Brandon Moon

Last weekend, after the Lavender 5k Run, my wife and I headed up to Joe’s Valley by Fairview, UT where my brother’s in-laws own a cabin. We went to see my two twin nieces get baptized. It’s about a two hour drive, so we were rushing home from the 5k to get showered and back on the road, since the baptism was planned for 12:00. We were on the road just a bit after 10:00, but we seemed to be moving along OK and I wasn’t worried.

It was probably 11:00 or 11:15 when we pulled through Fairview and headed up the canyon. I figured we were doing great on time, but I was careful to check the map my brother had given me. He had described the next turn as a tricky one, so I wanted to make sure I got it right. I mentally added the distance to my trip meter and stored the number in my brain for future reference.

As we headed up the canyon and the my trip meter got close to the calculated distance, I started to look for a turn-off onto a dirt road, as described. All I found was this:

In case you can’t tell, that’s a small four-wheeler style road that goes through a creek and up a steep hill. Just pulling onto the road and up to the river was a steep enough decline to make it difficult for my car to reverse back up. And we were supposed to continue up this road for 13 miles?!

I figured this couldn’t be the road, but yet it was the only dirt road that came close to fitting the description at that distance up the road. It was supposed to be a tricky turn-off. Nobody told me I’d need a truck though! Why hadn’t anyone said anything?

We had no cell reception, so we couldn’t call anyone or look up any maps on our phone. All we could do was drive back and forth on that section of the road a couple times—to no avail. We even said a prayer for help. Eventually we turned back, figuring we’d done all we could.

When we reached Fairview again, I started to realize that we had come down that canyon fast for 18 miles. We had reception again once we got down there, so I pulled out my phone and looked at the map. Sure enough, we hadn’t gone far enough up the canyon. In my hasty arithmetic in my head, I had added 8 to my trip meter, instead of 18. We were way off!

By now it was 12:00, and we knew we’d already missed the baptism, but we headed up anyways, at least to be able to see our family and congratulate my nieces. Except for one small misdirected turn, we got there with no problems after that. The drive was amazing, and we couldn’t help but take some pictures.

We had a lot of fun in the short time we were up there. Benson amused us with his clever sayings and misunderstandings, we got to see the nieces and nephews ride horses (I can’t believe they let some of them ride by themselves!), and even got to see some baby birds! It was amazing.

I also want to congratulate my two nieces for getting baptized. In our church, baptism is a way that we promise God we will follow his commandments and always remember him. In return, He blesses us with his Holy Spirit, which can help us recognize right and wrong. We also believe that little children are innocent; they don’t need baptism until they turn eight and can understand and make that kind of commitment. That’s why I’m so proud of them: they’ve made the decision for themselves to follow Christ. And I know that He is the source of true happiness.