The first thing I noticed after returning from New York was that the roof was "peeing" into one of our bathtubs. It turns out that we had an overflow drain from our attic-based air handler for our HVAC system, and it was getting a lot of use because the main drain was clogged with red algae. The benefits of renting: landlord deals with it.
Eeew
By the time we had settled this little issue, more vacation came to us.
Ian fell asleep, despite Ryan's protestations...
That's right, the Chinese side of my family was back in Texas. Well, rather, the Chinese-living side. Ryan seemed to enjoy himself thoroughly, while Andrew was in a bit of a funk at times. He got better though, as far as I could tell. When he got tired of having me chase him around the house. Being an uncle is hard work.
...but Ryan did get his dad's attention later!
When Ian, Hilary, & co. were occupied we slipped away to an obscure theater...er, a theater that plays obscure stuff. This time, however, I would say that you just need some education if you find the director and cast obscure. Certainly the story should be well known!
Yes, it was glorious. Topher makes a good Claudio.
And suddenly, it was time for our second and final trip of the summer: Utah! We flew Frontier, since it was the only airline that was offering tickets to SLC that were under $500 per person. It feels a lot like Southwest, except without complimentary beverages in-flight. I was OK with that, personally. My only real gripe was that we had to connect through Denver, which adds quite a bit to the travel time. We flew in on a Tuesday night and didn't get to our Brigham City hotel until well after midnight.
These were the first guys we saw: Dad, Grandpa, and Mom
Since we were in town, Grandpa was eager to show us the new goings-on in B.C. The temple was under construction, the last time we were there. Now...
It's done!
It's cool that the new temple is built directly across the street from the Brigham City Tabernacle, making a nice churchy center to the small town. Grandpa spent a good deal of time discussing the tabernacle, because I could go in there with my unholy T-shirt and shorts. It was there that he was ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood. There was a nasty fire that gutted it around the turn of the century, and it was restored and improved upon in subsequent renovations.
Looks like a European church, a bit
A Ryan-like POV from the back
Ready to give a talk?
After walking about the Templenacle complex, we headed over to the local Amish store for sandwiches, because...why not?
They were good, at least. Not sure what was particularly "Amish" about them
We said goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa and took a jaunt up to a little town in Cache Valley:
Probably wouldn't have ever realized the town's name without this helpful sign
The last time I went to Logan, I only remember stopping at some place where I munched on cheese curds ("squeaky cheese"). Alison wanted to see what the state had done with her old school. Apparently, more than she realized:
Construction...construction everywhere
It makes an Alison sad
After some difficulty parking, we wandered through the still accessible parts of campus. I got to see the library and bookstore, as well as the original USU campus building.
A nice view of USU's quad
We got to have our squeaky cheese from Gossner Foods (which to my memory has become much more popular) before my parents took off. Alison wanted to visit some old friends who were still living in the area. The only evidence I have of this meeting is a grainy picture taken late at night.
Is it just me or is this "Poofus" person making a weird face?
It turns out that Logan has capitulated to the popularity of other Rocky Mountain Independence Day festivities, opting to have their local firework display on July 3rd. Actually, the show was quite impressive, and we had a great view from the foothills. As always, the difficulty lies in getting home afterwards, and practically the entire town was shut down at 11 PM. Another late night for us, because we still had to travel to Brigham City...
The following day we made the long trek up to Rexburg, where my lazy siblings were too busy working to come out to visit us. We must have missed the earlier festivities of the town, because we could see parade floats all over the place. Everyone was having a good time except my siblings, who were hanging outside of Haley's designer apartments.
Alright, look at the Earthlings!
Thankfully, while we visited Haley's place, it didn't burn down. Apparently there has been a string of fires there. Avoiding the exuberant crowds of 20-somethings too cool to go to Provo, we had lunch with a Bundaberg Ginger Beer at a place that served, according to Alison, "disappointing brisket." It's kind of hard to expect much outside of Texas, to be honest.
Eric and Haley were excited to show us how the Spirit of Ricks has grown like a gamma ray-irradiated Bruce Banner, ready to smash any notion that the school was in any way junior to its big brother to the south. The first step was to invade the campus wearing everything that BYU-I stands against:
That's right: shorts AND flip-flops!
