Honoring My Heritage...From A Computer Chair.

Nebraska is very flat. Flat, flat, flat. Flatter'n a flat slice of flatbread flattened with an anvil and run over by a truck. Everywhere you look, not a single mountain. Even if you stand on the tallest thing you can find (say, your RV) and squint your eyes and shade them with your hand (since Hollywood suggests that such an action improves your long-distance vision), you would never see a mountain. Not even an anthill. Nebraska probably doesn't even have ants. You'll never experience motion sickness in Nebraska, because driving in your RV feels just like gliding. The bumps on the highway that you felt in Utah simply don't exist in Nebraska - they've found a way around that. A new formula for asphalt, perhaps. Whatever the cause, Nebraska is certainly flat. Flat, flat, flat.

Not that I've ever been to Nebraska.

Dad has, though.

This week, while I have been in school, my dad, three of his sisters and my grandmother have been in an RV, making a pilgrimage to Nauvoo. They call themselves Reverse Pioneers. Appropriate, since they're leaving the Salt Lake Valley and travelling to Nauvoo, from whence our ancestors fled. They traveled through the flat, flat flat Nebraska and a town in Missouri which was not so flat, but that was mostly due to the fact that everything in the town was an allusion to Mark Twain. After these adventures, they made it to their finish line (Starting line. Which is it, Reverse Pioneers?) in Nauvoo, Illinois.

Dad pointed out in their travel log that "Nauvoo has become a Mecca for Mormons." I suppose this is true - being an LDS citizen of Utah, you need to travel back to the place of our persecution at least once in your life. Now, Jewish youth receive a coming-of-age ceremony when they turn 13. Catholics are baptized in their infancy, and most young women have some sort of grandiose ceremony when they turn 15. Something about "coming out," which, ironically, means that they are now recognized as ready and able to date young men. All giggles and siggers aside, the point is that most of these milestones are reached at a youngish age.

So, it can't be any wonder that I, so very close to adulthood, am feeling a little left out of the milestone party. It's like I've been denied an opportunity at perfection, leaving me spotted and incomplete. I have not yet made my pilgrimage to Nauvoo. I have tried - I begged to pile into The Beast with my dad, grandma and aunts - but it's never amounted to much, other than sympathy. My day of perfection will come, yes...but probably when I'm old and married, with six kids under age 7 and two dogs and a doormat that says, "Welcome to our loving home."

Yes, readers, that day will come.

I'd better hurry up and get married.