UEA weekend

Because it was just barely UEA weekend, I'm going to remember as many details as I can about the UEA weekends I've experienced.

2010. Perhaps this doesn't count, because I wasn't in school. But since my mom is a teacher and I got to go on vacation with my parents, I'll count it. On Wednesday before we left, I took a job application in to Top Hat Video. My mom came home from school and got a call from a diabolical parent. Two kids in her class had come to her telling her their arms hurt (because they had been purposely hitting them against bars that connect the stair rail to the wall). After one kid's arm kept hurting, she asked him if he wanted to call home, but he wanted to play a game they were going to play. After the game he told her he wanted to call home, but since the day was almost over and he hadn't been hurting enough to not play the game, she didn't let him. But then these parents called my mom and asked her about it and she told her side of the story and the nefarious dad said,"Well, I guess it's your word against his." My mom was really mad. I said she should ask my brother to find some flesh-eating acid she could use to coat the papers that the student takes home to his parents. We got in our Rav and drove down to Kanab, Utah. We stopped at Arby's in one small town, and there was a grocery store across the street. Eventually we got to our hotel in Kanab. One of the books in the room was Gordon B. Hinckley's book Standing for Something. I think I read the introduction of it. We got up very early the next morning (Thursday) to go to Lake Powell. We were sitting in a parking lot before it was time to get on our boat. We munched on the snacks in our car and watched all the people at this place. Everyone was old and the building had jack-o-lanterns in their gardens. Then we got on our boat to go to Rainbow Bridge. A foreign woman sat next to me; she was one of the few people on the top of the boat (besides us) who weren't senior citizens. They told us that there were lemonade and water down below, and that the people who had seats on top could go down, but those who had seats below couldn't go on top. They had narration on our headsets about the history of the area, describing early explorers and Indian artifacts, and I remember thinking what a shame it was that all that beauty and history was covered with water. Eventually we got to Rainbow Bridge. We made it to a dock with floating restrooms. We walked up to see Rainbow Bridge; they encouraged people not to go directly to it because it was sacred to Indians. I remember seeing some plants that you wouldn't expect in a desert. Then we got back on the boat; as we did so, we watched the ravens sitting in people's boats. Then we got back to the parking lot; I remember thinking that the boat ride was way too long for what you got. Then we drove down to the Grand Canyon. I think we ate at a Burger King and I wanted to listen to the Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack. We made it into Arizona and I was impressed by the yellow leaves of the aspen trees. We were driving down the road when a police car was coming the other way. He turned his lights on and turned and followed us. We got pulled over, and the cop came to my mom's side of the car (presumably so it would be safer for him). He said that the speed limit was only 50 (maybe 55) and we were going more like 70. He told us that people hit buffalo on the road, which surprised my parents. Then we made it to the Upper Rim of the Grand Canyon. I thought it was amazingly beautiful. We looked at a sign with the whole geologic column on it, but I didn't really know the meaning of all the rock layers. I took lots of pictures but was a little disappointed at how hazy it was.
We watched people getting served food at the lodge there.We went into a gift shop and I debated between two colors of t-shirts, but I think I had to get the grey one instead of the tan one because of the sizes available. Then we drove back to our hotel in Kanab, where I wrote in my journal. The next morning, we drove to a ghost town called Pariah. We didn't know if it was pronounced "puh-RYE-uh" or "puh-REE-uh," but one pamphlet said that one lady said her father pronounced it "puh-REAR." Some people were camping out there. There was supposed to be a movie set, but it had been burned down. We saw a little cemetery, and then we saw the site of Pariah. Pariah was abandoned because it flooded too often, and Brigham Young had told them that it would. It looked like there was a water heater on the opposite side of the river, and I was confused why there would be one there, if it was a pioneer ghost town. I liked the curled mud:

My mom took a picture of my dad and me:

