One of Our Many Moves...1977

Sometime between June 28 and July 15 my parents decided to move back to Michigan from Incline Village, Nevada.  My BFF, Beth had come to stay with us from Michigan so instead of flying home, she got to "road trip" with us! It was one of the best trips for us, but had to be the worst for my parents. The following is from my journal as well as a letter that Beth was writing to Tim, a "friend" she met while staying with us in Incline :-)
Obviously she never sent it and it ended up in my journal papers.

The first day, July 25, we made it to Carson City. Then leaving Carson City, the car stopped in the middle of the road so Mom and Beth and I had to push it off the road. Some guy stopped and looked at it and got it going, but 20 minutes later it stalled again.  Somehow we made it to Lovelock and took it to a garage for work.  Now I know my parents did not have credit cards or savings. Dad bought a used tire for $20 and on the highway, we lost that tire.  We were going to put on the spare that had virtually no tread, but we didn't have a tire jack.  I cannot imagine how discouraged my Mom must have been! Some people stopped and helped us and we ended up getting a new good tire.
Wednesday the 26th, we made it to Salt Lake City and went to Temple Square. We pulled into the campground that night but it started to rain so we drove to the Scotty motel.

Thursday July 27, we got an early start and we found the U-Haul in the parking lot and the windshield and passenger window smashed. There were things thrown around and everything that had been loaded in the (Yes, CONVERTIBLE) Mustang was missing.
Dad went to call the police and us kids decided to look around to see if we could find any of our stuff. We found a whole bunch of things behind this house and we went and looked in the yard and saw more of our things in the backyard. The lady who owned the restaurant next door--The Red Iguana--

came over to see what was going on so I told her. She went into her place and came back out and said that someone had broken into her restaurant too.
The police came and while they were talking to Mom and Dad, Dad noticed our ice chest inside the house where we had found our things in the yard. So the policeman went into the house with his gun drawn and found all of our missing things along with food from the restaurant. Inside the house there was a lady with a baby and some other kids. She said they went out last night and weren't even home. The cop asked her what she did with the baby and she said she didn't remember! The cops got fingerprints and we got our stuff back and then we had to wait for U-Haul to come out and fix the windows.
We drove onto Rawlins, Wyoming and stayed in another motel and the next morning we went out to the truck and the windshield was smashed again!! Nothing was missing this time. However, by the time we reached Michigan I think my parents felt more like this...

And without a house we ended up "camping" (or homeless) for several weeks until we got the money to get a house. The house was across the ally from a strip joint, but I'll save that for another entry!
The rest of the trip was uneventful and Beth and I spent a lot of time writing notes, writing our "new" last names and listening to great 70's music!!

When we were making our desperate move out this way last summer, I thought a lot about this trip and how things seemed to go so wrong for my parents and how I don't remember them ever losing their cool. They took it in stride and did what they had to do, somehow.  I was SO grateful our journey was NOT eventful or costly and just as grateful that I had such good examples of hard-working humble parents.
Thank you Mom and Dad...I love you.