20 Years

 Justin and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary by going back to where it all began, Manti. We left the kids to their own devices and  stayed at a couple of nights at a bed and breakfast off of main street. With the kids out of school, we felt okay leaving them without any adult supervision. The worst they could do was watch TV all day and eat all the ice cream in the freezer.

We had some time before we could check in so we unloaded the motorcycle and drove up a canyon. As luck would have it, it began to rain pretty good on our ride so we cut it short and headed back down to the truck.

Of course the rain stopped once we made it back to the truck. Justin rode the bike to Manti while I followed in the truck.

We went to the bed and breakfast The whole place was pretty charming. The owner gave us a key and sent us to our room but all the rooms were open anyway. "Right above us, above my office." We relaxed in the room for a bit before we left for dinner but our key didn't work in the lock. Then I looked at the door across the hall and it matched the name on the key. Hold on a minute. Justin pulled up our reservation. She had sent us to the wrong room! We moved our bags, smoothed out the bedspread, laughed and moved across the hall. Luckily the other couple hadn't arrived yet or we hadn't made our selves even more at home. That would have been awkward.

The bed and breakfast had a pretty extensive library with very comfortable chairs. Look at these original copies of the American Girl books. 

We had pretty bad luck with weather the entire time. The next morning, anniversary morning, we went to the golf course but there were no tee times so we rescheduled for the next day. But then it got really windy, just a constant wind and strong gusts for the rest of our trip so we never did go golfing.

We drove up a different canyon this time to find Duck Fork or Duck something because Justin heard there was good fishing.

There it is. Isn't that so pretty?

From the parking lot we parted ways. I followed the trail around the lake and he found a spot on shore to fish. The ground was muddy and slick, the logs soggy and also slick. I had a thought while hiking through this with shoes caked in heavy mud, this is weird that I'm doing this by myself.

I heard LOTS of rustling in the trees. I didn't get scared but I kept a steady pace.

I startled an eagle from it's perch in a tree and it flew out right in front of me. Then another eagle joined it and they began swirling and swirling in the sky. 

I had trouble crossing a stream because the fish were spawning and splashing all over but I finally just had to hope for the best and jump. Seriously, what was up with the wildlife today?

This is about where the heavens opened and it began to pour.

I took this picture of my beloved across the lake and then I ran the last quarter mile around to the car.

Trying his best to get the mud off his shoes.

The roads were so slick with mud.. I've never been that nervous on icy roads. But we managed to get down to drier roads and the rain stopped.

We had just enough time to make it back to our room, change our clothes, buy a snack at the tiny grocery store in town and then go to the temple to do sealings. After we were done I asked a temple worker if we could go take a look in sealing room #5. She said she wasn't to let anyone go down the hall but she would ask. I told her never mind but she went anyway to inquire. She came back and said that we could. So we stood in the doorway of sealing room #5 (also called the Persian room, we learned because of the ornate blue carpet) and reminisced about what we remembered about 20 years before. When we passed the temple worker again, I thanked her and told her it was the room we were sealed in 20 years before, to the day. "Oh I'm so glad you said something!" she said. Me too.

It was still really windy so these are the best pictures we could get.

After that we drove to Richfield to eat at Severo Restaurant. It was delicious but we ordered too much food like we always do (despite them being sold out of a few of our first choices) and had to get a few boxes to take home. We ordered cheesecake to go because we had cheesecake at our reception and that felt right.

The next morning was just as windy so we forwent another motorcycle ride and opted to explore Main Street instead. We ended up at a candy store. We bought chocolates for ourselves, chocolate covered Oreos to take home to the kids and got some ice cream to eat in the shop. Then we drove to Ephraim to check out an art gallery there. The gallery was closed (we were having all sorts of bad luck) so we got fries and sodas at a restaurant instead. We wanted to try their fries because they are cooked in beef tallow. They were delicious. And then we drove home.

I can't believe it's been 20 years. It's been quite the ride.