Chronicling Cross-Country

I needed an adventure.

Conveniently, my cousin and his wife needed an extra driver to help them move cross-country for medical school. Also conveniently, they were moving from my home state (Utah) to my current resident state (Virginia). Four drivers (my cousin, his wife, my aunt, and me), two vehicles (one car and one big yellow moving truck – with a second car on a trailer), and roughly 2,300 miles became the perfect recipe for a cross-country road trip. The only thing missing was a “Lynchburg or bust!” sign in the back window. But we had plenty of adventures nevertheless . . .

We set out on the first morning from my grandparents’ house, pointing our wheels toward Denver. It wasn’t long before we were headed over the Rockies, just in time for my first stint driving the moving truck. I discovered it was very slow on the uphills (apologies to those who were stuck behind us as we tried to pass the semis) and very fast on the downhills (yay for good gears and brakes).

We pulled into Denver that night hazard free and, thanks to my brother-in-law, with a good hotel room waiting for us. (Everyone was so impressed with his mad hotel wrangling skills, that we asked him to do find us places to stay throughout the rest of the trip; he graciously complied, which made the journey much easier and more pleasant for the rest of us.) We were then treated to an impromptu dulcimer concert from my aunt.

The emigrants: my cousin and his wife.
And my first truck parking job.

Our next destination was Independence, MO. On our way there we saw a lot of Kansas (crossing Kansas just takes longer than it looks like it should on the map), hay bales dressed up like Minions, other hay bales dressed up like American Gothic, and a crop-dusting plane worthy of an early 20^th century air show. (We did not stop to see the World’s Largest Ball of String or anything like that.)

And this is Kansas.

In Independence we went to the Visitor’s Center and took pictures on the Temple Lot. With a bit of looking around, we found where the corners of the temple would have been. 

A little later we went to Liberty Jail, where some of my favorite scriptures were received and written (D&C 123:16-17, D&C 121:45-46, D&C 122:8-9).

We also visited the Community of Christ’s temple, the inside of which is more like the Conference Center than an LDS temple. It has some appealing art and some interesting artifacts from the early history of the church. We all enjoyed comparing their hymnals to the LDS hymnbooks and were treated to some organ playing by an organist who was there to practice.

The Community of Christ
Temple

This tree is formed on layered
pieces of cloth.

Contemplating the organ
pipes in the sanctuary.

Next we headed to St. Louis. On our way into town, we were surprised by a tall building off the side of the freeway. We hadn’t known we were going to pass the St. Louis Temple, but sure enough, there was a bright white steeple topped by a statue of Moroni.

The St. Louis Temple surprised us as we drove by.
"Is that a Moroni on top? Yes, yes it is!"

Our aim was to eat a barbeque dinner at Pappy’s Smokehouse. Pappy’s was recommended to us with gusto by my cousin’s dad, so we made sure it was on our agenda. It is the type of place that doesn’t take reservations and sells out of food just about every night. They even post how much of certain dishes they have left for the customers still waiting in line. As we inched forward, I kept my eye on the number of ribs they had available (because if you are going to a specialty barbeque place, you should try the ribs). Guess who got the last ones? Yep, that would be me. And they were delicious.

I made a new friend at
Pappy's Smokehouse . . .

. . . and I got the last half rack of ribs.

My cousins and I grouped
around the Sold Out sign.

We also tried to see the Gateway Arch that night, but only sort of succeeded. The GPS sent us to the wrong side (where Missouri has jumped on the casino bandwagon) and by the time we were working our way back to the right side, it was getting late. As we passed the baseball stadium at the same time the game was getting out, we threw in the towel and headed to our hotel. Thus we only saw the arch from the car.

This jumble of signs was outside
our hotel. It was made in honor of
the local road configuration.

The next morning we attended church at a small branch in Mt. Vernon, IL where the speaker talked about the connection between teaching and learning (you can’t have one without the other) and the power and deliciousness of receiving the truth undiluted. We then set out through the skinny roads of Kentucky toward Mammoth Cave National Park. It was my turn to drive the moving truck again. I’ve driven many roads in Kentucky (as a missionary), but never in a big truck with a trailer. I found the experience a little over-stimulating, but we made it. And we did it without hitting anyone going the opposite direction and without going completely off the road (although the trailer wheels made frequent forays into the off-shoulder foliage). Good enough for me.

