Snowman

Yesterday, there was a big snow storm here and I made a snowman in my front yard. I think of him as my “little pal”. Here is his picture:

A snowman in my front yard

Quiet and Dark

Since daylight savings time has ended, the ride home on my bike has been a dark one. This requires the use of my helmet light and my two rear taillights as I ride north on University Avenue. After I hop on this busy road, the sounds of passing cars are muffled by my earplugs as I fly through the night air at a swift clip. While riding, I feel like a cheetah, owning the shoulder of the road but largely vulnerable to the traffic around me. I try to shine my flashing headlamp into the eyes of any spurious driver who tries to intersect my line of flight. I don’t know whether this does any good. I largely go unnoticed, and usually end up stopping since the force exerted by my small bike is orders of magnitude less than the force exerted by a 2000-pound car.

Eventually, I make it to the quiet of home, which is where I am now. Riding home in the dark will last for four months this season, until the beginning of daylight savings time in March.

After getting home tonight, I read some interesting news. One was of an expensive dessert in New York City…costing $25,000! This dessert was made of some of the world’s finest chocolates and was sprinkled with edible gold. Fortunately, you get to take the golden, diamond-studded spoon home as a souvenir. There is also a $1000 bagel offered nearby. If you really have lots of money, you can buy a 3-story penthouse with an indoor gymnasium, an outdoor veranda, and 27-foot ceilings in the middle of Manhattan for a cool $150 Million.

Birthday and a Trip to a Utah Cave

It has been a long day, but I thought I would do a post about a couple of occurrences during the last couple of days. Yesterday was my birthday, and I was surprised about how many people remembered it, especially people at my work. My brother took me to lunch with his two children and we had a great time eating lunch at the BYU Cannon Center. I remember feeling very happy as I walked back to work after eating lunch. I was also glad that I was able to get lots of things accomplished at work that day despite it being my birthday.

Today, we went on a trip to Antelope Springs Cave, which is located about 40 miles northwest of Delta, UT. My friend from work has been to this cave several times. That cave was really something. It was a typical Utah west desert cave and required lots of crawling, climbing, and rappelling.

Antelope Springs Cave sign post

The entrance to the cave was through a small hole in a gate encasing the entrance to the cave. Upon entering this hole, we climbed along the side of a wall a distance of about 30 feet until we reached the bottom of the entrance area. From there, we headed straight into the cave. We crawled on our bellies to get through several of the rock-lined passageways. After several crawls, walks, slides, and climbs, we arrived at the farthest point from the entrance to the cave on our trip: the “Soda Straw Room”. This was a room full of stalactites and soda straw type formations hanging from the ceiling.

The Antelope Springs Cave "Soda Straw" room

From the soda straw room, we were going to do a large loop in the cavern, but as we headed down to the location of the supposed loop, we could not locate it…it was as if the entrance to the loop had caved in and was plugged up by large rocks. But we found a little crawl space from this location to the room at the bottom of the entrance to the cave, so we all crawled through this small crevice in a rock.

We ended up exploring many parts of the cave, but at the end of the day, after looking at a map, we realized that we had left many parts of the cave unexplored. There were many beautiful parts of the cave, including the many stalactites and stalagmites. Many of these features had “died” from people breaking them and touching them as they pass through the cavern’s tight spaces.

Our group in the cave

Upon exiting the cave, I arrived at my car and noticed my rear passenger tire was flat. So the guys in the group helped me replace the tire with the spare located in the back of my car. After replacing the tire, some guys and one of the girls shot a .22 pistol at a target they had set up. Even the spare was a little low on air pressure, so we took it easy as we headed the 50 or so miles back to Delta. There, I had my first experience patching a car tire since we could not find a tire store that was open on Saturdays. That was really a lot of work as we pulled the tire off the wheel, applied glue and a patch to the hole, replaced the tire on the wheel rim, and reattached the tire to the car. After 2 or so hours, we had the tire fixed and back on the car. Thanks for your help, Eric! I think I’ll continue going to tire stores and have them fix my flat tires, though. Luckily, Eric had a shop full of air and hydraulic power tools!

The spare tire on the back of my car and shooting guns

We had dinner at the local Delta burger shop and cruised on back to Provo/Orem, where I came home, cleaned up and took a shower, did my laundry, and wrote this little thing about the trip. It was quite an adventure!

