Driving Lessons

Yesterday Sarah drove in the Cities for the first time. She's enrolled in a softball batting clinic run by the fast-pitch softball program at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. Pete and I both brought her down so we could spend some time together during the clinic. Sunday afternoon is a great time for the first exposure, though I'm always amazed by the amount of traffic even then. She even got to experience about two minutes of stop-and-go traffic getting onto I-94 East from I-394; I have no idea what could have caused that, as the Vikings lost another game on the road yesterday. Why can't we have Tim Tebow??

Anyway, Pete was talking the whole time as Sarah made her way through the city; he is so good at training by talking through things, and he is so observant of every little detail, both what she is doing right and wrong, and everything that's going on around the car. Sarah learned a great deal in those forty-five minutes, and experienced success as well.

Pete was telling about a friend who can't talk people through things - he has to show them. So when he was teaching his youngest daughter to drive, he wouldn't tell her what to do - he'd grab the steering wheel. After the umpteenth time of this, and promising his daughter he would never take the wheel again, they left their home and within a mile, he had grabbed the wheel again! They turned around and went home, and her mother taught the daughter to drive! It was hilarious the way Pete recounted what his friend had told him....

Joel and Daniel took turns driving the Jones' new car from Phoenix; they reached Liberal, KS on Friday night, stayed with David in Sioux Falls on Saturday night, and came home yesterday. Today Joel will bring it to its rightful owners, but last night on his way home from Willmar he had a scare when a deer jumped out from the treeless ditch. For some reason he had a premonition and was telling himself, "I know there will be a deer," and looking around carefully, but it was so sudden that after braking and honking, he swerved around the deer and barely missed it. Thanks, Lord, for safety for Joel and the deer - and the new car!!