Quick Trip to Georgia

In the afternoon of Wednesday the 17th of June Jon gets a sad phone call from his mom explaining that his cousin Carroll Spikes Jr. has been in a car accident and that he didn't make it. Jon calls and tells me and immediately my reply was isn't he the one with the parents that also died in car accidents? Jon answered yes almost 32 years ago to the day Carroll Spikes Sr. had also passed away in a car accident. Then at the age of 14 He was driving his mother and her boyfriend home cause he had too much to drink and swerved to miss a deer when his mother was thrown from the passenger window and the car landed on her, leaving her son and daughter behind. Cal, what the family liked to call him, was driving home Wednesday afternoon and some how ran off the road and when he tried to correct the vehicle he over corrected and it flipped. He was not wearing his seat belt and it threw him from the car and when the truck flipped it landed on him. He was pronounced dead on the scene. Leaving behind him his 14 year old daughter Jade and his sister Emily. We were not planning on making the funeral because we knew we could not afford it. Thursday Jon's uncle on his mother's side of the family called and offered to buy our plane tickets for the weekend so Jon could make it to the funeral and be with his family. So we got on the computer and tried to find the next and cheapest ticket to Georgia. The soonest we could get out of SLC was at 6:00 AM on Friday. So we went home packed a few things for the weekend and drove down to my brother's house in Layton. I didn't sleep at all that night I stayed up talking to my sister in-law and then went straight to the airport. We flew from SLC to Dallas, TX , which had a sky train over the airport that takes you from terminal to terminal. I loved that. You could watch the planes fly in and out as you traveled around the airport. Then from Dallas, TX, to Jacksonville, FL. With the time change we were able to get to Jacksonville at 9:30 AM. When Jon and I stepped out of the airport we literally were thrown back. The heat and humidity was so bad I could hardly breathe. We drove up to south Georgia to the Spikes residence which is about 2 hours from Jacksonville, FL. That night was the viewing, and all though we were there for a sad reason it was nice to see the Spikes Family again. I slept like a baby Friday night. Then Saturday morning was the funeral. It was a very sad funeral. Jon's Uncle Tommy spoke and he told the story of how Carroll Sr. and Sandra Spikes died and he explained that even though he is separated from his body now he will be reunited with his body after the resurrection. He also reminded us that even though we are sad to loose Cal that he is in a better place now where the troubles of his life and demons can't haunt him anymore, and he is with his parents and grandparents that went before him. I'm grateful for my knowledge and testimony of the gospel and that I know families can be together forever.

We were supposed to go home Sunday evening so Linda made us a nice Sunday dinner in the South. Fried chicken, rice, peas, fried squash, and tomatoes. I couldn't get enough to eat. When we got to the airport they told us that JFK in New York was delayed and that we couldn't make our connecting flight to SLC. So we tried to call Walter and Linda as soon as possible to tell them not to leave but we couldn't reach them on the cell phone. Brandi was about to call the police and have them pulled over when they finally called back. With the hand of God they were turned around and couldn't find where they had parked the truck. So we again drove the two hour drive back to South Georgia. We were very grateful for one more day. We were able to go cane pole fishing in Uncle Buddy's pond for catfish.

Then we went driving looking for snakes. Luckily we didn't find any, but Jon was very disappointed. Me not so much.

Monday we left early to catch or new flight to JFK and we ended up spending 6 hours there watching planes land and take off. We ended up with a lot of pictures of all kinds of planes. We didn't leave the airport because we didn't have enough money for a cab, but I was able to see the Empire State Building from the airport and Conney Island from the plane. We landed in SLC at 11:35 PM and made the drive home arriving at 2:40 AM. It was a quick trip, and under the circumstances we wish we didn't have to go for those reasons, but we were grateful to see family even for a little while.