A Run through Grantsville

I haven't lived in Grantsville since 2000 and even though I visit regularly, I don't get out about town much on those visits. This past weekend, we stayed over in Grantsville Friday night to attend my nephew's baptism the next morning. Since my training called for me to run 11 miles that day, I mapped a route of that distance around Grantsville and did my run early Saturday morning (started about 6:30). The following is what transpired, told in the present tense. My thoughts are in quotation marks (I wasn't talking to myself).

After fiddling with my water pack for a bit and finally getting it to stop leaking, I am off, heading north on Deseret Circle. I take a right onto Main and head east.

"Dave's car is already at the store. I thought I might have got up before him this morning. Guess not. Wonder how long he's been there. Is the store open? I know they're changing their hours but I can't remember when and to what."

I take another right onto Quirk, heading south.

"Which of these houses was Annie Eloriaga's? I know it was one of these. Didn't her mom once win a bunch of money in Wendover? She had a purple Mitsubishi Eclipse. And there's Grandma Twyla's. I wonder how she is."

I come up on Cowboy Drive (which used to be Cherry Street).

"When did they name this part of Cherry Cowboy Drive? Was it my junior year? I wonder how hard it was to do that? Did any postal carriers ever get confused? Can a city just decide to change a street name or does it have to be approved elsewhere? Does the city council just vote on it?"

I reach Durfee and take yet another right (apparently I like to run clockwise) so I'm heading west now. I recall what my dad said the night before.

"You're going to run on Durfee? Well be careful. There's no sidewalk or anything and not much of a shoulder. Make sure you run against traffic so you can see the cars coming at you."

I'm running with traffic.

Another runner approaches from the opposite direction. She is running against traffic.

"I thought you were supposed to run with traffic. That's what I always remember. Or was that just if you were riding your bike? Should I try to say something funny? Like 'you're going the wrong way'? Probably not. Is she running faster than me? Maybe I better try to run a little faster."

"Good morning," I say as we pass.

I reach Hale Street and am now passing Grantsville Middle School. I remember Mr. Despain and Mr. Callister and Mr. Camp and Miss Harrison and Miss Lindberg. I remember Kyle Matthews and his buddies snowing me when I was in 5th grade and they were in 6th.

I pass Orgills.

"They have a nice yard."

I cross Park ("Ryan Keisel") and Center ("Aaron Allred") and then turn right onto Cooley, heading north. I never spent much time on Cooley.

"Do I even know people that live on this street? Well there's Bishop Tayon's house. I know him. And I was in Esteem Team with Michelle. She always said she was going to come back and blow Grantsville up. I wonder if that is still her intention."

I pass Vine ("Justin Hislop") and Peach ("Shelly Larson").

"I never realized Peach was this close to Main Street."

I watch for cars as I come up on Main Street but it's clear when I reach it so I'm able to run straight across without breaking stride. As I pass Clark Street, I hear a yell and turn around to see my dad. I wave.

"He doesn't want me to stop and go talk to him, does he? I mean, you can't really stop in the middle of a run? Is he wanting to run with me? I don't think he can keep up. I mean, he's over sixty years old. It's impressive that he's made it this far, but he can't run with me. I'm running 11 miles!"

I continue running.

"Palomino Ranch? I'm pretty sure that wasn't here when I lived here. I wonder how long that's been here. There are some pretty nice houses. Is that where all the Wal-Mart DC employees live?"

I pass a sign that says "Road Damage."

"Only in Grantsville would there be a permanent sign indicating road damage. 'We're not going to fix the road, but we'll put up a permanent sign so that you know it's damaged.' Of course, in Elwood, we'd just have the permanent damage and no sign."

I'm off the pavement now and wondering how far north Cooley goes. I'm supposed to turn right on Vegas Street, but I'm not sure how far that is. I come to a street with no sign, but it really doesn't look like there will be any more cross-streets further north. I take a right, hoping this is Vegas Street.

