November 12

and we are nestled beneath the snow capped mountains surrounding Provo UT. Some of these big hills rose to 13 000 feet. That’s a lot of shoes and some of them could be snow shoes! We have had a reality check and it is cold. It snowed here last night and some of the road had melted snow or frost on it

Highway 15I is a good road and offers spectacular scenery. Snow on the peaks was a surprise, but give our heads a shake—it is November. We drove up to 6100 feet today and are at 4 200 of those feet in Provo. We just kept driving across valley after valley after we had risen up to the summits and down into the next valley.

Risen up. We are in Utah and the LDS make up 70% of the population. St. George, last night’s stop was the head honcho’s winter home because St. George has the best temps for all of Utah. We drove by a private university named after him on the way to camp in Provo. Who is this man? There was a wonderful whiter than white temple in St. George
on a bluff and backed by very deep red hills. It was the first temple in Utah. I am hoping to sit in on a rehearsal at the big temple in Salt Lake. They allow people to come in to listen as long as you are seated by 12:15. Who will I be listening to and where will I listen to them.

No gambling in this state and not very much Sunday shopping either. Marg has to regroup and wait until tomorrow to shop for scraps.

The desert can span a whole valley or share the valley with cows and hay fields. Don’t forget that long eared rabbit you saw today, Terry. Yes, it did have extremely long ears. I was taking a picture and scared him out of the brush.

Provo is near Lake Utah and we are camped on the Provo River. We drive into to camp to see about 20 ducks. Then there are 30. It is closed until 4:00 pm. We discover we can’t shop and so I grab a Krispee Kream doughnut or three and we go back to camp to wait.

A truck drives in and the ducks get quite excited—quack, quaaaack, quaaaaack. No one gets out of the truck. Guess how many ducks are there now? At least 75 ducks have gathered at the registration office. Ten minutes later another truck drives in and these ducks are really getting excited. A man gets out of each truck and enters the building. There was a couple ahead of us and they go in to register. Before they come out, one of the men comes out with two large plastic pails and feeds the ducks. He returns to the office and the couple ahead of us comes out. We go in. The bucket man is sitting on a stool breaking bread. He gets day old bread from a store near the highway, breaks it and feeds the ducks that are spending the day on the river because at the lake it is hunting season. He claims the ducks go back to lake at night and then return in the morning.

Cheers.