On Thursday night, I went mountain biking around my house again. We went up to some trails around the Bonneville shoreline trail. The ride was really great, and the weather was fantastic! Daylight savings time does not end until after Halloween this year, so I have some had some great times biking after work during the month of October. But I guess this will be the last week of DST, so I’ll have to go biking on Saturday or in the morning from now on. One great thing about the ride on Thursday was that there was an awesome full moon emerging from the crevice of Provo Canyon just as we were ending the ride.

Me on a bike ride on the Bonneville Shoreline trail. Cascade mountain is in the background.

Full Moon in Provo Canyon

On Saturday, I went up to Logan with my friend from my mission for a day. He’s getting married in November, and I ended up spending time with him and his fiancé. We went hiking on the Wind Cave trail, went out to eat a couple of times, and did sealings at the Logan temple. It seemed that there were almost an infinite leaves on the ground in Logan. I enjoy walking through all the leaves on the grass there. It was a great trip!

The Logan temple at the end of October

Today was church. I prepared my Sunday school lesson, went to church, came home from church, did my home teaching, and ate dinner with my roommates. One of my old roommates stopped in today and we went up to Dry canyon and visited some people. One interesting thing about church was that it was the primary program in Sacrament meeting. The children did a great job, but I was a little sleepy during church.

Pictures from June visit to Washington DC

After listening to John Roberts yesterday, I have been thinking about the trip I took to Washington DC with my parents, my brother, and his family in June of this year. We spent one full day in DC and parts of two other days. We did LOTS of walking there, and were able to see several monuments and structures reminding us of important events and people in American history. Washington DC is such an amazing and historic place…many of the buildings have been in use for over a hundred years, some for over two hundred years. I think that in years to come, people will look at this city like we look on Ancient Rome and Greece, as a centerpiece of a great civilization. One theme of the Book of Mormon is that the Lord “raiseth up a righteous nation, and destroyeth the nations of the wicked.” His hand has certainly guided our nation.

The dome of the US Capitol building

During our time there in DC, we were able to visit the Washington DC temple, tour the Capitol building and watch the House of Representatives, visit the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the Washington Monument, the World War II memorial, the Lincoln memorial, ride the Metro (subway), and visit the White House. On our last day there, just before we left, we were able to eat lunch at a great restaurant. We really enjoyed ourselves. I could spend many days there in Washington DC exploring all the memorabilia there.

Here are some pictures of the old Supreme Court chamber, located in the basement of the Capitol building, beneath the rotunda (also shown).

The old Supreme Court chamber in the basement of the US Capitol building

Another view of the old Supreme Court chamber in the basement of the US Capitol building

Inside the rotunda of the US Capitol building

Finally, here’s a picture of me at the Air and Space Museum. I remember being very tired and drained there. It was very warm, and I sat down on a cool bench at the museum and just took a rest for several minutes. We then relaxed by watching an IMAX film there at the museum. I’m the little one at the bottom of the picture.

Me at the air and space museum

Justice John Roberts at BYU

Location: Home

I attended the BYU forum today. I have not been attending the forums and devotionals regularly since I began working off campus, but Chief Justice John Roberts gave the forum address today. I could not miss this unique experience. So I worked from home this morning and headed down to BYU on my bike at around 10:30 AM so I could make it to the forum at 11. I arrived about 10 minutes early, and there were still plenty of seats available in the Marriott Center, even some of the padded seats on the playing floor were still available. I remember sitting on the second row when Margaret Thatcher came to BYU several years ago, but I decided to just sit in the plastic seats about 10 rows up from the playing floor.

I took my seat and the arena slowly filled up until the devotional began at 11:05. Just before the devotional began, Justice Roberts arrived and everybody stood up to honor him. We sang an opening hymn: “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”. After the hymn, President Samuelson welcomed us, a former BYU student gave the opening prayer, and then President Samuelson introduced Justice Roberts.

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Justice John Roberts (immediately to the right of the flag) sitting before his speech at BYU

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Justice Roberts began his talk by reminding us that President Samuelson had encouraged us to read a book about the constitution earlier in the semester. Then, Justice Roberts challenged us to read some more about the constitution…to read the US Constitution itself. He then covered different aspects of the constitution. He first talked about article one, which explains the powers and rules of the legislative branch. Then, he explained that Article two gives the framework for the executive branch. Finally, he discussed article three (his “favorite part” of the constitution), which defines the judicial branch.

