A Swell Day In The Swell

 Oh hi the Poe!

Well, this week was slightly less boring than last week, mainly because we went on a Jeep adventure yesterday to the San Raphael Swell with the Jeep club. The weather was great but even better was the fact that your brothers came with me. This was the trip that I chickened out of last week because of the weather. Apparently a lot of people chickened out so they did it again. 

We got up and left at 6, mom made us breakfast burritos and I bought way, way too much sandwich for lunch. Seriously, i bought one of those 4 foot sandwiches from Walmart. We ate maybe 6 inches of it for lunch. In the morning going over the pass it was 5° as we were driving there. Luckily, the sky was clear as were the roads. We met everyone in Ferron and everyone was very nice. There are, however, always people that feel threatened by anything different. This is a group from Utah County so they prayed before we left. The guy praying asked for the jeeps to function safely. After the prayer some doofus noticed that the Toyotas weren’t prayed for. I just said that we’re already blessed and he walked away a little sheepishly. 

The ride was really beautiful, and really fun. We took the South Fork of the Coal Wash trail to the Eva Conover road. The coal was road followed a dry riverbed at the bottom of a canyon. It was sandy with whoops and a lot of twists and turns. We saw some inscriptions that were supposedly crosses from the Father Escalante expedition from 1776. One of the nice old timers in the group was telling us about them. Of course your old know-it-all dad had to fill him in on all the stuff about the expedition he didn’t know. Just to fill you in. Father Escalante was a Franciscan priest in Santa Fe, New Mexico, north east of where you are right now. At that time Santa Fe was the northern capital of Mexico, and the missions in California. That expedition tried to find a route that connected the two. They wandered through Colorado and Utah before they ran out and came back. But in doing so the went through and “discovered” so many of the cool parts of Utah. They went through Moab, the Swell, Spanish Fork Canyon, the Strawberry River, and some of the route that I-15 and St. George. Anyway, the point of this is that my dad and I used to study the journals of the expedition and try to find the places they had been. So obviously that little experience meant a lot to your sappy dad. But it was cool.

When we turned off to the Eva Conover road it was rocky, steep and fun. The 4Runner did great. I actually tried out some of the electronic traction aids that my Toyota has that because of my driving experience I never really used before. They worked out really great and and I look forward to using them more. The road was really technical but for some reason there were people chatting like crazy on the radio. They were talking about the most random, pointless things. Jacob got the giggles because he was surprised how they could talk so much and never have a point. Then they went on this rant about all the things wrong with their jeeps and how many things they wanted to change on them. Then that same doofus started making fun of the Toyotas. Neither of us Toyota drivers responded so he said something else. So I got on the radio and told them that I didn’t hear them over the noise of their hissing radiators and squeaking suspension arms of the jeeps. That was the last time they brought up the Toyotas.

On the way home we stopped by a giant rock with some petroglyphs on it and a smaller giant rock with some dinosaur tracks on it. Your brothers were underwhelmed.

When we got home mom had bought one tomahawk steak on sale and cooked it up for us. We shared that and some homemade pizzas. That meal made mom very much missed you and thought you’d be jealous. 

Today was church, mom got called as a ward missionary and I couldn’t be any happier. She came to huddle with me and we went to get her set apart after that. We also spoke to the bishop about becoming temple workers. I must say I have mixed feelings about that. I want to do it but I always thought it would be when I was much older. Also, I’m not the best with memorization, which seems to be the main talent needed for the temple. It probably won’t happen until June when the taylorsville temple opens. At that time we’ll be assigned to the Jordan River temple.

Not much else happened this week. I got the old projector down and got things mostly patched up.

Well my boy, I certainly love you. Talk tomorrow.

Pops