Creepy Ghost Town

How’s my kid?

I’ve been thinking of you a lot lately, like for about the last 6 months. Every time I’m on Mountain View I think of our rides home from your job. Those were really happy moments for me Benjamin. I look forward to more in say, about 18 months or so?

I have a new theme I’m trying to live by as I search for work. It’s been too easy for me to just stay down in my little cave scouring the internet for job leads and feeling sorry for myself. It’s disgusting.. Now that the weather is finally nice, I want to spend a couple of hours each day doing something uplifting. The two things I’ve started with are going for a hike or going to the temple. I’m going to call it, “Go to the Mountain“. Last Wednesday I told you I went with Joseph to donut falls, it was fun, so Thursday morning I downloaded an app that lists local hikes with directions, maps, difficulty levels etc. Thursday morning I found one in Herrmann near the bergs. It was a bit over three miles, with about a 500’ elevation change. It was a well maintained, clean trail. Because I was there on a weekday, I only passed one person and saw just a handful of others. I felt a much more positive outlook because of it.

Friday I went to the temple. I did one of my ancestors who was born in the 1770s. I’m almost embarrassed to say this, but it was the first time I ever made it through an endowment session completely unaided. I felt really proud, even emotional. So for the second day in a row i did something that gave me a true sense of joy. 

Last week I applied for 13 jobs.

Saturday I was the Bishopric representative for baptisms. I’ve missed that assignment from my days on the high Council. Andy Hansen’s little boy was baptized. It’s always such a happy feeling at those baptisms.

After, Carson was working on his eagle project. He was replacing the mud and weeds in the park strip across the street from the church with anti weed fabric and rocks. We helped for about an hour, which was plenty for me. It does look better I must say.

Uncle Aaron and I had planned on going camping Friday night, but since I had the baptisms we just went and explored down around Elberta and Eureka. Elberta is about 20 miles South of where we used to go shooting. Eureka is that old town we explored with mom about 10 years ago. We found the Elberta Slant Road Road Tunnel. It’s was only maybe 100 yards long, but it was fun to drive through it on the rough and muddy railroad grade. Then we found an old abandoned mine and town called Dividend. It was much like some of the other ghost towns we’ve been to, but with a gruesome recent story. Last year two kids were murdered at this psycho’s house. He torchered and murdered them then dumped their bodies into the mine shaft we visited. Though I had read that story in the news, I did not realize that was where we were going to end up. I only realized it when we saw all the little items people had left behind to memorialize those young people who were dumped there. It left a really sad and dark feeling. We went to look for one last town just west of eureka called Mammoth. It was a small town, but there were definitely people still living there, and it looked like the mine up the mountain may have still been in operation. We did stop by the camp Floyd cemetery, but the tiny museum and hotel were closed for the day. All-in-all, a pretty fun day.

Today was a long church day, I’ll just leave it at that. After several meetings I met your mom and brothers at grandmas. She had tacos and chicken enchiladas, so yum. She also had ice cream cake made with iced cream sandwiches, crushed Oreos, chocolate sauce, and more vanilla ice cream. It was yum!

We, my eyes are trying to close on me so I’m just going to let them. Sure love and admire you kid,

Pops