He discussed the importance of the Supreme Court…that an independent judiciary is essential to interpret the constitution and the rule of law. One thing (roughly) he said that impressed me is that the Judiciary neither governs by passion (like the legislative branch) nor by will (like the executive branch), but governs by an impartial interpretation of the law. He also mentioned that, until the 1900’s, the original Supreme Court was located in the basement of the US Capitol. The Supreme Court did not get their own building (the legislative branch had the Capitol Building and the executive branch had the White House, which were the first buildings built in Washington) until the 1930’s. He used this fact to show the relative importance of the Supreme Court during the first years of our country. But then he explained that our constitution and the laws stemming from the legislative branch of government would be meaningless without an independent judiciary. He praised James Madison, the primary framer of the constitution and a president of the United States. He encouraged us to read Madison’s Federalist papers, an important commentary on the ideas outlined in the US Constitution.

Justice John Roberts speaking at BYU

I remember visiting the Washington DC Capitol building in June with my brother. We were able to walk through the original Supreme Court chamber in the Capitol, and I took a picture. I want to put a picture of that chamber on this page tomorrow. It was one of the few quiet places in the Capitol, and there was a reverent feeling in that original chamber.

His entire talk was informative and impressive. During his talk, Justice Roberts mentioned some of the early pioneers to Utah, including Brigham Young. He also spoke lots about President Rex E. Lee, the former president of BYU and former US Solicitor General who was BYU president for several years after my mission. Sadly, President Lee died of cancer a few years after retiring as president of BYU. Justice Roberts obviously had a great respect and admiration for Rex E. Lee. He shared an interesting story about a case he argued in the Supreme Court for his client against President Lee. Justice Roberts lost this case with a vote of 9-0, he says because “there were only 9 justices in the court” (indicating if there were more, they, too would have voted against him). Everybody enjoyed this humorous story. In the end, I felt like Justice Roberts was a humble man and I really enjoyed his talk. I only wished he would have spoken longer.

The first snowfall of the season

Location: Home

I had a surprise this morning! I woke up this morning and looked outside as I usually do and found that it had snowed about 2 or 3 inches in my front yard, and there was more snow in the mountains. All the green grass and still green trees were covered in a blanket of fluffy snow. This caused many trees to be strained under the weight of the leaves and snowfall, and some broke, but all of my trees seemed to hold up well. The white-barked aspens in my front yard had lost most of their leaves, and were covered in a fine layer of snowfall. The first snowfall of the year is always a special treat.

The first snowfall of the year from the front of my house

After preparing my Sunday school lesson on Acts 21-28, I hurried off to the ward choir, where we had a final practice before our sacrament meeting performance. Like I said, my Sunday school lesson was on Acts 21-28, and it was made easier because of a great video put out by the church about the life of Paul the Apostle. The video lasted 11 minutes, and I filled in the missing parts and tried to get some class participation between segments of the video. I wish I could be more courageous and confident in what I am supposed to be doing like Paul was after his vision. He was really a great apostle.

After church, I hurried home and went around to a few of my neighbors to try to collect Friends of Scouting offerings. I was asked to collect the offerings from 4 of the houses around mine. This took a very short amount of time, and then I went down to my brother’s house in Provo where we celebrated my nephew Lincoln’s first birthday (it was also Loren’s brother-in-law’s birthday, so we had a double birthday party). We had so much food that it was like the Thanksgiving holiday. There was turkey, nutty Jello, vegetables, rolls, olives, mashed potatoes, pies, and most everything you could want at a turkey dinner. It was really great and I felt like a stuffed turkey afterwards. In one game I play with my niece, I pretend to want to eat her because I say that I’m hungry. But I was not hungry in any way after this fabulous feast. We then opened presents. I think Lincoln was happy to see his presents from me…a “sippy” cup and a chewable moose that can be used for teething. He will be one year old.

Lincoln ("Linky Love" we call him) at his first birthday party

Location: At my kitchen table

Yesterday after work, I wanted to go and do some mountain biking because there was rain and snow in the forecast for today (Saturday). So I left work a little earlier than I usually do and headed home on my bike. After arriving at home, I changed into my biking outfit and headed out from my house. I did not have much time before it became dark, so I stayed close to my house and took my light with me. I headed up the road to the water tanks just north of my house. There’s one new water tank they are still working on that will be VERY big…I think it’s bigger than all the rest of the tanks combined. After passing the tanks, I journeyed up the dirt road east of the tanks that is part of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail system. Just before reaching the top of this dirt road where it overlooks Provo Canyon, there are a couple of trails that branch to the North. I took one of these trails, but at this point, I was low on energy as well as daylight and knew I would not make it very far on this narrow, difficult trail. Like a worn-out moose, I slowly started climbing the trail, and the sun began to set as I climbed. The weather had a cool snap, but the temperature was comparatively warm for a mid-fall day.