I wanted to listen to Vince Guaraldi and Coldplay; my mom didn't know Coldplay was a band, and she expected instrumental music. We were worried about getting out of the dirt roads and all the dips. But we did get out, and we drove to Zions National Park. We went and checked into our hotel just outside the park. While we were in the parking lot, our car decided not to work. We were glad that it died there instead of in Pariah! While we were waiting for AAA to come, we hung out in our hotel room and I took a nap. My mom was taking a picture of my dad. I was surprised that not only did he not smile (which he never does), he actually stuck his lips out, I guess because he had a painful canker sore. But I still found it weird he would stick them out in a picture. Then eventually we took shuttles up to different sites at Zions, but maybe that was only in the evening. We saw the Weeping Rock (I can never remember if it's Weeping Rock or Weeping Wall). I was amazed at the age of the water seeping through the sandstone. At one location, my mom saw one of her students. At dusk, we were riding the shuttle and they stopped to show us the turkeys flying up to nest for the night in the trees. We didn't even know turkeys did that! I think we had dinner near our hotel. Then we watched something on TV; I think it was a documentary on penguins or Antarctica or something like that. The next morning we went to a visitor's center and I liked the red flowers on a nearby cactus. We took a shuttle and the driver stopped because there was a tarantula in the road. I was so excited; I had wanted to see a tarantula, and there I did! She got out and stopped the traffic from the other direction so she could try to get it on a newspaper and move it. The spider went into defense mode:

Eventually, it did get onto the newspaper, and the driver moved the paper and the spider to the shoulder. It was crawling up the paper and almost got onto her arm, so she was being quick about getting to the shoulder and shaking it off, and all of us on the bus didn't blame her. A woman had jogged past while the driver was trying to get the spider on the newspaper. Eventually we left. We stopped at a restaurant in a small town. They had a little gift shop there, and my mom ended up buying some educational pamphlets. The tables had decorations of cornucopias with different fruits and vegetables; I remarked that all of the fruits and vegetables were things you could grow in your backyard, except for the bananas. A local radio station was on and they played Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" and they might have played some Nickelback. Then we left. In the car, my mom called my aunt Terri to see if we could stop by in Cedar City. We got there and we admired some of my uncle Terry's artwork that we hadn't seen before. We talked to their grandson Brennan (I think) and he said he seems like a calm person but he really isn't; my mom said that described me. My cousin Kim was there and had her kids there. Terri was telling her grandkids about how my dad was called the Hulk by his Army buddies, something my mom and I had never heard. At one point Kim's young daughter said to me, "When the Hulk leaves, I will miss the Hulk." Terri gave us apples, as well as caramel to dip them in. My cousin Kadee came with her new husband, whom I hadn't met yet. I think we talked a little about missions. My dad and I talked with Terri in the backyard; she told us about the nefarious practices of her kids' ex-spouses. Later Kim and her kids came out. The daughter went to the tetherball and had the ball sticking out behind her and said, "That was like The Princess and the Frog." Kim started laughing and explained to us that her daughter was thinking of Raymond the firefly--she equated the ball to a firefly's light. Eventually we left; in the car my mom told us about how Kadee's husband had told a story of a German woman who wanted to see Zions but died before she could. Then we came home.

