Temple Holiday Week 2

We began this week on Monday Oct 30th, by doing a morning session in the Provo temple with Nathan, then set out for Boise.  We had 2 nights’ reservations at one of our favorite hotels, the Oxford, just across freeway to the south from the Boise temple.  See the night picture of that temple from our hotel window.  We overate at a Tucahnos restaurant which was at the edge of the hotel’s parking and then were dismayed to find out as we returned to our hotel room that the Astros were losing World Series game 6.  (We had just become Astros fans when they beat the Yankees in the AL playoffs.)

We started Tuesday by driving the 12 miles and 25 minutes to the Meridian temple open house.  We drove through a lot of nice family housing on the way.  The immediate setting for this temple is rural on the edge of residential, on the edge of a bench overlooking some river bottoms and is bordered by some small ponds and landscaped walks.  The temple itself seems to me to have a bulky stone look on the order of the Cardston Temple which was designed 100 years or so ago by Church architects who were influenced by the then popular Frank Lloyd Wright prairie school of architecture.  After the open house we returned to the Boise temple for the rest of the day, and then at the end of the evening cheered the Astros on to World Series victory.

Wednesday morning we left for Twin Falls (about a 2 hour drive), and as we were arriving stopped to admire the Snake river gorge just north of town.  We love the mural in the ordinance room which depicts the enormous falls in the river just a mile or two east of the temple.  After doing an endowment session there we drove another 2 hours to Idaho Falls and did another endowment session there.  We loved the new refreshed paintings, murals and furnishings, and the fairly unique 4-stage endowment process, which uses the original temple rooms in the same way as the live presentation from the time when the temple was first dedicated in 1945.

As we were driving toward Idaho Falls, a storm front was passing.  The air was quite dusty and the car shook.  We heard that I-15 was closed that afternoon a few miles east of Idaho Falls because of the blowing dust.

We stayed at a nice motel in Idaho Falls Wednesday night, and had breakfast at a favorite old restaurant, Smitty’s.  Wendy was excited to again be able to have their gluton-free pancakes.  Then we left for Rexburg (30 minute drive), did a temple session there in the late morning, and then left for Afton WY.  This is about a 2 hour drive with the latter part for about 20 miles along the Palasades Reservoir, on the Snake River.  It was a dark and cloudy day with snow line on the surrounding mountains and the scenery very dramatic.  Wendy was driving, so I took a lot of pictures as we traveled along the reservoir.  We had reservations for the 6:30 Star Valley temple session (a necessity because the session was full), and stayed Thursday night at the new Marriott Fairfield Inn.

On Friday morning we left for Logan, a 2 ½ hour drive.  It rained hard most of the way, especially as we went through a couple of mountain ranges.  We passed by Bear Lake and followed the Logan River into the city.  We did a temple session there in the early afternoon, then left for Brigham City and its temple for another session in the early evening.  We then drove to Ogden and stay the night at my sister Dorothy’s place.

On Saturday morning, Quin and Alison joined us for a session at the Ogden temple.  Dorothy wasn’t feeling too well and didn’t go, but roused herself to go with four of us for lunch.  Then we left for home, picking up Wendy’s son Michael in Salt Lake on the way to join us to celebrate Wendy’s birthday on Sunday.

Boise temple from our hotel window

Meridian temple with open house tents

Decorative pond by temple

Boise temple entrance

Snake River gorge at Twin Falls

Bridge over gorge at Twin Falls

Twin Falls temple

Twin Falls temple

Palisades Reservoir

Palisades Reservoir

Palisades Reservoir

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Star Valley temple

Palisades Reservoir

Temple Holiday Week 1

With the Payson temple closed for cleaning for two weeks, we set out on a Temple workers’ holiday, (which is, of course) to attend as many other temples as possible.  We visited 14 temples in 10 days (12 functioning temples and 2 open houses), drove 1956 miles, and completed family temple work with 32 endowments, 40 couple sealings, and 24 initiatories in these temples.

We left on Tuesday, Oct 24th and took up residence in a patron apartment of the St.George temple for three nights.  We spent Tuesday evening in the temple there, and visited our favorite frozen custard place for toasted almond chocolate malt concrete.  (Nielsen’s from Bountiful has an outpost there.)  On Wednesday, we then drove for the day to the Las Vegas temple.  While there we also had a visit with a first cousin of Wendy’s, Billy Newman.  They saw each often as kids, but not for about 50 years.  He has had an interesting life, served in Viet Nam, rodeo rider, many years in police work, is currently over security at the UNLV Thomas & Mack arena.  He spent 10 years in private security work for guess who?? Donald Trump, protecting Miss World contestants and the like.  He said he couldn’t express any opinion of the President because of papers he signed when he left that employment.

We spent all Thursday in the St. George temple, then had dinner with Eunice, Wendy’s dad’s second wife, who still lives in nearby Bloomington.  She is 91 years old and is pretty well maintained.  She still works a temple shift.  Wendy has made peace with her feelings about Eunice, but we still wonder about the details and history of the relationship with her dad.  She said he was “the love of her life.”  She was married before and again after he died.

On Friday we headed north with Cedar City temple tour tickets.  Another gorgeous temple, and such excitement on the part of the locals.  Sure were a lot of kids helping at the temple.  The temple is in a nice housing area, and very prominently visible coming from the north on the freeway.  We continued on north by way of the Manti temple and did an endowment session there, then arrived home arrived home in the late evening.

At the Cedar temple we found Sister Jessica Starta helping with the Open House.  She was a little girl from the Mt. Zion branch in NC when we were missionaries there.

With Billy Newman

St. George, so white

With Sister Starta at the Cedar City open house

Cedar City temple

See the Utah blue sky