Mt. Timpanogos from the bike trail

Mt. Timpanogos and the trail

Squaw Peak and Provo from above the Bonneville Shoreline Trail

Utah Lake at sunset from above the Bonneville Shoreline

I stayed on this trail until it branched to the right and began heading back into Provo Canyon and to the Bonneville Shoreline dirt road. After reaching the top of this trail, I slithered down this trail like a snake slithering through a hole in the ground. The ride back to the Bonneville Shoreline road was fast and exciting. From here, I headed east on the Bonneville Shoreline road and took the fun but rocky singletrack trail down into Provo Canyon’s Canyon Glen Park. From the park, I rode the Provo River Parkway home. I have ridden the last part of this route many times, but it was a beautiful day and the trail was great.

This morning, I ran much of the same route…up the Bonneville Shoreline Trail to the Provo Canyon overlook and from there I went down the Provo Racetrack to Timpanogos Park. I ran home from the park. The run was invigorating and the weather was great. The sky was overcast, but the weather was warm. At home, I raked some leaves and did some other yard work. Later this morning, the air really cooled as some wind and rain came through. Bryan and I went to a couple of auto supply shops, Harbor Freight tools (Bryan likes tools and working on cars), and then to TJ Maxx. From there, we headed over to Costco and then home.

I then went to my brother’s house, where I babysat my niece and nephew. We really had a great time pretending that we were riding in a boat downstairs as I pushed them around in a laundry basket full of blankets. Just as I began to get very tired, Lincoln fell asleep and I fell asleep beside him. By this time, Miriam was home and started putting together a puzzle full of cartoon characters. We completed the puzzle and had flour tacos for dinner.

The cartoon puzzle

FHE and a Hike in the Rain

Location: At home

Yesterday, I went to visit my brother to eat dinner and have Family Home Evening with him. We had butternut squash soup with lots of apple-based ingredients and some other stuff. I was going to make it, but my sister-in-law was kind enough to make it instead. I guess I was expecting that it would turn out a little less sweet than it did, but the soup was satisfying. I’m glad we had some delicious breadsticks to go with it. My nephew Lincoln, who is almost 1 year old, will probably start walking soon. Here he is standing up:

Lincoln learning to stand up

Tonight after getting home, I drove up to Dry Canyon and went hiking around in the dark, drizzly weather. It was kind of spooky, but it was a nice hike. I found some new trails that led from the meadow above the Dry Canyon cliffs, over the front ridge of the mountains, and back to the parking lot. After this trail reached the ridge and started heading down to the bottom of the valley, it really turned into a road. It was dark, but the scenery did not seem very good and the road was quite steep, so I don’t think I’ll ever try riding it on my bike. I always love finding new trails and exploring around, even if it is a trail I will probably never use for mountain biking. I’m just glad to know that this trail is there. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures because it was too dark. You would have to be there to understand what a great time I had!

After arriving back at the parking lot, I noticed a few boxes and pieces of trash lying around. I went ahead and picked up the trash, threw it in the back of my car, and threw it away at home. I don’t know why people throw their trash in beautiful areas like Dry Canyon when garbage service is so readily available anywhere you are. We can only do our part to help keep things cleaned up.

Biking at Lambert Park

Location: Home

Yesterday (Friday), I went biking at Lambert Park in Alpine just before dark. Lambert Park is a great place to go mountain biking. I have not been there for about 5 or 6 years, and somebody has really put lots of work into the trail system here since that time. The “park” itself has some fun bike trails that take you all along the eastern border of Alpine, Utah. Some of these trails are built in slalom-fashion and there are lots of whoop-de-doos, ups and downs, and turns. I can’t even say which one is my favorite because the trails are so varied and fun. I’m a person who likes climbing just as much as barreling downhill, but I noticed that the downhill parts of this bike park were built to be a barrel of fun. I arrived at the “rodeo” trailhead at about 6 PM. I knew there would not be much sunlight remaining, so I examined my map of the park, formulated a route, and tried to memorize the first part of the route. One nice feature of this bike park is that there are plastic and wooden posts with trail names mounted throughout the park. These signposts are an immense help when navigating your way around Lambert Park.

