Kelley's Uncle Neale passed away last week. I didn't know him very well...mostly just saw him at weddings and funerals, but from what I knew, he was a kind and gentle man.  I found out a lot more about him at his funeral...he lived a good life of service and dedication to his family and the church.
 Kelley wasn't able to make it to the funeral...this is a really bizarre story...like Kelley said...you can't make this shiz up.
He had gone with Tommy to California to pick up this huge load of bees...like 50,000 dollars worth of bees.  Tommy had it all figured out how they could fit them all on their big trailer...come to find out this is the first time something like that has been done.  Usually people just go to this big farm and pick up their own little bee box and take it home.  Tommy was picking up all these bees to deliver them to the IFA's in Utah.  Don't ask how Kelley got involved in this...pretty much Jamey was really in a pickle and Kelley helped him out.
So anyway, they had planned on going down there, loading up all the bees, then heading for home because they were supposed to have all these bees at the IFA main store in Ogden by early Saturday morning so they could distribute them. 
Well they drove all day Thursday to get to Redding.  Found a place to stay that night, then headed to the bee farm bright and early to pick up the bees.  They found out that wasn't going to happen though cause when the sun comes up and it gets warm, the bees want to go out and play..and they won't be back in the hive until the evening so they just had to wait.
While they had some time, they thought they would get some work done on Tommy's truck.  It wasn't running good at all.  Kelley explained all this mechanic mumbo jumbo to me that they had done to his truck,  so it should have been in good shape for the drive home. 
So later in the afternoon, they went back to the bee farm and started loading the bees on the trailer.  They had been hanging around with the bees for a while, and weren't wearing their bee suits ( Tommy actually gave his to one of the Mexicans that were helping them cause he felt bad for him...come to find out this Mexican had two bee suits in his truck!)  The bees weren't bothering them much at first, then they started stinging them, so Kelley put on his bee suit.  Kelley learned a lot about bees this weekend...including this fact...when bees sting you they release fermions.  These fermions get the other bees excited so they go into defense mode and all want to sting you.  Kelley got several stings...one got into his bonnet and went up his nose...yup that's right...right up his nose.  So he tried to blow it out and it stung him.  He had a bunch get in around his ankles and sting him too.  Tommy was in much worse shape.  He had stings all over his face neck and arms.  He swole up and it made him physically sick.
Well they got the bees all loaded on the trailer and were heading out of the farm.  There was a little bridge they had to go over to get out of the farm that went  over a stream.  They got about half way over, and the bridge collapsed.  The back wheels of the truck  and trailer were stuck in the stream and the trailer was tipping sideways.    Kelley said they had strapped the bee boxes on so well though, they didn't fall off.  So they got the bee farmers to come help them get out with their fork lifts.  It took about two hours to inch the trailer out.  Then they decided to reload all the bee boxes in a different way and that took them three more hours.  I can just hardly imagine what this was like...on my end, I was just sick with worry after getting a text from him at 2:00 am saying that trailer had tipped into a stream.  I didn't hear from him again for hours, then he said they were on their way again.  By this time, Tommy was in pretty bad shape, throwing up from all the bee stings.  So Kelley drove the truck for a while.  When he felt better, Tommy started driving again.  The truck was running really bad acting like it was out of gas.  They stopped in some small town (Susanville?)  to see if they could have a mechanic look at it.  One said he could get to it next Friday, another looked at it and didn't want to tackle it so he sent them to another mechanic.  After hooking up to a  engine analysis machine, he told them it was the fikm...what ever that is.  He said to get them home, if they took out this chip that was supposed to make the truck run more efficiently, that  would do it.  So they had him do that and got on their way again. 
Tommy was driving now and all the sudden, a big truck pulled right in front of them so he had to slam on his brakes.  The truck died and wouldn't start again.  This was the next text I got...truck broke down...not going to make it to funeral.  Really?  who does this happen to? 
So now they have this trailer load of bees that are ready to come out of the hive again because it's sunny and warm, their truck has broke down and they are out in the middle of Nevada.  They called a tow truck to take them to Well's Nevada, then Jamey came and got them and hooked the trailer to his truck.  They rolled into Salt Lake city about  4:00 pm.  I went over to the IFA  on 21st south to pick him up.  They had just finished unloading all the bee boxes and people were already there to pick them up..apparently  people are pretty anxious about getting their bees.
So I went to the funeral with KC...he was a sweetie to go with me!  We saw Mark  as we were going in, then the rest of the family when we got into the room.  I was glad I got to visit with Barbara for a minute...she is such a dear lady.  I know Kelley felt so bad he couldn't get there.  Sometimes stuff happens.