2006. I had been invited to attend Y Weekend, and I chose UEA so I wouldn't have to miss any school. On Thursday, my parents took me to Provo. We went to the dinosaur museum and we ate at McDonald's so Allie could get a Little Mermaid toy. I checked into my hotel room and then went and waited in the room where we were all meeting. I met one James and we talked about splitting infinitives (at that point I still erroneously believed you shouldn't split them, even though it's the most ridiculous of all prescriptive rules). While we waited for people to come, we played a game where you had to switch seats according to your response to a particular question. One of the questions was about getting traffic tickets and I misunderstood it so I got up to move before I realized it didn't apply to me. As more people came, the game got wilder, and at one point my glasses got knocked off. I was sure they'd get trampled, but fortunately they didn't. One of my schoolmates, Rachel Cope, was there; I said, "Hi Rachel!" Later we played a more organized game and we had to pick team names. One girl said she had been at an event where their team picked the name "Earthquakes in divers places." That turned into "Earthquake divers." The Y Weekend leaders taught us a cheesy "Y Weekend" chant. Then we went to dinner and we all introduced ourselves. One Candace Bellows introduced herself as being from Bettendorf, IA, a small town. When it was my turn to introduce myself, I said, "There's nothing interesting about me, but I have to say that this is a small world, because my cousin's husband was just made bishop of the Bettendorf ward." Candace excitedly said, "Bishop Finch?" Then we got BYU hoodies. They gave us campus maps and told us about the different places on campus. We went to the Planetarium and saw a show that talked about galaxies. I remember talking with Rachel by the giant crystal on the second floor of the ESC and telling her that I had been to a place that displayed hairy crystals. Then we walked back to our hotel on Canyon Road. I stopped to try to let a car turn left into a parking lot, but one of the leaders told me not to worry about it. Then we played games at the hotel; one girl was wearing Mutts pajamas. The next day we had breakfast and then we went to the top of the SWKT. (By the way, if I weren't presently a BYU student, I wouldn't know what all these buildings were called or where they are.) In the elevator I was talking to Rachel about how I think it would be fun to be a zombie. She said it wouldn't. We met Cosmo at the top of the SWKT. I overheard some guys talking about how to be Cosmo you couldn't just be some fat lazy person. We took a group picture, but I hated having my picture taken so I hid behind everyone else. Then we had a religious class in the JSB, a class in the Maeser building, and a class in the building across the bridge from the Wilk. Then we had a professional lunch; Rachel said she wanted to study Italian. Then we went on a tour of the Brimhall Building. I think we went back to our hotel before coming back to campus. My roommate said he hadn't gone on the tour and instead talked to science professors. Eventually we headed back to campus and walked past Helaman Halls. A girl called out to us from her window, "Is this a Y Weekend?" I looked up and nodded and she said, "Aww, cute." (Not like being a freshman is that much different...) We went to see a play called The Foreigner. Some guys were trying to raise funds to buy a blue plastic anime wig. Of course, the play started off with a prayer. We all found it entertaining and we would often quote "Bees come down" afterward. When the play was over, I talked with Candace on the stairs about what a coincidence it was that we were at the same Y Weekend, and she said, "Yeah, that's really wild." (Six months later I learned that she had walked out of the play.) I followed a group of people back to our hotel. They were singing that old "Breakfast at Tiffany's" song. I felt lonely, so I pulled the drawstring on my hoodie as tight as I could so that I could barely see. I was hoping someone would ask me why I was doing that so I could tell them that I was a werewolf and I didn't want any stray moonlight to hit me. But instead of making people talk to me I think it made them avoid me. My roommate was watching Wild Wild West on TV and asked me if I had seen it and told me it was funny, but I didn't care to watch it. The next morning a lot of the group had gone to hike to the Y but I didn't want to. (I still have never hiked to the Y.) But I wasn't sure how to get to where we needed to be (probably the Cannon Center). I got lost, but I eventually found it. Then my aunt came into the hotel to get me; she had come down with my mom. We went to lunch at Brick Oven. I got chicken noodle soup with my meal, and I started quoting an approximation of a Green Acres episode:
"There you go. Hot water soup."
"Hot water soup? I thought we were having chicken noodle soup."
"Well, when I went out to the chickens, none of them had any noodles on them."
"No one in their right mind would eat hot water soup!"
"Oh boy, hot water soup!"
"And there's your living proof, if you can call that living." (I know this quote is inaccurate from the original, but I'm trying to quote it closer to how I quoted it.)
I told my family about having met Candace Bellows from Iowa.

2005. My parents, my sister, my niece and nephew, and I all went down to Fillmore. We took Grandma Judy to the "Garden of Eat'n" restaurant at the north end of town. I had an open face hot turkey sandwich. We went back to my grandma's house. I felt bad for my mom that she had to watch Preston that night (David and Ya-ping were celebrating their anniversary or something). I remember showing my mom the really creepy picture of John Calhoun in my history textbook.

The next day we went home. I think Allie was watching Cinderella in the car. We had cinnamon-scented pinecones in the back. We stopped at a McDonald's somewhere along the way. I remember something about a Kmart Halloween commercial. There was a toddler with a long mullet at McDonald's; my dad said, "When you look at him, you know he was born in a trailer." Then we went to Cabela's, taxidermy central, where my dad held the door open for Warren Jeffs's brother, although we didn't realize it at the time. I remember playing some shooting arcade game.