A trail signpost at the "Poppy" trail

There was a bike trail exiting from the south end of the Rodeo parking lot. I hopped on this trail and found myself on the Rodeo “Down” trail (there is also a Rodeo “Up” trail that is designed for uphill riding…I get to this later). This was an exciting beginning since I found myself on a trail that wound back and forth down a gulley. It was like gliding down a bobsled track! I then ran into the River trail and went along the entire length of this trail. The amazing thing I remember about the river trail was all the ups and downs. You would be cruising on a fast downhill run, reach the bottom of a gulley, and your momentum at the bottom of the gulley would take you to the top of a little rise, kind of like a roller-coaster. There were also some sections of the River trail that wound through wooded areas. As the river trail turned to the North again, it ran into the “Middle” trail. This trail is a great connector trail for the whole system, a well-built trail with not too much up and down.

A view of the mountains at the Poppy trail signpost

I took the Middle trail to the Poppy trail and climbed the Poppy trail until it connected with “Ziggy”. I rode East up to the top of Ziggy, hoping to catch the downhill section of Ziggy as it turned to the South and West. Toward the end of the Ziggy climb, however, the trail was blocked by a fortress of rocks. Here, I had to dismount my bike and ride along a fence until I found the section of the Ziggy trail that headed downhill. After some searching, I was able to find this trail. The Ziggy downhill was lots of fun as I went down in bobsled fashion until I arrived back at the Middle trail. I took the Middle trail North, passed the Poppy trail, and rode up the Ruin trail until it connected with Ziggy. From there, I rode Ziggy to the Corkscrew trail, planning on climbing to the top of the Corkscrew and then ride the Corkscrew downhill.

Looking up from a section of the Corkscrew trail downhill

However, after riding a half mile on the Corkscrew, I encountered a major obstacle—somebody dug a 6-foot trench perpendicular to the Corkscrew, piling a 6-foot pile of dirt all along my side of the trench. It would not have been pretty for me to try to climb across this trench with my bike, so I decided to find a way around the trench. I rode to the top of Ziggy to the wilderness boundary fence. There was a trail here that went along the fence and around the trench. I arrived at the other side of the trench, where I found a trail that reconnected with the Corkscrew. I then wound my way down the Corkscrew. It was a blast, though I would not categorize the Corkscrew as quite as exciting as the Rodeo Down or the lower Ziggy trails.

Looking down the Corkscrew trail

By this time, it was getting pretty dark, so I turned on my helmet light. From the bottom of Corkscrew, I was able to make my back to the Middle trail, where I rode up the Ruin trail again and then rode down Lambert’s Luge. I hopped on the River trail and made my way up to the bottom of the Rodeo trails. From here, I headed up the “Rodeo Up” trail. The Rodeo Up trail meandered around through some forested areas. By this time, it was very dark, and I had a little bit of difficulty telling where I was in relation to my car. However, I stayed on the trail as it continued to go up. I was glad that I had brought my helmet light so I could see my way around. After what seemed like a long time, I arrived at a sign that pointed to the Middle Spring trail. I looked at my map to try to determine where this fork went, and I could not quite tell from my map, so I decided to take this fork. I meandered through the forest on this trail until I came to a clearing and a sign that pointed to the Rodeo Down trail, just down from the parking lot. I had found my way back in the dark! I biked up the trail to the parking lot, where I found my car and took a picture of myself with the light on my helmet.

Back at the car in pitch dark at the end of the ride

Bike Rides

Location: Home in Orem

Yesterday and today I went on some bike rides after work. Yesterday, as I was riding home from work, I approached the mouth of Provo Canyon and decided to keep riding up to Vivian Park from the mouth of Provo Canyon in my work clothes and with my backpack and computer from work and everything else. I had a sudden burst of energy from the crisp, clear, invigorating atmosphere around me as I approached the canyon. Despite the impending darkness (it was about 7 PM), I rode up the dark canyon and made my way up the trail the 5 miles to Vivian Park. While riding up, the light from the sunset was shining on Cascade Mountain to my right and Mt. Timpanogos to my left. I arrived at Vivian Park at about 7:30, just as it was getting to be completely dark. I turned my bike around, turned on my front and rear light, and zoomed back down the trail. From Vivian Park to the bottom of the canyon is nearly all downhill and it took me about 15 minutes to reach the mouth of the canyon.