I tried to get on top of the sign, but didn't quite make it.

Waiting to start the Historic Tour.

It's kind of dark inside the cave. Our
tour guide had an old whale oil lantern
(sans whale oil, which is a little scarce
in Kentucky) and showed us what it
would have been like with only a
single lantern as a guide. The electric
lights showed us a lot more of the cave
than the old lantern would have.

The next day we left the truck at the hotel and went back to Mammoth Cave National Park in the car. There, we took the Historic Tour, which is a great one for hearing about saltpeter (the source of the phrase “petered out”), the boy who found the cave by following a bear, abandoned corsets (because why wouldn’t you discard such a thing to climb through a cave), the CCC building a stairway up over the dome, slaves guiding people through the caves, the bottomless pit (an auditory and visual illusion), and a handful of other stories. We successfully navigated “Fat Man’s Misery”, which was followed immediately by “Tall Man’s Misery” (being neither fat nor tall – nor a man, for that matter – neither of these were particularly problematic for me). The tour took us on a big loop through several sections of the cave and I found myself wishing I could do a time trial to see how fast I could get through it (I would want a headlamp, of course).

Standing at the only natural entrance to the cave.

I think this is the only picture where we managed to get all four
of us. We found the above butterfly posing for us near the river
Styx. The caterpillar was hanging out on the Mammoth Cave sign.

Before too long, we arrived in Virginia. We spent a night at my aunt and uncle’s house in Sterling, where we loaded a few more things into the moving truck (and all got a very good night’s sleep after a week on the road). The next morning we piled into the cars once more to caravan out to Lynchburg.

We ran into a lot of rain (literally) during our drive
into Sterling.

The caravan was great fun. My cousins were in the moving truck. I followed in their car. My aunt followed in another car so she would be able to drive me back to Williamsburg and herself back home. And my uncle followed in another car so he could get back to work the next day after helping with the move. The fabulous part was having walkie talkies, which were not only useful (they are so much easier than cell phones for group communication), but entertaining. We assigned code names (the moving truck was Big Lemon), played games, joked with each other, and generally enjoyed ourselves. Driving in a caravan is much more fun when walkie talkies are involved.

My cousins outside their new
apartment on move in day.

Lynchburg, despite its somewhat ominous name, is a good town. We spent the afternoon moving things in to my cousins’ apartment (which went very quickly thanks to help from the ward and some students). That evening we were treated to dinner by some kind and generous ward members (I believe there is a special place in heaven for people who will invite five strangers to join them for a somewhat impromptu meal).

My aunt and I (my uncle was already on his way to work) spent the next morning exploring a little bit of Lynchburg; we found an intriguing war memorial and took some pictures of the medical school. After helping return the moving truck to the rental place (which first required convincing the trailer to attach itself once again to the hitch), we bid my cousins farewell and got on the road toward Williamsburg.

My favorite part of the Lynchburg war memorial.
The rest of the memorial was a series of steps with
a landing for each major conflict in US history and
one for MIAs and POWs.

Liberty University College of Osteopathic Medicine

Before we went too far, however, we found ourselves right by Appomattox Court House (which, we learned, is a town, not a building). So of course we pulled off the road to see it. We didn’t have much time, but we stopped in Appomattox Courthouse (which is a building – and now a visitor’s center – but is not where Lee and Grant met) to see some of the displays and watch a video about Lee’s surrender. Then we went across the road and toured the big house where the surrender took place. We saw enough of the park to know we want to go back and see more.

Appomattox Courthouse
(located in Appomattox Court House)

This is the (rebuilt) house where
Lee surrendered to Grant . . .

. . . which is interesting to compare to the
slave quarters out back.

The flags were at half-mast on the day we
visited Appomattox. It seemed appropriate,
considering the nature of the site.

Then we were back on the road again. We made it safely to Williamsburg, after which my aunt set off on the very last leg of the journey back to her home in Sterling. (Somewhat inconveniently, Lynchburg, Williamsburg, and Sterling are all in different corners of Virginia. Many thanks to my aunt for going several hours out of her way to drop me off!)

