Side Tracked

Carrie mentioned in our last post that the camera was broken, so we never got around to telling a story that needs telling. Early last month we took a four-day trip to St. George, Utah, to attend the funeral of a somewhat noteworthy uncle of mine, Elder Don Stehli, emeritus member of the second quorum of the seventy. (For those of you to whom that means nothing, in our church the seventies are meant to be patterned after the seventy men that Christ sent in addition to the apostles during his earthly ministry, and mostly they function as the presidents over large areas of the church and/or serve as church ambassadors to countries where countries where the church needs local authorization to send missionaries, build buildings, etc. For instance, Uncle Don was often sent out in Church negotiations with China.)
  For me, the trip up there was the most fun. I really like road trips, which is to say that my tolerance for them is about 11 hours a day, wheras Carrie's is eight, and Cairn's is about two, unless we have frequents stops.
  That means that we got to stop at some very fun places on the way up... Flagstaff, Lake Patagonia, and because mapquest betrayed us, on the way up we went through Zion National Park. (On the way back, we went another way and saved an hour and a half by NOT going through Zion, and because Cairn slept more we drove through most of the fun places to stop) To me though, the extra time and $20 entrance fee was worth it. Take a look:

  I can't say where Cairn had the most fun... it was probably a tie between staring down from a bridge above Glen Canyon Dam and pointing out the boats and the water, and sitting on the bank of the Virgin River in Zion  National park and watching a hummingbird hover above and drink from the running water. Although the rental house we shared with my parents had a pool small enough for Cairn to stand up in by herself, and she was pretty stoked for that, too. 

  My Dad also grew up in the St. George area, and so I had fun pointing out familiar places from trips to Grandma's house when I was a kid, and Carrie was happy to meet all of the living members of the extended family on my Dad's side while we were there. 

  I also learned some things I never knew about Uncle Don, like the fact that he was hand-picked to be the CEO of the world's leading grower, International Harvester, for a few years before becoming a seventy.  All in all it was a pretty amazing trip for a four-day trip to attend a funeral.