Even in a far-flung state like Idaho, at a heavily conservative religious institution, the rebellious nature of college lives on in Eric and Haley.
Down with the repressive system! USA USA USA
We were treated to student art, like the salacious statue below.
Oh my!
Also, gardens with bunnies.
Alison thought she had made a new friend, until it ran away
The excitement was gripping.
I'll clap for joy after I take a little nap
Tearing ourselves away from the grotesque fascination that is Rexburg, we moved back down to the more mundane Idaho Falls and fulfilled the time-honored tradition of Independence Day.
Is this thing on?
Er...fireworks! We took up residence along the bank of the Snake River to await what was hyped up to be the greatest show this side of potato.
The Idaho Falls temple was across from our picnic spot
There were all kinds of fun activities while we awaited sundown.
Like sitting
Reading
Making faces
Playing with sticks
Throwing sticks
Attempting to stand up
The wait was tragically longer than we had anticipated, due to tragedy. Some guy had fallen into the river and search crews were looking all over the river to find him, and the fireworks were delayed over an hour as they attempted to locate him. Eventually the rescue operation became a recovery operation, and the show went on to muted approbation (the body was located later that night). Yet another late night for us (we stayed at a hotel nearby).
Friday was the day to see my people in Provo. There was a lot of this:
Big Sky? Not in Idaho
I got to visit my property on which Bill, Jordan, and other assorted boarders live. Bill was out for a family function, but Jordan and I got back together to continue our hair-raising antics like talking about sports, video games, and eating out at formerly burned out girlfriend-dumping Chinese restaurants:
Like Wild Ginger! Don't look too happy there, Splice
I took Alison around a bit across my old stomping grounds...which looked a bit less familiar considering that they're tearing it all up.
This was my home...
This was my building...
This was my jail lab
Our plan was to meet up with Aunt Janet and Uncle Terry in Alpine after their Freedom Fest duties were over. It turns out that their responsibilities ended once the late afternoon storms came through and swept away the remaining revelers. That allowed us at least a truncated visit to the Taylors (pictured elsewhere on the interwebs) before we rushed off to show off Alison to my relatives.
Saturday morning we were already on our way home. It was a long slog, with a fat four-hour layover in Denver.
Just in case you want to know with it looks like there
We got to explore the airport a bit, and we found a cool statue dedicated to Jack Swigert (not Kevin Bacon) of Apollo 13 fame.
I didn't know he was elected to Congress
Home again, we settled back down, hoping to never move again--
Oh yeah...
OK, I did forget a bit.
Here's our home!
We met with our building supervisor. He helpfully eliminated some silly door options and explained the building process to us. Currently construction is slated for completion on 10/17. Concrete for the foundation is to be poured this coming Thursday. It's happening for real, folks!
And it's so hot that even squirrels are trying to find cool places
Of course, no good blog post can be complete until I tell of our latest cultural adventure. This one was a bit irresponsible: a weeknight concert in the Heights.
Fitz and the Tantrums at Fitzgerald's...or Fitz at Fitz's. Fitzy Fitz.
The concert was held upstairs. I was very grateful for air conditioning. I was also grateful that the event staff allowed Alison in without making her feel like a kid (she forgot her ID).
The first act was...interesting. The group is called Ivy Levan, fronted by the eponymous Ivy Levan. I had a hard time deciding whether her hair was straight out of the 80s or out of the 40s. Her...bandmates were enthusiastic as well. She was pretty foul-mouthed, I'm sorry to say, because her music was actually kind of cool. Her drummer was more ninja than, er, gimp.
Clap your *@#$ hands Houston! Uh...OK
I really liked the next group to come on: Saints of Valory. They had a much more laid back stage presence, but you could tell they were positively thrilled to have a big audience. The band claims Austin as their home, but the Geddyist (bassist/singer) is from Brazil, the drummer from France, the keyboardist from Canada, and the guitarist from SoCal. Take a listen below.
The main event, of course, was fantastic. My phone didn't last long enough to record more. If you haven't heard of the neo-soul outfit Fitz & the Tantrums yet, do yourselves a favor and give them a listen.
Additionally, do yourselves another favor by watching Pacific Rim. The movie is glorious and made me feel like a kid with my giddy excitement. I think we've found our 2013 equivalent to Independence Day.
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