Today after work, I drove up to a park near the end of the South Fork of Provo Canyon and did some mountain biking. My favorite trail in this area travels south out of the park and up a dirt road for a mile or two. There are some amazing views of Timpanogos and the mountains to the south and west from this trail. At one point, as I looked to the Cascade Mountain saddle to the west, I was able to see the bright yellow hues of the Aspens, the deep reds of the maples, and the greens of the evergreens. The top of the Cascade saddle was covered in snow. The air was crisp and clean, and the skies were clear. This trail drops down and connects with the main fire road to Big Springs. I took the fire road to Big Springs and then bombed down the singletrack trail until it forks, took the right (straight) fork, intersected with and crossed the fire road to the singletrack on the other side, flew through a meadow, and was back where I had started in about 15 minutes from the top to the bottom (it took about 30-40 minutes to climb to the top of the trail). The ride was sublime. I wish I had some pictures to show you the great views. Maybe I’ll have to go again tomorrow and take some photos!

At Dad and Carol's House

I came to visit Dad and Carol yesterday night. They live in a small town near Tulsa, Oklahoma. After getting here, Dad and I went to the Priesthood session of General Conference at the Tulsa East Stake Center. As usual, it was really great! After priesthood, we went to Carol’s son Mark’s house and had some fajitas and German chocolate cake. Then, we came home, played with George, and went to bed. This morning, we ate pancakes, bacon, and sausage for breakfast.

George the Boxer
Dad and Carol
Dad and Carol's House

We have been watching General Conference most of the day today, but in between sessions, we were able to go out and drive around in their Prius. This was a fun experience since I have never been in a Prius before. After conference, we went for a 2 ½ mile walk with George (or he took us for a walk) around the neighborhood. We saw some horses, a cow and calf, and lots of other barking dogs. Now we’re at home with some extra time, so I thought I’d put in a little entry about what I have done so far today.

Birds, a Scuffle, and Internet Access at the Phoenix "Sky Harbor" Airport

Today I am going to Tulsa, Oklahoma to visit my dad, who lives there. Today is also the first day of the LDS Church General Conference. I have a flight on Southwest airlines from Salt Lake City to Tulsa through the Phoenix “Sky Harbor” airport near downtown Phoenix. I had an experience once before with this airport during the last Christmas season. At that time, I became stranded in Denver for three days because of a blizzard that dumped up to 4 feet of snow in some parts of Denver. My first chance to leave Denver (I was supposed to go to Kansas City, but I just wanted to get out of Denver at this point) was to go to the Phoenix airport. So I took the flight out and came to Phoenix. However, after arriving in Phoenix, I discovered that it would be nearly as difficult to leave Phoenix as it was to leave Denver because of the holiday crowds. So I ended up spending another night in the Phoenix airport. I went downstairs and began waiting in the line at the Southwest ticket counter at about 2:30 in the morning, sleeping on the floor until the ticket counter opened. Eventually, that day, I was able to catch a flight to Kansas City and was home later in the night.

One great thing about the Phoenix airport that helped me during that time was that it had free internet access and I had my laptop computer with me. So although I am tired of this airport, it has some good qualities. This airport also seems to have few problems with weather delays.

Today, when I first came here and began waiting at my gate for my plane to leave, I thought I would download the first session of General Conference and start listening to it. As I was listening to it, I noticed two BIRDS fly in front of me. Of course, this airport is indoors, and so it was funny to see some birds in the airport. I was able to take a couple of pictures of one of these birds, which was going around eating crumbs on the floor. I put the pictures below. You can see the small bird next to a chair in the center of the pictures:

A bird at the sky harbor airport (1)

A bird at the sky harbor airport (2)

After taking pictures of this bird, I finished downloading the first sessions of conference. As I was listening to conference, there was a minor scuffle at the gate ticket counter. I didn’t hear what happened, but a man came to the counter and began to get very mad and to rant about something. I then noticed that two security personnel came to the gate to assist the Southwest employee should there be any problems. I kind of understand whatever this man’s problem was…he had probably missed his flight. He also had a wife and two children with him, and I’m sure this added to his troubles. Some other Southwest employees came to the counter to assist this ticket agent as this man continued to be angry, and hopefully everything turned out OK with all parties. So now I am continuing to listen to General Conference. I’m excited to learn that Elder Henry Eyring will now be in the First Presidency. It will be good to hear more of him. He came to our Stake Conference two weeks ago and it was a special experience to have him there. I will always remember the words he shared about praying and submitting our will to the Lord’s will. After writing this, I think I will find something else to do for the remainder of my time here, perhaps focus a little more intently on the words from the General Conference.

