Trip to Hurricane

Early Saturday morning, but not as early as we had originally planned, Claudia and I pulled out of our driveway and headed south on I-15 for four hours. That took us all the way to southern Utah, where we took the Hurricane exit and headed a few miles east to Kay and Karen's new house in a new subdivision of Hurricane. It had been a pleasant drive. I like early morning drives when it is still dark and you get to see the eastern sky come alive with light and the car is quiet and Claudia is asleep in the passenger seat. Actually, the car wasn't quiet the first couple of hours because I was listening to a radio talk show that finally faded into static somewhere in the middle of Utah. Then it was quiet.

We reached Kay and Karen's house at 10 o'clock. Kay on his cell phone guided us on our cell phone to where he was standing in his driveway as we turned onto his street. Karen was not home. She was off watching a grandson participate in a skate boarding competition. She returned shortly, and they gave us a tour of their new home. They had moved just the previous Saturday. And, though they were mostly in, the garage was still full of boxes and they could not remember where they had put some things.

They have a lovely home with spectacular views out their large back windows.

Before Karen arrived, I helped Kay pull out his new computer desk in his new office to plug all the different parts together and to their power source. We got everything working except he couldn't get his printer to actually print.

For lunch we drove to Springdale, which is at the entrance into Zion National Park, and ate in a restaurant called Wildcat Willie's (which used to be called Bumbleberries the last time they had been there and was famous for its bumbleberry pie). We enjoyed the generous portions of good food and the gracious hospitality. And they still sell the bumbleberry pie, so we bought a whole pie to eat later. We then wandered through some of the little shops along the main street that runs through Springdale. And a little petting zoo where we saw reindeer and buffalo and such animals.

We drove back to Hurricane and stopped at the movie theater to see the recently released movie Emma Smith: My Story. I had bought lunch for the four of us. Kay bought the movie tickets. The story is Emma's version of the key events of the Restoration as seen through her eyes as the wife and confidant of the Prophet Joseph. We thoroughly enjoyed the movie and highly recommend it to any of you readers out there.

We spent the evening visiting, watching a PBS special on elephants and Lawrence Welk and a baseball game, eating a delicious stew that Karen had made, and our bumbleberry pie. We were pretty beat. Not only had we gotten up at 5:00 in the morning, but we went to bed late the night before because Dale and LeAnn were down from Nampa for the weekend and spent Friday night at our house, and as is our custom we were up late visiting.

This morning we slept in, enjoyed a leisure morning visiting, and went to their new ward for fast and testimony meeting. They live in a very large, growing ward, and it was very crowded. The ward will probably be divided by late summer or early fall, but Kay and Karen by then will be on their mission in Peru.

After the sacrament meeting, we bid them farewell and headed north for home. We arrived in Bountiful a little after 4:30. It had been a profitable trip. We had a delightful visit with Kay and Karen before they take off for two years and got to be the first house guests in their new home.