along at 70 when it felt like here brakes came on full blast. She also had no steering. Her car started to drift to the left lane, then to the outside lane. She still had no control as she came to the shoulder, and she thought she was going to hit the concrete barrier. But she came to a slow and gentle stop. When I got there, her car was on the side of the road about to be loaded onto the tow truck. It looked like she had parked there deliberately. I followed her tow truck to the Toyota dealership where she dropped it off. As we took her home she told us what happened. It occurred to me that she was being protected, literally. Like her car had been guided and placed in a safe place. Remember how I always bugged you guys to pray before we went anywhere? Well Jacob, that because I believe he can protect us, and what aunt patti told me about how that all happened, I know he did.

So, after that, we had a bit of a late start, and we were starving, so we stopped at Crown Burger on out way out. Man was that satisfying. The drive to Wyoming was okay. For some reason, Google takes you on a route wit a billion turns and route changes. It was really pretty during golden hour with the sun going down. There were so many dear and antelope everywhere. As it got dark, I was worried that we’d have one jump out in front of us, but we were safe. We got to our hotel in Lander at about 8:30, Ben said it looked exactly like the hotel he thought I would choose, whatever that means. About 10, as we we’re settling in, we heard all of these horns honking and other commotion, then, we started hear sirens zooming around. We stepped out to see what it was, we couldn’t see anything but we could only hear those noises fading into the distance. We still have no idea what it was. In the hotel, we had two queen sized beds, Joe and I in one, uncle Tim had the other one. Ben opted to use the sleeping bag and pad I had brought, for obvious reasons.

Uncle Tim got up early for his jog, the rest of us got up about an hour after. We stopped for breakfast at a local restaurant. The servers there were uncommonly friendly. We didn’t really know what this museum was going to be like. I had some idea that maybe some rich guy had been collecting tanks and had put them in a big barn or something. The girl at the restaurant told us that she had gone with her uncle who’s a veteran last fall and that it was amazing. She advised us to get a guided tour. The food was pretty good, the ride was pretty again, lots of antelope again. There was a few miles of red rock that resembled Moab. After about an hour, we got to some buildings that were literally in the middle of nowhere, but with a bunch of flags and tanks on the outside. Much bigger than a barn from the looks of it. We got in and paid admission. The first exhibit was a giant gun collection. The very first gun was the flintlock rifle that shot the first shot of the revolutionary war. Apparently, it was real as it had been documented through a court martial of the guy who fired the first shot as he has disobeyed orders and shot early. The collection was massive and it hinted at the quality of the museum. The first gallery with vehicles was shockingly amazing. The theme was the landing craft of the war. The next gallery was displaying the US tanks of the war. It was amazing, the tanks were such high quality. Apparently, they were all in working order, but the fluids and batteries had been removed to prevent fires. The next gallery was about the role of logistics and transportation in the war, there must have been 20 or 30 trucks in there. I really will not be able to do justice to any of the galleries, but they had another with vehicles from some of the other countries, they had the barrels muzzles from the USS Missouri, the ship that was the setting for the surrender of Japan. They also had amazing galleries for the Korean War, and from the Vietnam war. 

We were told of a guided tour that was starting at 12:30. I had only made it about half way through the museum by then. I told your brothers that I was going to join the tour and that if it was boring we could come back to where we had left off. I got back to the front of the museum just after the guide had started. Turns out that he was the owner of the museum and of all the vehicles. He was extremely intelligent and incredibly good at presenting his museum. I had this fear that he was going to talk about himself and how great his museum was. Uncle Tim got there a minute or two after I did. The guy had just told us the story of the muzzle loader. Uncle Tim asked him, “how big the couch was that he found the spare change in” for the museum. The guy told us that everything in and including the museum had cost him about $100 million and that he had roughly 500 vehicles. After he said that, uncle Tim kept his questions a little more serious.

I wish I could tell you the stories the guy told us. With your interest in history you would have loved it. His stories really illustrated the human side of the war. He would often emphasize that the soldiers were 19 years old. And then tell us the horrible things that they experienced. I couldn’t help thinking of you and Jordan, and it made it really personal and real for me. I can’t imagine the sacrifices, horror and loss so many people had to experience because of the war. As good as his stories were though, what he did better than any book I’ve read or documentary I’ve seen, was he described the cause, effect, and consequences of war, and how one thing always affects everything, and how many things we need to do to keep peace by being prepared for war. Right now, Russia is threatening to invade the Ukrainian. And so much of what is going on there echoes what happened before world war 2. 

About half way through the tour, which was about 2 hours. He stopped for a break at this section between ww2 and the Korean conflict. It was one of those museum theater areas where the exhibit was a video. I sat next to uncle Tim while others went to the bathroom. I asked uncle Tim if was okay to keep going and he asked me how I liked it. I told him I loved that guy and that I didn’t want to miss any of it. Turns out that guy had been sitting just the other side of uncle Tim and heard out whole conversation. But it was cool and we got to chat with him a bit. He said he had been the CEO a large medical device company and that he retired. He bought his first tank 10 years ago and it took him 4-years to get it restored, he thought originally he’d just wanted it to drive in parades and stuff, but it turned into this. I told Ben that that guy collects more tanks than I do models AND he finishes them faster. Uncle Tim asked if he had partners or an endowment helping him, he said it was just something he wanted to do to tell the real story of conflict and history and to not let it be distorted by political sides. Jacob, this museum was right up there with the Udvar-Hazey Air and Space museum or mount Vernon or the museum at Gettysburg. I will take you there after you get back and you will love it. They are having an official grand opening on Memorial Day, and we’re seriously considering going back. Ben was very impressed by it and even Joey seemed to like it.

We headed home about 5. Uncle Tim wanted to have a sit down dinner as we were starving. We had gone through the museum without stopping for lunch. I was anxious to get on the road before dark, but I think uncle Tim leads a life where aunt Lithia maybe doesn’t always give him his way so I agreed. We stopped back in Lander and found a Mexican restaurant. It was fairly good, but it took a long time. Uncle Tim had added a mole burrito to his order and freaked out a little because at it added $10 to his meal. Food prices are going to be a shock to you when you get back. We finally got home just after midnight, so actually a little earlier than I thought we would. It as a really fun trip. And it was really fun to be with uncle Tim. He even pitched in for gas and bought us a nice breakfast to cover his part of the hotel.

Today was a very quiet day, including church. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that Ben’s best friend Ethan Miller came home this week. Did he even make a year?

Anyway Jacob, I really thought of you on this trip, You’re doing amazing things at the age you are supposed to do them. I hope none of my boys has to experience war, but I do want you to experience sacrifice, and a mission is the best way to experience that.

I love you kid, chat tomorrow.

Pops