I am now returning to Salt Lake from our trip to Anchorage. Clark and I went there to teach a course for the Alaska DOT on WMS (It was an NHI course) I wanted to write about some of the things we did while in the Anchorage area. During the first night there, I think we went down to the University and checked out the place where we would have our training. We then went to a restaurant called the “snow goose” restaurant or something like that. I would need to check to see the name. There, I had a halibut fish dish. It was quite tasty, but small and it did not necessarily fill me up.

On Wednesday after teaching the course, we went to “Earthquake Park”. There, we walked around and went on a part of the coastal trail running along the coastal waters adjacent to Anchorage. This park was created to be a memorial to the earthquake that ravaged Anchorage in the early 1960’s. Much of the area adjacent to the Anchorage harbor sloughed into the bay, creating mud flats along the bay that persist to this day. That night, we went to a restaurant called “Benihana’s” for dinner where we watched as a Japanese meal was prepared before us.

A trail at Earthquake Park

The bay at Earthquake Park

Me at Beluga Point on the way to Whittier

On Thursday, we had quite an adventure. After the course, I mentioned to Clark that we could try driving down to a town called Whittier, Alaska for the evening. So we hopped in the car and started driving down. We took several pictures from the way down in the car, there was quite a bit of great Alaska scenery on the way down…huge mountains adjacent to the bay and large glaciers coming off several of the mountains in some of the freshwater areas. The best way to get to Whittier from Anchorage is along a road called “Portage Glacier Road”. The drive along this road is awesome…there are many glaciers and I imagine much wildlife during many times of the year. Toward the end of this road, there is a one-lane tunnel that connects the road to Whittier. Cars from one side (the Portage Glacier side) are allowed through on the ½ hour and cars from the Whittier side are allowed through the tunnel on the hour. There are several pictures Clark took of the tunnel as we entered and drove through it. It was quite an interesting drive…there was a curb on each side of the one-lane road and a set of railroad tracks running the length of the tunnel. This is supposedly the longest tunnel in the United States…maybe the world. Driving through the tunnel is like driving through a mine shaft—it has stone walls that have been chipped away and is very narrow.

A Glacier on the way to Whittier

Scenery on the way to Whittier

Me at Portage Lake with Portage Glacier in the background

Portage Glacier

We arrived on the other side of the tunnel, which terminated at Whittier, at around 6:45 PM. Once there, we looked around for something to do. There was not a whole lot to do there. But we found a very rough and fairly treacherous path that led up to a lookout point above the town of Whittier. We took several pictures from this lookout and Clark took some pictures of the river on the way up. The town of Whittier is located in a little corner of the Prince William Sound, and the area was very beautiful, though Whittier itself did not seem like much of a town, an old World War II town that did not seem to have changed much since the war and hidden from normal civilization.

Entrance to the Whittier Tunnel, which began at Portage Lake and ended at the town of Whittier

