Nature

David and I drove to Hurricane this last weekend. We went down for his grandparent's 70th wedding anniversary. Can you believe it! If we make it 70 years we'll be in our hundreds at the celebration... don't really think that will take place.

Anyway, normally it is a drive that I abhor in a way. It's just so dang long. And there are so many patches of nothingness to see that I just never get excited about the drive. Don't get me wrong, I love to go and see his family. I get along with them so well! In fact David and I have often commented that holidays would be so much easier if one of our families didn't like us. (I actually used to want to marry someone with a dysfunctional family cause then I wouldn't have to miss holidays with my own.)

Now, back to the drive and the nothingness therein. I actually did most of the driving. David had homework to read so he sat in the passenger seat and read his math books out loud to me. (I should totally get a gold star for that too.) Fortunately I wasn't bored to tears, but I also felt no great obligation to really listen to him either. I started scanning the countryside as we passed by going 80 miles per hour and what I found delighted me. In the deserted countryside between Utah Valley and St. George were thousands and thousands of the wild yellow sunflower-looking flowers lining the freeway. It was beautiful! I had seen them before, but never so abundantly. The whole median was filled to over-flowing in places. I began to look further and found vegetation that was actually still green in September filling in the spaces between the sagebrush. There was a quiet beauty about it. Much better than burnt, dry, desert. Perhaps that was my gold star.