Here I am with my daughter, my mom, my grandpa, and a lamp with deer feet on it. This picture marks the end of a 3-yr era during which I didn't see my little old Grandpa...our paths just never really crossed. As a matter of fact, this was only the second time Sara had even met Grandpa, which is too bad because he's a pillar of a man. So many great memories, all manifest by sounds, smells and sights.
Sounds: I'm not sure how many in my blogdience are St. George goers, but those who are know there is a very specific sound in that city after dark. The bugs in the trees must be the most stressed out little critters in the world because they are constantly screaming. They're probably angry that they don't have air conditioning. After our little 6 hour car ride down south to Grandpa's house we'd open the sliding van door and immediately know we'd gone to the right place because of the bug squeals. Add to that the sound of the water gushing down the gutters, and the hot breeze, and you've got an evening at Grandpa's house.
Smells: Sometime in that 5 year span between boy and man, I went on a week-long pine nut picking trip with my Grandpa and my Uncle Tom's family. I've never been much of a camper (sadly, Uncle Tom did not have a cabin) but I remember having a lot of fun learning how to hunt pine cones. You see, my grandpa was a champion pine nutter. Holy cow, I remember him spending hours talking to my cousin Dwayne and I all about the techniques of getting nuts out of pine cones, and the crazy adventures he'd had out in the woods. Early in the year he'd go out and get the green pine cones directly out of the trees and bring them home to his driveway by the truckload, where he'd let them dry until the nuts would come out with just a little cone raking. Whether it was out in the woods, or sitting on the back porch, the smell of my Grandpa was pine sap. Plus, thanks to the menu during the nut hunting trip, the smell of pork 'n' beans also brings the grandpa memories rushing back.
Sights: Granpa's living room was unmistakable. On the wall was the taxidermied head of some deer-like creature, and a plaque given to him by Dixie College for his years of service as a janitor at the school's gym. The brown carpet, the end tables that were so thick they couldn't have weighed less than half a ton each, and the green tassley couch pillows. He'd always be there watching World War II shows on TV. Man, he spent years fighting during World War II. I've spent a lot of time trying to picture my grandpa as a scout in the Phillipines crawling through the jungle ahead of everyone else trying to stay alive. Then he got shot right next to his heart. That scar is a sight I'll never forget. He spent years in the military, years as a diesel mechanic, years running the dairy farm, years as a loving father and husband. My mom and her 4 brothers look so much like him and have all measured up to the man and woman that raised them. Can we young kids ever measure up? Now the sight of Grandpa is a 17-year widower living in the frozen Logan tundra, with tube socks keeping his ears warm.
He is a true American hero. I'm at such an advantage because some of his warm St. George blood is flowing through my veins. Wow, I've actually got a double dose of St. George inside of me. We went to visit my other Granpa last summer as well, I'm sure you'll hear plenty about that in the near cyber future.
I'm not really sure if it can be considered torture to drag your child out into the desert and force history upon her, but Sara and I are guilty as charged. I consider it recourse for the horrible things that my father subjected me to during my youth. While the rest of my friends were spending their summers lying about like slugs playing Street Fighter II, I was being paraded through semi-local museums and historical sites learning stuff. Its a wonder I survived. I suppose it was good for me though because now I'm very good at not throwing up in cars, and I know a lot about sagebrush. And speaking of artemisia tridentata, there is an awful lot of it at America's most famous square inch, the site where the Golden Spike was laid to complete the transcontinental railroad. Well...technically it didn't complete the railroad, but more on that later. (Ay! What a cliffhanger!)
We're just not fit to be tied (pun intended), so we took the drive up to the northern coast of the Great Salt Lake to see the spike and learn about trainage of the mid 1800s, once again. My hometown is only like an hour away from Promontory Summit, and I remember going out there every summer to do scout service projects and it was absolutely horrible. I think I'm still sweating and sun burnt from those service projects. But it also taught me to be all respectful about the gigantic effort put forth by my forefathers to tame the wild west. Here's me between the trains sitting at the alleged spot where one of the four tycoons who funded the railroad, ex-California governor Leland Stanford, wopped the ceremonial golden spike into the ceremonial polished laurel tie using his ceremonial silver hammer and his ceremonial tycoon muscles. 
