We’re at the New Castle Branch building for Stake Conference. This is a multi-stake conference for stakes in Pennsylvania and Michigan, being broadcast from the Conference Center in Salt Lake City. It’s nice being able to go to your local building for conference rather than traveling to the Stake Center. Out here the Stake Center is quite some distance away. The broadcast from Salt Lake is a good way to have several General Authorities participate. Our Pocatello Stake Conference in November will be of this type.

We had a very lovely day yesterday. It was a warm, partly cloudy day and a pleasant respite from the rain of the past week. I aired out the bedding from the motorhome, swept and vacuumed the camper, and set up the satellite dish. I wanted to do the setup to figure out the process. It isn’t a simple process, but most of the issues were with the tripod stand for the satellite dish. The process is to get the dish lined up — pointed in the right direction, at the right elevation, and the correct skew. Small changes are required but the hardware isn’t suited for making very small changes. Being slightly off means no signal. It does work, and I now know how to set it up. It takes about fifteen minutes.

Kirk has been helping me make a small desk to fit in the passenger side of the motorhome. It looks very nice and will work well. It has been so damp and humid that the stain wasn’t drying very quickly. So, with the sunshine and warm temperatures, I put the desk on the top of the car to finish drying. A while later, Dawnmarie asked if I would drive Spencer to baseball practice. I was happy to do that. When I was driving up Dawnmarie’s driveway in the way back from baseball practice, I thought that I should take the desk off my car and put it in the motorhome. Imagine my surprise when I suddenly realized that I was driving that car! The desk was nowhere to be found. I resigned myself to making another one. I drove over to Lowes and bought another board and then waited for Kirk to get home from Westminster College’s Commencement. He got home about 4:30 p.m. and had the desk. He had seen it in the road on his way to Commencement. He couldn’t figure out how it got into the middle of the road. It had been run over a few times and needed some small repair.

The repairs have been made and the desk is drying once again…. It is raining again today, so the desk probably won’t be dry by tomorrow. This time it will not be put on top of the car to dry! Kirk won’t be there to rescue it next time.

Some time ago a couple of graduate students proved that Kansas is flatter
than a pancake. It sure seems so this afternoon. We crossed from Colorado
into Kansas about 3 p.m. And then promptly lost an hour as we crossed into
Central Time Zone.

We are planning to push on to Salina, Kansas. We should be there about 8
p.m. CDT. Today is the long driving day with nothing to distract us from
driving. We’re both tired as we didn’t sleep well last night. Tonight will
be better — we’re tired enough to sleep regardless of the strangeness of
the bed.

Sometime we need to come back to Kansas to spend some time. There actually
seems to be a lot to this state. The Visitor’s Center as we drove into the
state was nicely appointed and stocked with a lot of information. In
addition to the world’s largest ball of twine and the largest groundhog,
it’s also the home of President Eisenhower and Amelia Erhart as well as a
number of other noteables. In any case, I’m sure hoping that moving a few
miles away from I-70 will be more interesting than this highway is!
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We drove as far as Rawlins, Wyoming last night and stopped at a KOA
campground for the night. We got there a little after 9 pm. We were up and
out of the campground by 8 this morning.

We just left Laramie, Wyoming headed south towards Ft. Collins. We paid
$2.599 for gasoline in Laramie. I’m sure we’re headed for higher prices as
we go east. It’s a lovely day and life is good.
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We just left Green River after filling up with gas. 28.4 gallons at $2.579
a gallon. Based on that calculation, we could not fly out and back as well
as board Bradica for the cost of driving the motorhome out and back. It’s a
good day for driving. Bright, sunny skies and mild temperatures (although
it was much warmer in Green River than in Pocatello). We’re well on the
way.
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Yesterday morning I was working on the Smith Family Reunion website, I decided it would be good to go look at a couple of alternatives for where the reunion might be held. It was a very nice day out with warm temperatures and no rain forecast. So, we abandoned all the other Very Important and Necessary tasks, gathered cameras, loaded the car, and headed out. We drove south on US91 through Downey and into Preston. We stopped there at the Arctic Circle to pick up a hamburger for my lunch (Nina brought her own lunch with her). Our first stop was nine miles up Cub River right at the National Forest. There is a guest ranch there that could possibly be a venue for the reunion. I’ve never been on that road before. There were some lovely sights along the road, including an old steam tractor and a house with all kinds of old farm equipment on display, fenced in with a plethora of old metal wheels. Very impressive!

