THE LONG RIDE HOME

July 17, 2010 Saturday

It always seems to take twice as long to drive home from Port Hedland than it took to drive down. But we had great company. The Cahoons rode back with us. We talked about everything from missionary work to politics to Australians to kids, and it was just great. President Cahoon spent some time writing his talk for church tomorrow and some time napping. We stopped at Tony Connelly’s on the way back to see if we could catch him at home and because the president couldn’t believe that anybody would have a camel on their place. Tony was home! He wasn’t super excited to see us but warmed up. He explained that he was driving late one night between Broome and Port Hedland and came upon a camel that had been killed by a road train. The male and a young camel were still bouncing around the accident area. Tony says he always carries a rope and a knife in his truck when he travels. So he parked between the old male and the baby, put a noose around the baby’s neck, gave him a push up into the back of his truck, and drove home with him. He said the male was long gone before he even had taken off. So anyway, he’s raising this camel at his place. He says he’s got a few more down the road a ways along with 5 or 6 horses also. He’s an interesting guy. He said he’d come to church tomorrow although he wouldn’t commit that his partner and her mother would come. She’s the lady from Germany we visited with a couple of weeks ago.
We drove around Broome a little bit to give the Cahoons the “lay of the land.” Then he wanted to see our house, help us set up for church, and then go get something to eat. We dropped them at their hotel, The Seashores, and made it home by 9 o’clock. I mixed up an apple cake for dinner at the Robinsons tomorrow. We are learning we are glad we aren’t mission presidents. Their phones were ringing all the time from missionaries with health problems. One elder was hospitalized this afternoon with a bad reaction to an antibiotic he’d been given for an infection on this leg. They said they get calls at all hours of the night. Maybe being an old proselyting missionary isn’t so bad after all. Sister Cahoon is a nurse and worked the ER for 30 years. Not too much with missionaries’ health problems fazes her, although she knows enough to worry about some things that we would just pass off.