My aunt, the kind soul who was willing
to drive an extra three hours to
bring me back to Williamsburg.

My cousin has, since then, started school and had his white coat ceremony (which is a medical school thing, apparently). I’m excited for him and his wife and this new adventure they’ve started.

Meanwhile for me, I have a few more weeks before classes start. So I get to do a little more adventuring. Appomattox, anyone?

Hanging On

Waiting in the Denver airport under
the powder coated steel Denver Lily

I have a new favorite hobby: hanging on the top of a climbing wall. Well, the parts I really like are the climbing and rappelling; the view from the top is more like receiving a participant medal at the end of a race.

But more on that later.

At the start of the summer I wasn’t in the best mood. The end of last semester left me feeling ground down and I was not anxious to grind my way back up. That’s when my dad concocted a plan to surprise my mom by flying me to Colorado for a family vacation.

With a little help from my six-year-old niece (involving some unexpected ad-libbing), we pulled off the surprise and my family was all together for a few days of fun in Boulder and Denver. I followed that up with a few days at home in Salt Lake City, a week and a half back in Virginia, another week at home, and finally a cross-country drive with my cousin and his wife (and my aunt) to help them move to Virginia for medical school.

When I was dropped off back in my apartment in Williamsburg at the end of all that vacationing, I felt very different than I had at the beginning of the summer.

Being with my family has several predictable outcomes: I eat much better (my family members all either cook much better than I do or know the good restaurants to go to); I shop more (it’s not very exciting to shop alone, so I rarely do; they also know where to find outlet stores); I see several movies I haven’t seen (Inside Out, Avatar, Lincoln); and I read books I otherwise might not get around to (The Fault in Our Stars, the Divergent series).

All of those things happened this summer.

But the important thing that happened was being with my family. The time I spent with them worked a world of difference on my feelings and outlook.

Which brings me back to climbing. Our last activity before I left for Virginia was putting my dad’s new climbing gear to use. Mom and Dad spent a few hours belaying while my brother and I scrambled up various sides of an indoor climbing wall – and fell off a few others. Despite the exertion, it was relaxing and fun; not because someone was below me holding a rope to keep me from falling, but because we were there together.

That’s what mattered for me this summer, just being together. Thank goodness for the influence of a good family.

_______________________

Guess where we went . . .

Other summer developments:

• The big event of our Colorado weekend was the Ironman 70.3 in Boulder. While my brothers swam, biked, and ran, the rest of us played games, napped, ate, and participated in brief outbursts of cheering whenever our guys were within calling distance. My favorite part of the weekend was getting a hug from my brother after he crossed the finish line, exhausted but triumphant. The family that races together stays together, you know.

It was a chilly morning before the triathlon started,
but it was plenty hot later. (I came back very sunburned.)

• Looking for an adventurous hamburger? Try Crave Real Burgers. The Wise Guy is very tasty. My nieces and nephews are big fans of the fried pickles (yes, I tried them; yes, they were sort of good – I’m no longer decidedly opposed to pickles).

They're all pickle kids.
They must get it from their mom, because she's the
only one who liked pickles when we were little.

• Speaking of good food, we highly recommend sweet rolls from the Denver Biscuit Company. Fair warning, there are about four servings in one sweet roll, or two servings if you did a half-ironman the day before.

These are big. And tasty.



I can't help feeling this
seating choice was a
little unstable.

• We spent one afternoon in the Denver Downtown Aquarium. Best attraction there: spitting fish. They allowed some of the patrons (including my nieces, nephew, and sister) to hold crickets over a tank of archer fish. The fish responded in true archer fish fashion by knocking the crickets down with streams of water and eating them for lunch. The aquarium also boasts a nice shark tank, some entrancing jellyfish (moon jellyfish are neat-o), and an octopus that was pretty good at hiding in plain sight. And, in a bit of a non sequitur, a tiger.

• My nephew and I tried to hold our breaths while driving through a tunnel, but didn’t make it. Alas. (It was a long tunnel.)

