The last day, as most of you know, is a half-day, a travel day. We say a lot of goodbyes and then start the journey home. Our plan was to load the van after lunch and before the closing service, then get out pretty quickly.
Nope.
When I got to our van, it was dead. Completely. Didn't even try to start. :-( I saw someone in the parking lot and tried to jump it, but couldn't really get a good connection on her battery, so it didn't work. Not even close. So we left our stuff in our dorm rooms and went to the Closing Service and would deal with the van after that. The Closing Service is one of the highlights, IMHO. I snuck out after communion to call AAA. Sadly, they basically said that someone would be there up to 1.5 hours from then. We would just have to wait and see how long it took. Sigh.
So after watching most folks leave, another friend offered to try again to jump - this time with a better battery connection. Thankfully, that worked, but the battery wouldn't hold a charge, wouldn't restart by itself. So it was off to the auto parts store for a new one. The first place wouldn't install it for us, but the second would, and did. All-in-all, not too bad, but it did hold us up leaving, which meant we get to our hotel later in the night. We were hoping to leave by 3 CT, 4 ET, but ending up leaving after 5 ET. (This was the "Bad" of the title.)
But before talking about that, some pictures . . .
Pastor Stan Temme, Evansville, IN, and his son Simon. Stan is the one who finally got our van started and followed us to the auto parts store to make sure we got taken care of. Thanks Stan! (Part of the "Good," along with the last parts of the conference.)
Pastor and Headmaster Steve Kieser of Plano, TX.
Almost 1,000 youth in attendance.
The final standings of the "tetramorph challenge" - the different teams the youth were divided into. Our team, Leo, was victorious!
The theme of next year's conferences, with an apologetics focus.
So, the trip home . . . went smoothly, at first. Stopped for a quick dinner in Fort Wayne, then wound our way through rural Ohio to our hotel outside of Pittsburgh. The fun always starts after dark when we begin to get silly remembering all that happened during the week and laugh a lot. We also started a new "Higher Things after Dark" tradition this year . . . but you'll have to wait for that until the next post!
But what about the "Ugly" in the title? Well, that happened around midnight when we were in eastern Ohio, trying to get onto a highway . . . we got to the on ramp Google led us to, which was closed for construction! So after pulling over and figuring out how to get to the next on ramp, we started down the road when we were stopped by a freight train! TWICE! By the same train! It went across our street, stopped, a man pivoted a switch in the track, and then it backed up across our street onto the new track! Fortunately, it wasn't an ultra long train - only about 40 cars, but still another hold up, causing us not to get to the hotel, checked in, and to our rooms until after 2 AM!
So now, after a couple hours of sleep, we'll be off again soon for the last leg. Got to get home and get ready for church tomorrow! But check back - I'll try to get a post up later today about our new tradition. Trust me, you won't want to miss that!
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