2003. My brother got married this UEA, so in preparation we had a gaggle of Asian girls staying at our house. Ya-ping's friend Tory talked about seeing a girl in Salt Lake flashing herself at cars. Once I noticed some bowls in the drying rack instead of the dishwasher, so I used one. My sister later said that she had seen the girls washing the bowls with their fingers and no soap. My mom made Hawaiian haystacks, but the Asians all thought the gravy was the main part, not the rice, so they put rice in the gravy and ate the gravy. Ya-ping's sister Shu-li said, "Mutti, that soup was really good!" I remember later saying to my mom, "Talk about a heart attack in a bowl!" My mom told David about the pornographic pictures his friend Mike Bishop had taken of himself as a substitute for a bachelor party, warning him it might not be a wise thing to look at on the way to the temple. Those of us who couldn't go to the wedding stayed at our house; Joey was listening to the recordings on the toy TV that went with my "Lucy at the Halloween party" playset. He understood what they were saying better than I did. Then we went to the temple grounds; I saw our stake president leaving the temple. Then we all had pictures taken outside the temple. I remember talking with my cousin Martha about my Halloween tie and her Halloween nails. Then we went to the Joy Luck restaurant. I went out with my cousins to decorate the newlyweds' car. But the newlyweds didn't have a car, so we decorated our own car (which they would be using). Since we never decorated the car at my cousin April's wedding, we decorated hers then. We had markers to write on windows. On April's car we wrote things like "Just married a few months ago." Once I wrote April's name but I accidentally wrote Brandon, which was the name of her previous boyfriend. My step-cousin Pat pointed out that it was the wrong name and I felt stupid. So I scribbled the name out and put "Cameron" above it. Then, to make it less suspicious, I also put a scribble under April's name. Then we went back inside where the jar of fortune cookies had reached the bottom. That Sunday, we had stake conference and we saw our decorated white car leaving the parking lot (my brother's honeymoon was just a hotel in Salt Lake).

2002. I remember turning on TV Land and catching the last few minutes of Mayberry R.F.D. but I had never seen it before so I didn't really know what was going on. I think I did, though, recognize the theme music as being from The Andy Griffith Show. For extra credit in my Spanish class, we could paint a skull and take it to class. I had a ceramic skull that I painted yellow and put what I thought were Aztec-like designs on it.

2001. I think during this year UEA was in September. Since it was just shortly after 9/11, there wasn't anything good on TV, especially during the day. I was downstairs making Halloween window clings, and I was watching some animated math program on channel 9 while I made them. The characters were different mathematical signs; the plus sign was named Addison.

1999. This was the year the Orchard 11th Ward had a Halloween talent show. I remember playing with my friends David Christensen and Brad Rogers and we were making up a play we would perform for it. It involved using bouillon cubes in red wrappers to represent chopped up flesh. But of course our play never materialized. I had signed up to recite "The Walrus and the Carpenter" by Lewis Carroll. The night of the show, I looked at the list of people who were performing. Wayne Christensen was going to do a poem, but they weren't there because they had gone deer hunting. I was wearing a tan polo shirt with my Halloween tie. Courtney Brown sang a song she sang at the second grade Christmas program. One lady simply displayed ceramics she had made, including one of Santa soaking his feet. Then we went to Provo to pick up my brother David. After we picked him up, we went to Hogi Yogi. I bought a drink in a yard glass. The girl at the counter at Hogi Yogi told me she liked my tie (which I still had on).

1997. Since there wasn't school, my soccer coach had us have a two-hour practice instead of just one. I rode down to North Salt Lake Park with the Christensens. But Chantelle apparently didn't want David at practice for two hours, so after an hour she took him home. I didn't get the memo that I could stay the whole two hours and my parents would pick me up, so when they left, I said I needed to leave too. My coach gave me a pumpkin-shaped Reese's. But when I went up to get my ride, they had already left. And the way my third-grade brain worked told me I needed to walk home. So walk I did, eating my Reese's on the way and putting the wrapper in my pocket. I was almost home when my parents drove by. I can't remember if they gave me a ride the rest of the way or if I was close enough that it didn't matter. I think they had been to Smith's and bought donuts and groceries. They said they had stopped to pick me up from practice but my coach told them I had gone home with the Christensens. They told me I could have stayed and they would have picked me up. My brother seemed impressed that I had walked so far. I was a chubby little nine year old.