It's Saturday night ... I must be in Utah

My mom and I are now in Logan, Utah, where we'll spend the night and some of tomorrow before heading on to the Black Hills area of South Dakota. It turns out that our hotel here has free net access, so I just have to make a blog post (and yes, a computer in the lobby was the first thing I looked for as we checked in).

So far the trip has been relatively normal for a move: a rather hectic wrap-up of packing and running errands Friday morning, a traffic-delayed drive out of the San Francisco area Friday afternoon, and then lots of driving through open, unpopulated areas.

This evening, though, we had a delightful meal with some relatives at Maddox, a restaurant in Brigham City, Utah (that apparently doesn't have a website). The restaurant was a favorite of my mom's family while she was growing up, and she was waxing rhapsodic about it as we approached (it did not disappoint). My mom's favorite dish (and apparently my great-grandmother's as well) was their turkey fried steak, which is ground turkey that is breaded and pan-fried. My mom ordered it tonight, and the few bites I had were indeed tasty.

What made the evening very special, however, was that by almost random chance my great-aunt, an incredibly kind and caring woman who now lives in Tucson, Arizona, was in town for her 50th high school reunion. When we learned that we'd both be in town the same day, it was a foregone conclusion that we'd meet for dinner at Maddox. So, here at a table in Brigham City, Utah, we had my mom, who lived in the San Francisco bay area (~800 miles away) but is now moving to New York (~2,200 miles away), myself, who lives in southern California (~750 miles away), and my great-aunt and her husband, who live in Tucson, Arizona (~850 miles away). The meeting was especially poignant because my mom almost certainly won't see my great-aunt for another two years, if not more, and my great-aunt is the only close family relative of my mom's that's still alive (excluding me). A very neat night, and a fun way to start this cross-country trip.