This is Zoe and I in front of an original replica of the golden spike. Immediately after the ceremonial wopping by Leland Stanford, the golden spike was yanked out and replaced by a regular old iron one. The golden spike was donated to the Stanford Museum in Stanford, California. Hmmm...I wonder why it ended up there. Someday I'll go see that spike. Mark my words. Unfortunately I won't be able to see the polished tie the spike was wopped into because it was burnt in the fires from the 1906 San Fransisco Earthquake. So what is there to see at Promontory Summit? The golden spike is gone, the last tie's gone, the trains are replicas...there's the track, right? Nope. The actual track that was built through the area was dug up in 1942 and used as war materials. I'm glad there are people out there that make replicas of things like this so I can at least pretend to be witnessing history. Even though all the relics are gone, the site's still there, and I bet nobody ever completed a transcontinental railroad in your homestate! Neener neener.
Wow, that was a long tangent. A long and very important tangent. Anyhow, so check out how cool this action is. These crazy downhill wooden plank sliders continue practicing their extreme trade in the summer by flying into these swimming pools. We watched quite a few of them do it, and it was awesome. Just before the skier hits the water a whole load of bubbles come up to cushion his or her fall. Regular Kasons like myself can give it a try if they're willing to pay a bunch, which I am not. Its definitely worth the trip up there just to watch these guys fly into the water. How cool would it be to tell your friends back in High School that you planned to spend the weekend ski jumping into a swimming pool. Maybe we should get Zoe involved with aquatic skiing so she can be the BWOC, as you can tell from this picture, she is brimming with interest.
I was out being a missionary in the Dominican Republic when the world came to Utah for the Winter Olympics in 2002, and my friends and family tell me I missed out on a lot of cool stuff. Fortunately, a lot of the coolness is still lingering around at Park City, so we took a little drive through Parley's Canyon to check out the sites. We dragged Sara's sister Jennifer and our adorable little niece Annie along for the ride. One thing I love about Jennifer, Nathen and Annie, is that they are always willing to go out and do stuff with us, like meeting sticker-clad albino bisons. 
We're still not sure if we were allowed to get inside the bobsled at the Winter Olympics Museum. Judging by the stares we're getting from our fellow tourists behind us, we may have just broken some official Olympics rules and will likely be disqualified from all future commemorative sliding events. Not surprisingly, there weren't a whole lot of people at the museum on a week day afternoon because all the people that love winter sports enough to visit a winter sporting museum are too busy working so they can afford to participate in winter sports. I noticed that there were no exhibits in the museum dedicated to the winter event I'm best at: slipping on the ice while getting out of my car. I got two gold medals and a bronze behind in this event every year while living in Milwaukee. It's the poor man's winter sport.
So check out how cool this is, we slept in the room next to a bonafide Aston Martin at the Motel 6 in Big Springs, Nebraska! It looks like Her Majesty's Secret Service was hit by the recession just as hard as we yanks. 
Big Springs is a great little freeway stop just about at the border of Nebraska and Colorado. The town features a fabulous little Motel 6, distiguished by a 12-foot deep swimming pool which has somehow been overlooked by the people who make sure traveling children stay undrowned. Right next door is the Sam Bass Saloon and Steakhouse, which was somehow overlooked by the people who make sure traveling adults stay unfat. How could someone possibly leave their $200,000 car in that parking lot? Clearly the owner (who I met while checking in, and is as snooty and British as I had hoped for) wasn't watching it too closely as we all gathered around the fabulous machine and took pictures. Even worse, how hard must it be to see all those bug guts get all over your car? 
So I absolutely had to have a picture of the Aston Martin in front of the $49.99 sign. I required Sara to pose there until the sign changed over, the whole time we were worrying that James Bond would come out with guns blazing. These are the risks that the avid tourist must take. Now we know how those National Geographic alligator photographers feel. While I was checking into the motel I heard the owner of this vehicle having a great conversation with the bumpkin hotel owner:
