Manti here I come!

Jamie was recently called as her ward activities chairman. This means that I get to come to a lot of her ward's activities. The Ward had Made plans to take a trip to Manti, UT to see the Mormon Miracle Pageant performed on the temple grounds there.

One of the people in the ward is from Gunnison, just 10 miles or so down the road from Manti, and his parents offered to let the ward camp out on their farm. We were supposed to leave Friday after work, but as it always seems to be, I had someplace to be Friday so of course I had to work late. When I got home and realized it was going to be a 5 hour drive I wasn't too excited to go after Jamie got home from work. I decided I would drive up on my own Saturday morning.

I made it to the farm about 10 AM local time, and found Jamie by the coral waiting to ride a horse. Most everyone who wanted to ride had already ridden, and so I just hung out and I just watched. Some of the others had gone down the road to ride around on one of the tractors, but since I didn't know anybody at all I followed Jamie around like a lost puppy.




I seem to have arrived at an awkward time. Most things that were going on were winding down getting ready for lunch. A lot of people were too tired to do anything but sleep.

After lunch it was time for a hike! Our host Greg is very much into hiking. He took us up to this canyon near Moroni. It was a very narrow canyon with tall, near verticle walls.

There were a lot of people here climbing the canyon walls, and in some places they had to hang upside down to continue up the face. It was pretty amazing to watch them.

The canyon is narrow enough in some places that the huge boulders that fell from above got wedged against the walls before they made or to the floor of the canyon.

These guys almost got squished by one of the falling boulders!

Almost to the end we had one las set of obstacles to climb up. The narrow hollow between the side of this rock and the wall was the best way around.

Greg, whos parents farm we were staying at is a really skilled climber. He decided going under was too easy and went over the top of the rocks
Jamie made it part way up and was trying to figure out how she was going to get up the last hurdle. I took this picture, looked down, and looked back up at Jamie. All I saw was her feet going straight up! Greg had grabbed her hand and pulled her bodily up out of the hole!

It was kinda hard and very steep to climb up onto one rock and then another. Looking back it looks pretty close to vertical!

I felt pretty stupid for wearing a pair of casual street shoes on this hike, but I have no idea how some of the girls made it up and over the rocks wearing flip flops.

Once we made it up the last few rocks we were to the end. There is little waterfall here, but this time of year it is mostly some wet rocks.

One girl in our group grabbed onto a rope and started up the waterfall. I don't know what is up there, but this was the end for me!

One of the best accesories I have bought for my camera is a $12 remote shutter release. While two other people were setting timers and hurdling boulders to get back into the group I was merrly snaping away!

Climbing back down was a little more exciting! Many of the girls who had no problem going up the rocks were completly freaked out going down! I was one of the first down and then came back to see the sights from above. Jamie and Torri both went down and I was about to go back down, but the two girls in line ahead if me got scared. Jamie was standing below trying to help guide their feet, and the rest of us were only able to shout encouragement. I felt pretty helpless. I could see what was going on, but there was only room for one person to come down at a time.

Eventually we all made it down. We took some photos by the car

Including some action shots

The trip back to Manti was a very pastoral setting.

On the way up Torri mentioned she had seen enough animals to sing Old McDonald had a Farm.

We saw sheep

Llamas

Turkeys

And horsesE-I-E-I-O!

When we got back to town we decided we needed some refreshments. Where else to go but the Malt Shop!

By now it was time to stake our claim for seats at the pageant.

We laid out our blankets and began to roast in the sun. We were about 3 hours early but we didn't have much to do. Eventually we decided we were about to sucumb to the elements if we didn't get something to drink. We found an ice cream shop across the street from the grounds where we could get something to drink. A dollar for a can of soda seemed kinda steep, but we welcomed the drink.

We met back up with our group and chatted with several members of the cast. We told two of the boys to break a leg, and they told us the hill was steep enough they probably would.

We went back to our blanket and played a few games of It Came to Pass. Then as the sun started to go down we all put on our jackets. It wasn't too cold, but we were all afraid of being eaten alive by the mosquitoes!

The pageant finally started!

I didn't think until about halfway through that I might be able to take some pictures.

Here the Lamanites are being wicked

Samuel the Lamanite prophesying on the wall

Great earthquakes and volcano eruptions signal the death of the Savior to the Nephites

Jesus appears to the Nephites at Bountiful

And heals the sick

The Mormon pioneers are forced to move from state to state and flee Missouri and the infamous extermination order

The Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum are murdered in Carthage jail

The US Army calls for a battalion of Mormon soldiers to fight in the Mexican War

After the pageant it was definitely time for bed. Torri had fallen asleep in the back of the car and Jamie had to pul her sleeping bag out from under Torri.

While the girls slept in their car I had planned to sleep in the bed of my truck. The last time I did this bears came to check me out while I slept. This time though I was mostly worried about the terrible things the ridges in the bed of my truck would do to my back. I had some carpet scraps, a sleeping pad, and a thick folded blanket to ease things a bit.

I couldn't stop myself from taking pictures of the stars. At home you're lucky to see two or three; this night I could see the milky way.

Then I experimented with a technique called light painting. With a long exposure set you wave the beam of a flashlight over the scene to illuminate it. Here you can see the campsite with and without the flashlight.The camera didn't move between these two pictures

I knew that I would have to leave early on the morning to make it back home in time to finish the ward bulletin and take a shower. I figured that since I was facing east I would probably wake with the sun, but just to make sure I set the alarm on my phone to go off a few minutes before sunrise. I checked the US Naval Observatory website to get the time of sunrise, but I must have typed something wrong somewhere because the phone went off about thirty minutes early. The alarm sound is like a klaxon you would expect to hear on a submarine just before it dives under the water. Just to make sure it was my phone going off and not some dream I was having I counted 35 dongs of the alarm before I opened my eyes.

My sleeping bag was wet from the morning dew, but I rolled it up anyway and hit the freeway. Going down the gorge just outside of St George I noticed a fluttering sound. I thought maybe there was something that had slid down and gotten caught up in the air conditioning fan. I turned the A/C off, but the sound was still there. I thought about it for a while and by the time I got to Glendale I had gotten myself good and worried.

I called who everyone calls when they are having car trouble-Dad. Why I called my dad I have no idea. He knows just as little about cars as I do. He thought maybe I had just gotten some bad gas.

I called my cousin Curtis who is studying to be a diesel mechanic and he thought it might be pre-ignition detonation or a bad lifter. I filled the tank with high octane gas and started back home hoping it was bad gas or low octane fuel. Curtis did agree with me that the knocking noises I was hearing probably were not good.

I skipped church, too afraid to drive any farther until a mechanic looked at the truck.

I dropped it off this morning, and the mechanic just called as I was typing this on my iPhone. He says one of the timing belts is coming apart and needs to be replaced. The engine in my truck is what he calls "an oddball" and has two timing chains; one on the front right and one on the back left. Since one of the chains is bad he suggests replacing both as he will have to pull the engine out anyway.

Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price: $2500! Yowser!

All in all I would say this has been a pretty exciting weekend!