Sunday, April 17, found us again on the open road, leaving our home in Snowflake, Arizona on the first leg of a journey across country to first visit Linda's life-long friend Brenda (Reed) and her husband Kerry Beyeler in Branson, Missouri. From Branson we planned to stop at historic sites in Tennessee and other places in the South, finally arriving in Bedford, Virginia for a visit with Elmer & Sue Hodge and members of the Bedford Branch of the LDS Church. The Hodges have been storing items of our personal property ever since the completion of our Mission there in June of last year. This is our excuse to see them and the dear people of Virginia once again.

This was taken as we left Snowflake and headed north toward Holbrook across the vast openness of Arizona's northeastern plateau - not greatly changed for thousands of years. This is the land of the Navaho; of petrified forests, meteor craters, painted deserts and long, open, dry and uninhabited landscapes. My mother's father, Joseph S. Burk, freighted mail and drygoods across these lonely stretches between Springerville, St. John's and Holbrook, using team and wagon, keeping eye on the weather and hoping not to be caught on the open prarie in a blizzard where no protection could be had. the snows did catch him on one ocassion and he buried himself down in a snowdrift with his mail sacks and waited out the storm. His family and friends, knowing the storm had caught him on the trail, where amazed and grateful when he made it safely home.