Bizarre Bradyisms

On My Mind

As of about one week ago, I have orbited the sun 24 times.  Can you believe it?  I know I’m having a hard time grasping the concept, but nevertheless, time does go on, and suppose I must as well.  For some reason or another, I always considered someone who was 23 to be young and still have plenty of time to figure things ago, but to be 24, now that is a different story.  Someone who is 24 should have a pretty good grasp on life, most likely have a decent amount of responsibilities, and already attempting to conquer the world one step at a time.  Now, I know that this is really not true and is a fairly skewed outlook, however, that is the way I roll, so humor me.  I don’t feel older (as if I should be surprised) and nothing has truly changed except the expectations I have for myself.  But then again, those haven’t varied much at all either.  So, based on that statement, I quote a good friend of mine: “24 is going to be a great year, I can tell.” (Thanks Lynette).

As you may or may not know, I have taken almost a two month hiatus from writing anything new and of substance here, not because I didn’t want to or didn’t have anything to write, I have just been enjoying this summer too much to sit down and actually do it.  More than likely, there have been many things that have occured which I won’t remember because it has been so long, but because I am fairly camera-happy, I am hoping the pictures I add here can help me to clarify that jumbled up mind of mine.

One of the things I had on my summer to do list was make a visit to the local zoo.  So, when I was talking with a friend of mine, Ester, and she mentioned she wanted to go and see the exhibit called “The Ghost of the Bayau” that was currently at the Hogle Zoo, it seemed like too good of an opportunity to let pass by.  So, towards the end of June we journeyed up to Salt Lake City for what turned out to be a fantastic outing.  We had nice and simple picnic prepared by yours truly right past the entrance of the zoo and then spent about the next two and half hours mosying through the various scenes of wildlife.  From the pleasently infested reptile house to the crazy giraffe that was giving himself the ultimate mouth massage with its ginormous (yes, that is a word, check here if you don’t believe me) tounge.  But, to top it all off, we saw the “Ghost of the Bayau” which was a white alligator that the Hogle Zoo had recently received.  If I remember correctly, it was 1 of only 5 in the entire world like it.  The zoo made it quite apparent that it was not an albino alligator (which I guess is more common) but is instead due to an abnormal defect that also caused it to be sterile.  Very interesting.  In short, I loved every minute of it.  Plus, I even got a light tan out of it as well.

Afterwards, we went a picked up a friend of Esther’s who was in Salt Lake City for a wedding or something and we all drove back to Provo.  With nothing specific to do and plenty of time to do it, we decided to go and buy some kites and see if the wind was strong enough to make them fly.  Mine kite was named “Flamer”, due to the many colorful stripes and was accompanied in the sky by its new friends “Stripey” and a name that had something to do with a Pirate.  The wind wasn’t great and some of us had more trouble than others (smiling at Esther) keeping them in the air.  It was fun, and I got to cross another item off of my summer must do list.

  

So, as part of my calling in the ward, FHE Dad, I have to come up with or inspire others to come up with great ideas for activities each Monday night.  One of such events was an ice cream sculpture contest.  It sounds exactly like it is named.  We pulled out our table, put on latex gloves, and using ice cream, sprinkles, and various flavored sauces, each team was to create an animal themed object.  It was really fun watch and, in the end, help eat as well. 

That brings me up to the end of June.  Now on to July …

At an impromptu gathering that was held at my house, I was invited to go to Provo’s Annual Stadium of Fire event with a friend whom I had not seen in a long time.  The best part of it all, it was free!  Abby (that’s her name) had a roommate who worked at the event and from what I hear, the roommate was given two tickets for whoever she felt like inviting.  In all my time here in Provo and at BYU I had never yet before been to any event at the stadium so this was a pretty big event for me.  Now some might say the seats we got were not the greatest, but I think they were fantastic.  They were up on the 2nd level terrance up against the concrete walls, which meant there was plenty of leg room and something to lean back against instead of the exact opposite had it been any other seat.  All in all, there was these skydivers who flew in doing some crazy cool stunts and landed right in stadium field, the Air Force jets that few overhead, this guy (see video) who wore and jetpack and flew around the stadium for 30 seconds, marching bands, cheerleaders, music (Brooks and Dunn, a country group), and of course fireworks.  We both really enjoyed the evening and considered it a great way to celebrate our country’s birthday. 

