Lehi Cattle Drive

It hasn't happened for 75 years, but it happened this week.  A cattle drive.  Down Lehi's Main Street.

There was quite a bit of concern about safety.  I mean, we have all seen the videos of the running of the bulls in Pamplona, but in the end no one was gored or trampled.  Phew.  I hear that there were some issues. . . some of the longhorns were not interested in the whole idea of a parade and they ended up staying at the rodeo grounds.  Others wanted nothing to do with the railroad tracks and tried to turn back.  And rumor has it that someone let some of the bulls out overnight which made for an interesting morning.


Now you can't celebrate a cattle drive without parade, so we had the Lehi High School Band and the Lehi Silver Band, the City Council, a County Commissioner, and various rodeo queens. It was short, but it was appreciated by the surprisingly ample crowd. A pretty cool event for our fair city.

 Council Member Kaye in her fringed shirt

Cattle turning off Main Street

 A rare sight

Lehi Silver Band

Seminary Graduation

It still amazes me that LDS teenagers attend a religious class as aprt of their school schedule.  And it amazes me even more that they GO and for the most part they ENJOY the class.  The church hires some great teachers who are energetic and spiritual.  Colby has been blessed with several great teachers and tonight he, and hundreds of his classmates, were awarded a diploma for finishing four years of seminary.  It's a good thing we took pictures before the meeting, because afterwards we had an outrageous downpour complete with lightnigh, thunder, and hail.  Hmmmm. . .  maybe they all didn't deserve those diplomas. . .

Siesta

I have truly begun to see the value of the siesta lately.  I think the Spaniards are on to something.

About 17 years ago, Ed and I traveled to Spain with a group of 21 students from Calais High School in Calais, Maine.  Calais is a small city on the eastern border of Maine.  Although most of the students were comfortable passing through customs to go into St. Stephen, New Brunswick, many of them had never made it to New Hampshire. 

To those of you who think Ed and I are brash and pushy now, imagine how much we have probably mellowed in those 17 years!  One of my favorite memories of that trip was from Malaga- a resort town in Costa del Sol.  On the tour bus our tour guide was regaling the students with tales of this beautiful hotel where we would have the honor to stay.  She made sure that we understood that it was a four-star hotel and that we should act with utmost respect.  Soon thereafter we walked into the lobby of a once-beautiful but quite run-down establishment.  While the students were oohing and aahing with a fervor that would have made Franco proud, Ed plants his feet in the middle of the lobby and questions with a loud voice, "Was that four stars out of one hundred?"

Alas, I digress.

The point of my story was that it drove Ed and I crazy that the whole country shut down for a couple of hours each afternoon.  Sure it was hot, but we had paid good money to see Spain and were not happy about our sightseeing efforts being thwarted.  Methinks we may  be a little too Type A.  It amazes me every day how well we get along. . .

But now, in my middle-aged years I am beginning to understand the value of having the noonday meal be the big meal of the day and then taking a nap afterward.  I am way more productive with the rest of my hours and I only need 5-6 hours of sleep at night.  This is especially useful on days when I know that the Lehi City Council meeting will easily go from 5:30pm to midnight.

Hey!  Maybe we need a "siesta ordinance."  Long live the siesta.

Here we go!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last Wednesday I submitted the paperwork to run for a seat on the Lehi City Council. It was decision that I had been pondering for several weeks, but of course, I waited until the very last day to file. It will be a tough race with eight candidates vying for two seats- with both incumbents running- but I am going to give it my best. I hope that I will be elected and that I will have a wonderful opportunity to serve the city. I am stunned by the support that I am receiving . It will be wierd in the next couple of weeks when these signs are printed and begin showing up all over the city. Let the craziness begin!!!

Geocaching

The boys and I entered the secretive world of Geocaching this past weekend. I had borrowed a GPS (Global Positioning System) from a friend and was setting up an event for the Boy Scouts when I decided that I needed some practice. I registered on www.geocaching.com , printed off the information to find a few caches, and off we went. We didn’t have much luck that first night- we only found one cache out of the five we searched for- but our imaginations were sparked. Parker and I found three more caches on Sunday afternoon when we were out picking up the containers from the Scouting event. He is all fired up to buy a GPS unit and get going- we have discovered that there are about 100 caches in Lehi alone! So, if you haven’t tried geocaching, here are a few tips.

1. Look for larger sized caches- the micros are REALLY tricky.
2. Give your GPS unit plenty of time to lock in on the coordinates. Accuracy is important.
3. Have a stick, some gloves, and needle nose pliers with you to get to those tricky caches.
4. Make sure you have a pen or pencil to sign the log and then log your find on the website.

Some caches have small trinkets in them. You can take something and leave something of equal value. My kids love this type! There are some where you can trade paperback books or tools! These are called theme caches. The micros and really small caches usually just have a log that you sign before tucking the cache back into its hiding place. There are also items called tracking bugs or coins that you move to a new cache and then log its travels on the website.

So, you don’t have a handheld GPS unit? Give letterboxing a try! In letterboxing you have to solve clues to find the cache and then you will use the stamp that you find to stamp your collector’s notebook. Check it out at www.letterboxing.org ! What’s better than a good treasure hunt?