Toyota’s current slogan for advertising and promoting their vehicles is “Let’s Go Places.”  It’s the tag line they use at the end of many of their commercials on TV.  I like it.

   They’ve been using it for a long time – since 2012.  Before that, starting in 2004,  they were using the slogan:  “Moving Forward.”  But what if I want to go backwards?  I do a lot of backing up.  I wouldn’t want them to neglect the reverse gear.

   For one thing, I’m not that great at parking.  I need the reverse for adjustments.  (Maybe they discontinued that slogan because of me.)

   And if you’re interested in even earlier Toyota slogan history, see if you remember these:  “Drive Your Dreams” (2000 – 2004)  “I Love What You Do for Me”  (1989 – 2000), and lastly on this list, “Who Could Ask For Anything More?” (1970’s – 1980’s).

   Like I say, I really like the “Let’s Go Places” slogan.  But, depending on what you’re doing for me, I suppose I could love “I Love What You Do for Me” as a motto as well.

   Many Sanpeters like to go places.  People accuse me of going to lots of places.  I often say that it’s good to go, but it’s also good to get back home.

   Last Friday, I told a friend that Saturday was going to be busy with driving.  I told her that it would almost be like driving to the beach in California.  She wasn’t quite sure that she believed me.

   Checking directions on my phone put us at 8 hours and 10 minutes to drive from Sanpete to Beaver Mountain Ski Resort north of Logan, UT,  and then back home via Hobble Creek Canyon above Springville.

   Checking the time to drive to the Santa Monica Pier in Southern  California was 9 hours and 25 minutes (light traffic).  My friend said, “Last time we drove to San Diego, it was more than 13 hours.”

    It turns out that they were driving on a Sunday afternoon.  From my experience, that’s  when it looks like Las Vegas is under an evacuation order and I-15 looks like a bumper to bumper parking lot.

   On Saturday, we had a granddaughter race at a high school mountain bike  competition followed by a mountain wedding up Hobble Creek.  It all worked out.

   We even had a few minutes to spare to stop in Logan for the famous “Aggie Ice Cream” on campus at USU. (“From cow to cone since 1922”)   I recommend the “Aggie Joy” flavor ice cream.  It’s coconut flavored ice cream with flakes of fudge and bits of butter roasted almonds.

   Anyway, it’s possible for us to “go places” like Toyota repeatedly tells us, even if we were travelling in a Buick.  When we got back home Saturday night, it felt like we had driven to California.

   We had driven lots of miles. And, we also had walked and danced several miles at elevation.  (Beaver Mountain’s base elevation is 8,100 feet.  The wedding and its celebration was well above Hobble Creek Golf Course,  which is at 5,768 feet.)

   When I thought of our capabilities of “going places” these days and the comfort in which we travel, I was reminded of our Thanksgiving of 2023.  I might have mentioned parts of stories from that “going places” holiday in this space.

   The point to be made here now, is the coming home from Europe story.  We had been in Switzerland and Germany at the invitation of our daughter, her husband and their three daughters.

   We had flown from Zurich to Paris,  and then on from Paris on a direct flight to

Salt Lake City.  As we were preparing to take off from Paris, the pilot made an announcement.

   He said that our flight from “wheels up in Paris to wheels down in Salt Lake City” would take 9 hours and 48 minutes.  I set the stopwatch on my phone.  As we hit the runway in Utah, I checked the time.  Remarkably, the captain was within a couple of minutes of being right on with his time calculation.

   Imagine that! We traveled from the interior of Europe to Salt Lake in less than ten hours on a regular commercial flight.  My activities on the flight involved deciding what TV shows or movies to watch, how much to read, or whether to get some nap time.

   Contrast that flight to the journey of my 2nd great grandfather William Ogden and his family.  They traveled from Lancashire County in England to Salt Lake.  Their trans-Atlantic voyage was on the “Emerald Isle” ship with over 900 passengers.  They set sail from Liverpool in June 1868.

   From an account of my 2nd great uncle: “The first death on the ship was a small girl.  They put her in a box and put her over into the sea where it drifted away as far as the eye could see while the mother watched it go.  Thirty-eight persons died before we got to the United States.”

  They were eight weeks and 4 days on the water.  They were able to travel by train to North Platte, Nebraska where the railway ended.  From there it was a “pioneer trek” arriving in Salt Lake in late September.

   Here and now in 2026, “going places” is relatively easy.  It’s amazing how far and how fast you can get “from here to there and back again” even in the course of one day.  Enjoy your travels Sanpete!  — Merrill

   P.S.  It’s the Sanpete County Fair this week.  I’ll be there.  And, you might even see me at the car show.  Look for the yellow VW campmobile.