"I wonder why they named this street 'Vegas'. There are like two houses on this whole street. If you're the only people that live on a street, do you just get to pick the name? Why would they pick Vegas? I guess I'm not even sure that this is Vegas."

I reach the intersection with Burmester. This time, there's a sign. It was Vegas Street. I turn right again and head south, back toward Grantsville proper.

"I wonder if a lot of people get on the freeway this way. I always went and got on at Lakepoint, but I wonder if you live in West Grantsville, this is faster."

A couple of cars pass. I'm looking for Race Street. According to Google Maps Race Street has an east-west part and a north-south part. The east-west part is supposed to intersect with Burmester. I'm getting pretty close to North Street though and still haven't seen it. I pass Koester Street, which I didn't even know existed. "This must be it." I turn left onto Koester.

"Man that house has a lot of cars. I wonder why they have all those cars."

I've reached the end of Koester and I'm in a field. I have to turn around and go back to Burmester.

"I hope no one saw me run both ways. I'd feel like an idiot."

I'm back on Burmester heading south again. I reach North Street ("Cassity Bleazard") and turn left again. I pass Justin Wingfield's house ("I wonder what Justin's up to these days?") and continue on until I reach Maple Street (another that I didn't know existed). I turn right on Maple, then left on Clark.

"How far am I from Race Street? Oh, there's another runner. He's running against traffic as well. Is that where you're supposed to run? Is he running faster than me? Well maybe he hasn't been running as long as I have this morning. If you ever pass someone out running, you should always remember they might be on mile 15 when you're only on mile 1." We wave as we pass.

I pass the rodeo grounds and finally reach Race Street, where I feel like anything but racing. I turn right back toward Main.

"There's where Tammy Kimber lived. And Julie Millward." I remember Jason Millward speaking at his missionary farewell.

I'm back on Main Street, where I turn left and cross to the south side. According to RunKeeper, I'm over half way done. I'm next supposed to turn right at Worthington, but my brother Kevin had mentioned that he might run with me for a bit. I continue past Worthington to Eastmoor and run into my parents' house.

"Hello?" My dad is back home.
"Is Kevin up?" I ask.
"I don't think so."
"Ok. Did you run all the way up to Cooley from here?" I ask.
"Yep. Well, ran and walked. Six miles."

I'm impressed (I mean he's over sixty years old), but of course I don't tell him that. I head back out the door. I run south down Eastmoor and then turn west back toward Worthington. I remember my dad telling me that I couldn't really get back to Durfee via Worthington the night before.

"Well, I couldn't drive my car up there."
"Dad, I'm not going to be driving"

The road is pretty rough and I wouldn't want to drive it, but for running it works fine. I'm back on Durfee and headed west again. I'm on the home stretch now.

I run past Johnson's and past the Grantsville Stake Center. I'm coming up on Willow Street now.

"Didn't Mrs. Croom live in one of these houses? Didn't she used to give you the actual multiple-choice test as a study guide and then she wouldn't even reorder the questions so all you had to do was memorize the letters. Lots of people did well on those tests without knowing much science. I wonder if Matthews' farm is going to smell."

It didn't. I pass Kelli Matthews' old house. I pass Kelli Matthews' new house. I notice the fence that juts in around the telephone pole. "I wonder what that looks like on the other side."

I'm back to Quirk Street now, retreading the same few blocks I ran earlier. As I come up on Hale, I see the same runner that I passed back on Clark Street.

"If we're passing right here, who does that mean is going faster? I guess I don't know because I don't know where he turned up to Durfee. It looks like he's going faster than me right now. Maybe he hasn't run as far as I have." We casually wave again as we pass.

I turn right on Center this time and head back toward main. I say "good morning" to an elderly woman walking on the other side of the street. Either she doesn't hear me or she chooses not to acknowledge me.

"Oh yeah, the Senior Citizen housing. I had forgotten all about that," as I pass the red-brick buildings.

I pass Allred's house where I spent a good portion of my high school years. Delirium is setting in by now so maybe this didn't even happen, but I remember Aaron and I pulling the "telling our parents we were sleeping over at each others' houses" scam and nearly (but not quite) getting caught in our web of lies. I remember experiencing my first kiss that night (with the girl I would later marry). I'm sure that didn't happen. We were both such good kids.