On the way out of the Whittier tunnel

We hiked down from the lookout point, hopped in the car and tried to start it. Unfortunately, the car did not start. The key became stuck in the ignition and I couldn't get it out until reading the instruction manual that came with the car. Clark and I figured out how to remove the key and then we tried to insert the key ant start the car again. Some lights went on this time, but the car simply did not start. At this point, I was quite worried. There wasn’t much in this town and it was getting colder. Would we remain stranded here for the night, with no way out? After several more failed attempts to start the car, I decided to call the road assistance hotline on my rental packet to explain my situation and see if they could offer some kind of help. Of course, there were no places close by that could help us. The closest service station that could help us was probably located in Anchorage. The lady on the other end of the line was very kind as I explained my situation. She told me that it was likely that the battery had become discharged and we would need to figure out a way to recharge it to start the car. We were parked at a high-rise “condo” building that appeared decent from a long distance away, but as we got closer to the building, it seemed that this building may have been a remnant of the World War II era. We went around the outside of the building trying to find anyone who would have jumper cables and could help us. Nobody seemed to have them. The interesting thing about this building was that the entire town seemed to be contained in this building. We entered at the main floor and there was a store located on this floor of the building. A man was in this store watching “Bonanza” and the store was full of canned goods. The floor on this main level was uncarpeted and was all concrete. The man in the store told us that he did not have any jumper cables, but that maybe we could try the police to find jumper cables. We had seen the police officer earlier, but thought we would try the building before bothering the officer. The police office was also located on the first floor of this building in a small corner. We went to the office and knocked on the door, but nobody was there. We went around to many of the other shops in the building…a Laundromat, a styling salon, and a few other doors, but nobody answered their doors. We encountered a man who was going up an elevator. He gave us a broken battery-type charger which we were sure did not work. We placed the broken charger in a room and decided to leave the building, never really wanting to come back to the building and discouraged about what we should do. As we exited the building and walked back to our car, we saw the police officer driving along the road near our car…an answer to our prayers! We stopped the officer and asked if he had jumper cables. He did…he went to get them and came back with the cables in a couple of minutes! We opened the hood and he was able to successfully recharge the battery enough to jump the car! We were so excited and thanked the officer. At this point, it was about 8:20 PM. He said we had 5 minutes to get back through the tunnel before traffic is opened in the other direction. At this point, we just wanted to leave the town and never come back to a strange town like this one. Being there was like going back in time to a town that was a hidden World War II base (this town was a hidden military base during WWII and the tunnel access did not exist at the time) and there was certainly a strange feeling there…. We stepped on the gas, made it in the tunnel before it closed, and sped back through the tunnel, vowing never to return. It was one of the strangest and most interesting experiences of my life. I’m not sure why our battery became discharged there…maybe we left our lights on, but we were only gone from the car for about 20 or 30 minutes and it seems like the battery could not have discharged in this short time.

Me atop a lookout point in the town of Whittier, Alaska

Another view from the lookout point in Whittier

We headed home and exchanged our car at the airport. On the way home, we picked up a pizza at Pizza Hut for dinner. We went back to the hotel (we were staying at the “Historic Anchorage Hotel”) and devoured the pizza, grateful that we had made it back safely. We arrived in our room at about 10 PM.

The next day (Friday), we did not have training. So we decided to drive and maybe hike around and look at some of the sites during our last day in Alaska. Clark had an interview with a person at Exxon Mobil in their office. After the interview, we drove down to a place called “Alaska Wild Berry Products” that contained what they claimed to be the largest chocolate fountain in the world. We then visited the Anchorage Alaska temple.

Me at “Alaska Wild Berry Products” next to the world's largest chocolate waterfall

The front of “Alaska Wild Berry Products”

The Anchorage Alaska LDS Temple

After the temple, we drove down the “Seward highway” which went by the turnoff to Whittier (where we went the day before) and parked at a place that seemed to be a good place to get out and hike. It was quite windy at the bottom of this trail, but we got out and started hiking. As we entered the trees, it was less windy since the trees broke the wind. We were hoping to see and take pictures of some moose. Clark and I saw some moose near the earthquake park, and I had seen a moose munching on a tree during my early morning run on Friday, but we had not taken any pictures of the moose. So we thought be getting off the beaten path that we would find some moose. We went hiking up the McHugh lake trail in the Chugach State Park. It was fairly steep, but had some awesome views of the “Turnagain Arm” along the Alaskan coast. There are some steep rising mountains off this arm and many glaciers and beautiful views. We hiked about a mile up this trail and decided to turn around since the entire trail was 7 miles with about a 3000 foot elevation gain. We had no water and no food, so we went back to the car, retrieved some water and food, and hiked on a trail that went down to a creek and along the side of the mountain. We then headed back to the car and drove down to the “Alyeska” ski resort past Girdwood, Alaska. We had lunch at a little diner in Girdwood and drove back to the hotel since I was getting very sleepy and we had a long plane flight ahead of us. We later woke up, went to dinner, checked out of the hotel, and caught our plane back to Seattle and Utah. Overall, we had a good and adventurous experience, though I would like to head up to Alaska and do some more exploring around someday. I suspect there is a whole lifetime of exploring to do there in Alaska, so the only real way I could see everything I wanted to see would be to move up there for a little while.

The forest floor along the McHugh Lake Trail

Trees along the McHugh Lake Trail

Views of the Turnagain Arm toward Portage Glacier and Seward along the McHugh Lake Trail

McHugh Creek

Me with the Turnagain Arm in the background