Jacob Lake - Day Three, New Years Eve

After my second shift of the day I found myself in the RecRoom for my dinner break. I checked my mail, did some blogging, and then set my alarm so that I could take a nap. I guess I was exhausted because I must have been out in 5 minutes. The next thing I knew Mike was calling me from behind. “David… David… David! Sale wants you out front.” I must have given him a worried face because he followed up with, “I don’t think you’re in trouble or anything…” I rolled up off the couch and made my way to the office where I asked for Sale. I didn’t understand the first few words that he spoke to me. Partly cause I was still waking up, and partly because of his heavy accent. Something about St. George, coming back tomorrow in time to work a Late Straight… After a few moments I finally connected the dots. I was to go pick up the Walkers from Saint George, stay the night at Kelly’s house, and then drive us all back up tomorrow before 2:00 to work a late straight. Got it. Kelly was originally supposed to be picking them up, but I guess had decided to stay in St George and not return to the lodge. At the point he called and asked for me to go retrieve them.

The roads weren’t the greatest. At 8000 feet elevation we get hit with a lot of wind and snow. I found myself doing 25mph down the mountain… Snow, ice, wind, unfamiliar roads, dark… I just thought it better to take it super slow. I rocked out to my awesome country CD for the first little while to make sure I was still awake and then switched over to a Jeffrey R Holland discourse on my phone. That man destroys.

When I got closer to St George I started texting Kelly for directions. I started texting Walker as well to see how his flight was. He had gone through several delays and finally made it to St George. Kelly became very impressed with how fast I was responding to both of them. “Is he driving and texting!?” He directed me to a Wal-Mart where I found his green suburban parked in the back. Kelly of course greeted me saying, “Hello Michael.” I followed him to his house a few miles away where he put us up in his front room. He showed us his fridge, the pantry and the bathroom. “Make yourselves at home.” Along the way Tristan and I had called our mission companion Paul Bartholomew who lived in St George and had him come over to say hi. He was super surprised to see us both in St George, of all places. Walker and I had both been companions with Bart, one right after the other. We exchanged hugs and caught up on each other’s lives. We decided to meet up for breakfast in the morning before heading back out to the Lodge. Bart took us to one of his favorite restaurants called 25 and Main. I imagine the name came from its location. Bart recommended a ham sandwich and pumpkin cupcake. They were both divine.

I would probably be seeing Bart every couple weeks. He offered to let me stay at his house the night before going into the field. That way I could make half of the trip the night before, stay the night in St George, and then finish up the trip the next morning rather than leaving super early the morning of.

We made good time back to the Lodge. Most of the snow had gone and the sun was shining. Walker and I talked most of the way while BreAnn slept in the back. I helped them unpack a few things and then showed them around the lodge before we started at two. Tristan was going to be put in the kitchen to start and BreAnn with me on Waitri. I was a little surprised to be training my third day on the job… It was really good for me though, the best way to learn something is to teach it right?

After dealing with all the New Years Eve traffic we locked the doors and did our cleaning. Once all the lodge chores were done we set up the snack bar. Little Smokies, cheese and crackers, pizza bites, soda, hot chocolate, etc. Kelly for some reason changed his mind and decided to come back up to the lodge for New Years instead of heading to Salt Lake like had planned earlier. I just laughed to myself… thinking how in the end I didn’t really need to make that trip to St George. However – seeing Barty and being able to associate with Kelly on a different level made it all well worth it. Kelly brought up with him a box of fountain fireworks to light off at midnight. After lighting the first couple fountains one at a time people were getting a little bit bored and asked that we light them all at the same time. I figured out that if I could grab a lit fountain as it was finishing up, that I could use the dying flame to light the next one. The tricky part was getting two or three fuses lit before the fountains started going off again. Those sparks hurt!

We took a group picture in front of the lodge and headed in for the movie. When I noticed Kelly’s laptop connected to the TV I offered to bring out my movie projector. I guess I had forgotten to mention that I had one because everyone seemed really excited after I had said it. We set up in the Lodge lobby next to the fire pit. We strung a sheet across the window and gathered a load of pillows. After everything was set up and a few minutes into the movie I smiled to myself. It was one of those, ‘I love myself’ moments. For example – when you find 10 bucks in your pocket from way back when… Or when you have free time because you did all your homework the night before… Or when you bring along a projector and contribute to the sickest New Year’s party Jacob Lake has ever seen.