• The drive to Salt Lake City with my brother was nice. After we managed to scrape into a gas station on an almost empty tank of gas (his truck holds 21.1 gallons; he bought about 21 gallons – when we say fill the tank, we mean fill the WHOLE tank), we spent the next few hours on a range of philosophical topics. He’s my go-to guy for discussions like that.

• Walking into my parent’s house in SLC can be summed up in the emotional and mental contentment of the phrase I’m home.

Finding a good seat
somewhere along the trail 

• My mom, sister, grandma, aunt, and I spent one day in Utah as a girls’ day out. We walked to Bridal Veil Falls, visited Pres. Packer’s art exhibit at the Bean Museum (my favorite piece was The Bishop’s Team), and got shaved ice from Hokulia (thanks for the treat, Grandma!). In case you’re wondering, Hokulia makes the best shaved ice ever. It’s just yum. You should eat some.

• Climbing is not only my favorite new hobby, it is also my Dad's favorite new hobby; and it's quickly becoming a family pursuit. I've been told that my oldest niece is a regular monkey when it comes to climbing, my youngest niece has some fearless bouldering skills, and my nephew would happily rappel off almost anything. Note to self: next time bring chalk and rent climbing shoes.

Showing off their mad bouldering skills.

This is Balanced Rock. Unlike the
formation in Arches, this one has
a concrete stabilizer. But that was
probably a good idea given its
precarious position above the road.

Me with Grandma, Mom, and my sister at
Bridal Veil Falls
(my aunt was taking the picture)

3L

I survived my 2L year.

And I’ve been avoiding the law school ever since. After going there almost every week for a year and a half, it’s been nice to be away from it for a while.

Compared to my 1L year, 2L ended somewhat abruptly. Grades were posted quickly and there was no journal competition tacked on to the end of the year. Quite suddenly I switched from being a 2L to being a “rising 3L.”

That means, of course, that I have only two semesters left; and consequently only two more exam periods. (Let’s not talk about the bar exam.) Finals are a small part of the semester, but being nearly done with them is still a relieving thought.

One of the perks to being a 3L is it’s much easier to answer the question, “How much school do you have left?”, which is an unexpectedly hard query in the middle of a three year degree. Stating I’ll be finished next spring is so much easier than trying to explain I’m somewhere between 1/3 and 2/3 of the way done.

A friend told me last year that during 1L they scare you to death, during 2L they work you to death, and during 3L they bore you to death. That hasn’t quite been my actual experience, but it does roughly parallel the mental experience of law school. 1L was intimidating and intense. 2L was grinding. 3L looks, thus far, like something to wade through in order to get the required number of credits.

But, I have a few months of break before discovering whether the 3L part is true. For now I’ll be staying away from South Henry Street and enjoying the broader delights of Williamsburg and the Mid-Atlantic region.

Trying to Be a Currant Bush

I keep hearing people talk about how nice our spring days are. I do a mental double-take each time because, due to the end of the semester and the outside temperatures, it feels like summer to me.

The semester isn’t completely over, but nearly so. I took my two finals last week, which leaves me with one writing assignment and about 20 hours of research to finish. It feels good to be almost done.

My finals were fine. The Religion Clauses test was the most laid back final I’ve taken in law school. It was only two and a half hours and it was a subject I enjoy. My Employment Law test was similarly worry-free; it consisted mostly of short answer questions rather than essays and the time passed quickly. I couldn’t work myself into much effort to prepare for either one. I made a short outline for Religion Clauses and I took my Employment Law notes for a 5½ mile walk around the neighborhood; but besides that, my mind was just done studying.

Or maybe I’m just not as stressed about finals as I was before. I’ve finally realized that even if I don’t feel I did well on a final, the likelihood of actually failing is pretty slim. Maybe my mind has realized it’s just not worth the worry.

So why did I worry so much before? Maybe it’s just the nature of law school. Someone described it to me this way: law school makes you feel small. It makes you feel like you can’t make a difference and you aren’t big enough to succeed, let alone thrive. It makes you feel like you aren’t living up to expectations. Law school is rough on self-confidence.