We returned to Preston and drove out to Riverdale. This water park resort could be a very good location. We need to get the date firm and an attendance figure. What if a hundred people are coming? That would overwhelm any of the venues we’re currently considering.

On the way back up route 91, we went off the main road over a steep, winding, rutted dirt road over to Twin Lakes Reservoir. This turned out to be a very pretty place. Nina took a lot of pictures (see her picture album). On these excursions, I navigate and Nina drives. That allows her to stop wherever she wishes to take pictures. We will want to go back there again. For the bird lovers, this area is a bird refuge and there were plenty of birds to watch and photograph.

My final stop was at Downata Hot Springs near Downey. I know of another large family who held their large family reunion there and were quite pleased with the location. Right now this place is fourth of four locations in my opinion, but probably the place that could accomodate the most people of the four.

I would like to do a family history tour as part of this reunion. There is the Smith home in Preston to visit (perhaps the current owner might let us in?). Then up route 91 to Banida where the Nathan and Hannah Smith home is preserved. then over to Treasureton (dirt and gravel road) where the calacite business was located. From there to Cleveland and the old farm house. Finally to the cemetery where they are buried. We could have each of the family heads tell the story of that location. I think this could be very informative. I’d videotape these events and have them for family members on a DVD after the reunion and in a small way pass along this history to future generations.

We had a very good day. I’m looking forward to the reunion and meeting family members. The day was fun. Nina got a lot of great pictures. The reunion is starting to come together in my mind. Indeed a Wonderful Saturday.

I’m watching an absolutely amazing group of Chinese acrobatic performers. It is just mind boggling. My body could never do what they are doing with water glasses, hoops, umbrellas, hats, and rings — and we’re only at intermission. My hands are going to be sore and almost bruised from clapping. This must be a glimpse of heaven!

We are at the Jensen Performing Arts Center once again. It was worth moving to Pocatello just for this venue and the performances here. Ahhhh, joy! Intermission is over!

The ward I’m attending is the Las Pinas 2nd Ward. I got it wrong in an the
earlier post.

It’s now the priesthood part of the block, and I’m in the High Priest group
meeting with 9 other high priests in attendence. The topic is living in
perilous times. Someone suggested that “a state of emergency” might be a
definition of a “perilous time” — a reference to the current governmental
crisis here in Manila where President Aroryo has declared a state of
emergency because of a possible coup attempt against her government. That
garnered a real laugh from the Filipinos!
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This is a very nice, new building. It even has air conditioning (but it’s
off most of the time because it gets too cold)! This building was completed
at the beginning of February and will be dedicated on March 12th. At least
four wards can meet in here, it looks like, but right now only two wards
occupy the building. The top floor of the two-story building has the Chapel
and cultural hall. The ground floor has the Stake and Ward offices and
classrooms. This ward meets at 1:30 pm and starts with Sacrament Meeting.
So, I’ve not seen very much of the building, yet.

The woman speaking is talking about strengthening families and speaking in
English. That’s a bonus. Oops — she’s bearing her testimony in Tagalog.
That’s also OK. There are about 130 people here for the meeting. They were
all here as the meeting started. No one came in after the sacrament except
for a couple of mothers who had taken their fussy children out. That’s also
impressive. The missionaries have several people investigating the Church
here as well.

There is no organ — just an electronic piano. If I can, I’ll take a look
at it later to see what capability it has. This is also the Stake Center,
so Stake Conferences would be held here. The piano would need to be a whole
bunch louder for conference! I’m having a good day at Church!
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