Pappa Hardy's Musings on Life.

Today it was I think at least 115 degrees in Las Vegas. It felt like 140 to me. We would walk along the pavement and sidewalks, and even the breezes were suffocating. It was a scorcher. This experience got me thinking about why I even came here for a “few days off”, and from this comes my Top Ten List to remember about coming to Las Vegas:

1-Remember not to come to Las Vegas when it is predicted to be above 90 degrees. 115 in the shade is not what I call a good time.
2-Remember to bring your Universal Translator from the Starship Enterprise. So many languages are spoken here that English Speakers are a minority and you need the translator to just get around the place.
3-Remember to bring your own supply of sodas if you are a soda drinker. A soda in the casino/hotel, or on the strip is at least 3 times as expensive as those you can buy back home. Remember though that water is much better than sodas to drink in the heat. Sodas tend to dehydrate you as opposed to keeping you well hydrated.
4-Remember to bring your own supply of bottled water. The water here out of the tap is nasty, and just like the soda pop, is three or four times more expensive than if you bought it at home.
5-Remember to bring a nice big cooler to put all of your pop and water bottles in. The people I saw who were really prepared had a huge cooler that they carried around and brought into the hotel with them. There are no refrigerators or coolers in the rooms to put things in to cool them off as the Casinos/Hotels main purpose in life is to separate you from as much of your hard earned cash as they can, and they don’t do that by putting refrigerators in you rooms.
6-Remember to bring your swimming suit. The only way to stay cool in this heat is to be in a swimming pool. Make sure wherever you stay has a swimming pool and that you have plenty of sun screen.
7-Remember to make sure the air conditioner in your car is working well, and that your car will not break down. Las Vegas is no place to be out in the heat all day long walking around because you don’t have wheels.
8-Remember to make sure that the air conditioner in your hotel is working and that you can control the temperature for your own comfort.
9-Remember to bring along your favorite baking recipes. Here you can just put them in a little metal container out in the sun and you have instant bakery goods. These of course you can use to make a little bit of spending money for that lovely buffet by selling them to unsuspecting tourists.
10-Remember to bring your sunglasses. You don’t look cool if you don’t, and it helps handle the glare from the ever present sun.

Some people like living in this type of heat. As for me, I like being in Las Vegas more in the spring and the fall, and not in July and August. However, I have had a good time with my wife on this trip.

I must be in a reminiscing mood because I have sure been thinking about a lot of the things that I truly cherish in my life. One of the things that I cherish is the Love of a Good Woman. I can think of nothing that I enjoy more than to sit and talk with the woman that is my best friend, my true love. I know this sounds kind of syrupy sweet, but I love being around my best friend. She, my wife, is a wonderful woman and she tries to be the best that she can be. I know she would kill me if she new that I was going to post an entry about her, but she is truly what I cherish in life. She is everything I hoped I would have in a wife, and more. She is wonderful and I cherish her love.

One of the traditions that exists in Taiwan that has spilled over into my very American home (with the exception of our entry room, which is very Chinese) is that we all leave our shoes at the door. There is an unspoken rule in Taiwan that you leave the shoes at the door, to keep the homes clean and to show respect to your hosts.

Likewise, my very Chinese/American wife requires that we leave our shoes at the door. We do that so that we can keep the house clean. In fact, she is very strict about this practice and doesn’t allow us to bring dirty shoes in the cars even. While most people have floor mats to cover and protect the floor carpet in your car, we have towels to cover the floor mats, to cover the carpet. I have asked my wife when we will have more towels, to cover the towels, to cover the floor mats, that cover the carpet. Sometimes, I think we have adopted the Chinese traditions to the extreme.

Last night and this morning we had a very interesting experience. We spent the evening of our 34th Wedding Anniversary traveling to Cheyenne, Wyoming, to help several of our kids move to a new home. We are such devoted parents, traveling during the middle of the winter of I-80, which those of you who have traveled during the winter can be a treacherous trip.