But maybe it’s okay to feel small for while. It brings to mind Elder Hugh B. Brown’s story of the currant bush (a nice summary of which was given by Elder D. Todd Christofferson). Maybe feeling small is the Gardner’s way of letting me know I’m still a work in progress. There are still things to prune and branches to grow. The fruit will come later; for now, I just need to keep being a currant bush.

___________________

There are thousands of these
flowers around the neighborhood.

Tidbits:

• One of the foundational cases for the Supreme Court religion clauses doctrine is Wisconsin v. Yoder, commonly abbreviated to Yoder.  As we were discussing the development of Supreme Court doctrine in class one day, my professor accidentally suggested that for certain cases, we should “look to Yoda.”
• Calling on the force for constitutional interpretation isn’t necessarily a bad idea. One opinion I read summarized some of the religion clauses doctrine this way: it’s constitutional, except when it’s not.
• Some of the confusion is because the Supreme Court refuses to be bound by a single analysis in such a sensitive area. One common analysis they use, the Lemon test, is apparently a zombie. Though the justices don’t really like it, they can’t seem to help applying the test on occasion. It keeps cropping up like “some ghoul in a late-night horror movie that repeatedly sits up in its grave and shuffles abroad, after being repeatedly killed and buried” (Justice Scalia, concurring in Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School Dist., 508 U.S. 384, 398 (1993)). See? It’s a zombie.
• In Employment Law, we talked about the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which (due to the ease with which employees can take advantage of it) has been called the “Friday and Monday Leave Act.”
• We also talked about a case that is in my professor’s “you can’t make this stuff up” category: it was a case of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) willfully violating the Fair Labor Standards Act. Not a good idea.
• Then there was the trade secrets act case. To sue regarding a trade secret, an employer has to take reasonable measures to protect the information from disclosure. Apparently in one case, the judge came into court and told the employer he had just Googled the so-called secret information. That case didn’t last very long. 

The goslings are out.

Making Things Light

My last classes of the semester will be on Tuesday. The sad part of that news is two of my favorite classes, Property Theory and Religious Clauses of the Constitution, will be over (I’m somewhere between ambivalent and glad regarding the end of my other classes). The good part is I’ll have plenty of time to tackle the research hours I need to complete by the end of the semester. I’ll be spending much of this week staring at my computer as I reformat citations and annotate law review articles.

Reviewing law articles can be a bit mind-numbing. The topics are frequently hair-splitting and obscure. (To be honest, it makes me feel a little like the biblical Pharisees of old.) I recently came across one professor who recognized the tendency toward minutiae in the law. He gave a false paper title as an example: “What’s Wrong with the Twenty-Ninth Exception to the Hearsay Rule and How the Addition of Three Words Can Correct the Problem.”* It’s a fantastic title; one which I wouldn’t actually be surprised to find in the database.

My Trust & Estates professor used to joke about this tendency as well. When someone asked a question to which he didn’t know the answer (for example, can you leave your possessions in trust to an unborn pet?), he would suggest the question was a good topic for a student “note” (the term used for a student legal research paper). “Note topic!” he’d say.

(“Note Topic!” is just waiting to become a party game for the niche lawyer market.)

I appreciate lawyers who can poke fun at themselves and the profession without being disparaging. Actually, I appreciate that ability in anyone. A member of my ward recently described it this way: he said his son is the type of person who does not make light of things, but makes things light. That, I think, is a mark of good humor and strength of character.

And that is why I hope I will always enjoy a good lawyer joke. (Feel free to send them my way.)

_____

*Richard Lempert, The New Evidence Scholarship: Analyzing the Process of Proof, 66 B.U. L. Rev. 439 (1986).

I found this little message as I was walking down DOG
Street the other day. Someone is very excited about
the state motto: "Virginia is for Lovers."

The spring weather has been beautiful.
This is the Christopher Wren building
on one of the many gorgeous days we've
had of late.

It's a little startling to pull up your blinds and find a
lizard. Especially when your windows haven't been
open in several months. Happily, this little guy
readily complied as I escorted him out the front door.

This tree gets by with a little help from a friend.
What makes me curious is how it survived sticking
out sideways like that long enough to get a post to
rest on. Or maybe someone just inserts a new
support post every few years. In any case, this seems
like a group portrait waiting to happen.