I pass Peach Street.

"Didn't there used to be a stop sign here? I remember always running it (on accident). The new elementary school looks good. I didn't realize they had moved the school so far back from Main Street. I would've run by here during the 5k on the 4th, wonder why I didn't notice it then. Probably because I was going so fast."

I turn right back on to Main Street, heading east.

"There's the old City Hall. I remember going there with Aaron and lifting weights. His dad (Jackson) had a key. Actually, that probably happened like twice."

I pass Jay's and McMichael Street ("Scott Snively"). Just as I'm about to reach Deseret Circle, I see a mailbox with the name "Keele" on it. "Is that where Jacob Keele lived? I didn't know that. I wonder what he's up to."

As I turn onto Deseret Circle, my RunKeeper app informs me that I have now gone eleven miles. I stop and walk the rest of the way to Jefferies house to cool down. I sit on the porch for a minute and drink what's left of my water. I pull out my phone and see a text from Kevin: "I'm not going to make it" sent at 6:40 that morning.

I'm just glad I'm done.

Walking To Church with Lila

As an aside, I was sitting on the couch with Jeanell, with my arm around her before coming to the computer to write this. "I think I'm going to go write a blog post," I told her. "Is that alright?"

"Yes, that's fine. Why would you need to ask my permission?" she replied.

"Because you're on my arm."

Anyway, our house in Elwood is just around the corner from the church we attend. This is convenient in that we can easily walk when the weather is good and are home soon after our meetings are over. We do have the disadvantage that if we miss a Sunday (not that we ever do), the Bishop, or anyone else interested, can easily look across the parking lot to see if it looks like we're home.

But today it was an advantage. The weather was nice. Jeanell had dressed Lila and done her hair so Lila and I were going to walk to church. The following is an account, as best I recall, of what happened and our conversation.

"Let's go Lila. Come hold my hand."

Lila reaches up and takes hold of the index and middle fingers of my right hand and we walk down the driveway. We get up to the road and check the mailbox (forgot to get the mail yesterday). As we begin walking down the side of the road, a Toyota Highlander drives past.

"Oooh, big car!" Lila exclaims.

"Stay close to me, Lila," I say.

We walk a little further and another car zooms past, in the opposite direction.

"Big car!" Lila shouts again. She then feels the need to run and begins to chant "run, run, run" while pretending to run next to me.

"Don't run," I tell her. "You'll get all tired and sweaty!" She looks up at me quizzically, probably because she has no concept of what it means to be sweaty. I, on the other hand, know the feeling all too well.

We walk a little further and she points to some tall, ugly weeds with a couple of yellow flowers. "Oooh, flowers! Cute!" she says excitedly.

"Those are weeds," I tell her. "Weeds?" she asks. "Yes, weeds."

We walk a little further and she sees a bunch of morning glory. "Oooh, flowers! Pretty!" she exclaims again. I don't bother to correct her this time.

We start to turn the corner and she catches sight of the church, which is maybe 100 yards away at this point. "The church! I found it!" she shouts.

We walk a little further and she lets go of my hand so she can go and climb on these three concrete cylinders in the church lawn (I'm not sure what purpose they serve), which has become a tradition each time we walk to church. She carefully climbs on the first, walks across it, steps to the second, then to the third, and finally jumps triumphantly back to the grass.

"You're a big girl!" I tell her.

We walk across the parking lot and she catches sight of the steeple. "Look!" she tells me, pointing excitedly.

I look.

We walk into the church, cut across the chapel, and go to the library because I need some copies made. I drop off the paper I need copied and tell them I'll return momentarily after I drop Lila off at nursery. "Thank you," I say. "Thank you," Lila repeats.

We arrive at the nursery and I open the door. Lila runs in and immediately gives Sister Sills a big hug. I quietly close the door.

How I love my sweet daughter and her wonder at the world.