A Trip Within a Trip

I don’t mean to make our blog a travel log, but we have gotten to do some interesting things the past couple of weeks. (Internet access has been sparse, recently--so once again I find myself doing catch-up). Brian and I did take off solo to Cedar City, Utah. I was nervous about leaving the kids—not because I had reservations about the capability of my in-laws, but because this was the first time we’ve left Samantha and I wasn’t sure how she would handle it. However, as we got into the car and drove for about 5 minutes, we decided we needed an Arctic Circle shake (not something we get back east) and made a slight detour. The nervousness quickly dissipated as I realized how free I was—I could actually stop and get a milkshake in the middle of the day, which is something we wouldn't do with Ella in the car since she’d demand one, too.

After checking into our hotel, and dinner out together at a charming restaurant (The Garden House—if you’re ever in the area), we indulged in an evening nap and a trip to the hot tub. The next morning, we headed out to Cedar Breaks National Monument—a stunning landmark.

Given that we had a number of things we wanted to do that day, we chose to only do a 2-mile hike. We lucked out with it also being the peak season for wildflowers.

In several places along the trail were college students, working through the federally-funded Americorps program, manicuring and cutting back foliage. I wanted to ask one of them to take a picture of me and Brian with the stunning vista in the background, but Brian argued that it was inappropriate to ask an unpaid volunteer working on the trail to snap our picture. I disagree, and so left to our own devices, it resulted in this fantastic photograph:

As we were headed back to the hotel for a shower, we noticed this peculiar looking LDS church—our curiosity was piqued and we had to poke our heads in for the tour.

The church was built during the Depression, and therefore only local materials were available. This brilliant-colored rock was proposed for the church, giving it the name “The Old Rock Church”. The rock has apparently lost its luster over the years, but is still very vibrant. Church members built it themselves and the church is still in use, with two congregations using it. It was a unique and lovely—we were glad we stopped in.

And the real reason for our trip was to hit the Utah Shakespearean Festival. We saw Taming of the Shrew, which was incredibly well done. Being from the big city, we have always assumed that we have access to some of the best productions/talent in the country. However, we were pleasantly surprised with the talent and quality of the productions we have seen on this trip—they were superb. Neither Brian nor I had read that particular play and so were left a little perplexed about Shakespeare’s chauvinistic storyline—that through deprivation and proper training, a husband can make his wife submissive. We thought Shakespeare was rather liberated for his time, so maybe he intended this to be an allegory or simply just his sense of humor.

So we had a fabulous time, and not surprisingly, the kids did great in our absence. Thank you, Gary and Rhonda for making it possible! And wouldn’t you know it, Samantha who is now 11 months and wouldn’t crawl, started to crawl while we were gone. As we were driving back, I asked Brian whether he was ready to go back to being a parent. He replied that its “nice being away from them for a bit, but then you realize how much you miss having them around.” We really did relish our time away together, but we sure do feel incomplete without our girls.