An Adventure to Ogden: A Relative Story

My nephew Taylor, now known to his co-workers by his first name, John, is a sports radio announcer. He worked for the Mankato Moondogs while he went to school in Mankato, MN, but after graduation he got a job for the Idaho Falls Chukkars. These are baseball teams.

It so happened that the Chukkars were playing the Ogden Raptors in Ogden on Monday night, and it also happens that there is a new train system going up to Ogden that a whole family can take for $12.50 round trip which avoids all the traffic and saves you all that gas.

So we took the train to Ogden and walked the 3 blocks to the stadium, got free tickets for us and Daughter #2 and her particular friend Jeff who drove up separately, and watched the game. And it was a great game, too. The Chukkars pulled ahead early, but in the 7th inning the Raptors tied them up and the game went into extra innings. The Chukkars kept making stupid mistakes. Very frustrating when we were the only 6 people cheering for them. The people around us were starting to give us dirty looks. Finally in the 10th inning, the Chukkars got 2 more points and won 10-8. We waited for Taylor, walked him down to the clubhouse where I guess he had to go interview the players for the post-game show, and then walked back to the train station. We saw the last train to SLC pulling ou of the station. Missed it by 2 minutes.

The pay phone at the station was out of service. I forgot the cell phone at home.

We decided to take the train to Woods Cross, which would at least get us within 10 miles of home. Small Son was very scared. He thought we would be homeless for the night and have to sleep under a bridge or something. He was in tears.

We called from the Woods Cross station but Daughter #2's cell phone was not ringing, so we left a message and walked to the service station 2 blocks away. We passed a motel on the way. The motel being there was a consolation to Small Son and I; it was going to be our fall-back if we couldn't get hold of D#2. It sure helped him feel better. At the service station, we tried Daughter #2 again. .

This time we got through, however, and she agreed to come pick us up, bless her. She even took us down to the SLC station so we could pick up our car and have it ready to leave for work the next day! What a sweetie. We got to bed at almost 0200 on the 24th.

SS learned that adventures are never fun when you are having them, only scary. They don't get to be exciting until you are safe home again, if you survive, and and are telling the story.