I have come to realize, through three years of personal experience that Utah summers are really hot.  I mean really hot.  I grew up in Colorado where it was hot as well, but not quite as bad and not for so many days in a row without a break.  This year it has not rained at all (zero moisture) in close to a month.  Using this as an excuse to get out of Provo, a group of friends, led by Brant and Coralee, went down to Cedar City for the weekend.  Coralee’s grandmother owns but does not live in this house located there, so instead, she lets her various family members use it when they so desire.  Great for us.  We made it there sometime late Friday evening, stopped by for some food at Denny’s, and then went bed quick so we could be ready for Zion’s National Park the next day.  For those who don’t, in Zion’s there is something called The Narrows which is an extremely long (~16 miles if you travel the whole distance) and deep canyon with a river running through it.  It is really quite beautiful and in most places the tops of the walls are around 200-300 feet above you, so the only way to go is through the river.  You actually walk up through the middle of the river, knee high most of the time, waist height some of the time.   Most of the group was pretty fast and made their way through the river, but Lynette and I were not in too much of a hurry, so we both stayed back and took our sweet time.  If I remember correctly, I think we traveled about 5 miles up and 5 back down which meant a long and exhausting day, but looking back at it now, I am really glad that we went early, because by the time we were through (around 12:00 or 1:00) it was quite warm.  Later that evening, after driving back to Cedar City and after trying to take a nap in the house with a broken air-conditioner, we went out to eat a local mexican place.  It was neat because they put our group in this back room by ourselves so we could be as loud as we wanted.  The food was good and a wonderful way to end the day.  

The next day, Sunday, we went and attended a local sacrament meeting in Cedar City.  Wow, it almost felt like we were in the southern US because of the way people spoke and just carried themselves.  Different, very different.  Then we all went to the supermarket and bought our own things for lunch and found a close by park to have picnic.  An hour or so later, after having played with Brant and Coralee’s dog Memphis, we parted ways and all headed back for Provo.  Almost makes me shed a tear everytime I think about it. 

To backtrack the story a little bit, as we were driving down to Cedar City, we saw this plume of smoke coming up on from the mountains on the west side of I-15.  We supposed it to be small fire that would eventually get taken care of, but we were definately mistaken.  While listening to the news on Saturday, we found out that the fire had gone out of control and and now jumped I-15 and the freeway had to be closed.  It was later re-opened that evening, so we thought traveling back to Provo would be fine on Sunday.  Nope, it most definately wasn’t.  Were were driving fine for about 45 minutes when we found they had closed the interstate again about 25 feet ahead of us not more than 30 seconds before we got there.  We had to backtrack a bit and travel the back roads for most the remaining drive.  We had some of the most interesting conversations you could imagine (see video) and saw a number of the small towns you always hear about but are never really sure they exist.  They do.  Anyways, it was a dang good trip and much deserved if I must say so.

Here in Utah, the 24th of July is a holiday (one of the few that the post-office is still open but the banks aren’t) and wanting to do something outdoors, I invited my friend Lynette to go up to Timanogos Cave with me.  You can only enter the cave if you buy a tour ticket and because they pre-sold all of their advance tickets and I wanted to ensure we got in, I drove up early, around 7:00 am to get tickets and then drove back to get everything ready for the day.  Lynette and I left at around 10:00 am and started up the 1.5 mile trail at around 11:00.  I thought that it would take longer than it did because we were going at a very lacidasical pace, but we arrived about 40 minutes before our tour was to begin, so we broke out part of the lunch that I had packed up.  According to the employees, the park was a lot less busy this year for a holiday and we were able to start inside the cave earlier than anticipated, which was fine for the both of us because it was really hot already.

The cave was really cool and I had been excited about it all morning.  I’m really not sure as to why because I had been to a number of odd caves before, but hey, what can I say.  The tour guide talked about how the caves were found and initially mined for formations only to later be deemed an National Park to protect the precious caves.  There was the cave bacon, the cave straws, the Heart of Mount Timpanogos, the caramel sundae, and of course our standard stalactites and stalagmites.  It was fun.  After the tour (which I must say was shorter than I expected) we headed back down and had the rest of the picnic sitting on a large rock on the bank of a river.  Timing things perfectly, we got in the car and drove back to Provo through the Alpine Loop.  I love driving that road because of the beautiful trees (especially the aspens, I love those) and the slow winding curves.  It was just wonderful.  Plus, it started to rain signifcantly for life first time in close to 6 weeks and nothing comes close to the wonderful smell of rain in forrest.  Close to paradise.  It was wonderful.

To end this posting on a beautiful note (can I say that?), I thought I would add some pictures of the flowers that finally bloomed in the pettite garden that I have.  The gladiolus are so pretty and the sunflowers just make me think happy thoughts, but I enjoy them both as they greet me each night when I walk into my house after a long day of work (or play).