While the day was not one where we were battling bad weather, snow, blizzard like conditions, we did run into the infamous Wyoming Ground Blizzard. For those of you who have never made such a trip, the ground blizzard is caused by those ferocious Wyoming winds blowing crystals of snow across the road. As the evening progressed, and as we got further towards Rawlins, Wyoming, we ran into blizzards which were causing concern because we couldn’t really see the road very well. It was weird, we saw Oil Rigs with lights a glaring, projecting beams of light up into the heavens. It was a surreal experience.

This morning, after deciding that we didn’t want to battle Elk Mountain in the dark (stayed in our absolute favorite city of Rawlins), we drove it during the morning hours. It was real bad, with visibility down to zero at several points for about 15 miles. You could not see more than 10 feet in front of the car, while the road was not icing over because it was so cold and because the wind was blowing so hard. It was scary. Now we go on to Cheyenne and help the kids move. It is going to be a busy day, but we love being with the kids and the family

I had an interesting experience when it comes to my 34th Wedding Anniversary. This year I celebrated it on the high seas. Yes, out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, on a cruise ship bound for Mazatlan, Mexico. We were on the Golden Princess, the month December, the year 2007. When you sign up for a cruise, you can have them help you celebrate your anniversary if it is within about a month of the cruise. We celebrated our anniversary on a Tuesday, December 4.

We came back to our room from a day full of activities to find balloons all over the door saying happy anniversary. I was wondering why they were there when my dear wife confessed to having gone on line and indicating that it would be our anniversary. They allowed you to go to the dining room and have a special meal and cake afterward. The embarrassing part was that we were sitting among all of the Zion Bank people and they sang Happy Anniversary to us. It was a very special event, in a very unusual place for Bonnie and I. I am glad that we did it.

I was married almost 34 years ago, in one week. It was a wonderful winter day, the sun out, the weather relatively warm for the month of January. I was married to my lovely wife in the Salt Lake Temple. It was a wonderful day, and it is one that I have remembered with fondness ever since. We have had a good 34 years.

Last night we had the opportunity to stay in a hotel close to that same temple. I am up in Salt Lake for a sales conference for the bank, and the room that we have has a wonderful view of that same temple that we were married in those years ago. It is a beautiful site at night, the lights on the temple outlining it’s shape against the hill that sits to the north of it. The downtown is beautiful to, marred only by the gaping hole where once used to be the Crossroads Mall and the ZCMI mall on the other side of main street. It was fun just laying with the lights out, a view of the temple presenting itself.

Now the city is beginning to wake up, but I just had to think about how special that one place is to me and my wife. It has been a spiritual experience for me to see that place where I was married all of those years ago.

Bonnie and I have been back almost a week from the experience of a lifetime. I refer of course to taking a cruise. We had always been told just how fun it was going to be and we weren’t disappointed.

We got to eat a lot of good food, anytime that we wanted to go and get it. We got to go see some pretty decent entertainment, just about anytime we wanted to go and see it.

We got to go ashore and see a new country, that we had never really visited before. We weren’t disappointed and I was very impressed with what I saw of Mexico.

We got travel the open seas. We had the opportunity to look all around us and realize that as far as the eye could see, to the tip of the horizon, was water. There wasn’t a house, a tree, a rock, a gas station, for us to stop at and see. I realized just how prepared a ship must be when it sails the seas.

It was a fun and unique experience. I loved being there. I want to go again.

What a day is has been. The best, on Tuesday November 6 at 5:53pm, we were presented from God with a new baby grand daughter, Miranda Elizabeth Hardy, 6 pounds, 12 ounces, 19.25 inches long. What a wonderful gift. It was a tough day for Christie, but she did good work.

On a second front, while I wasn’t in the final election, the slate of candidates I supported, Jo Lynn Ford, Brad Daley, and Kim Hancock, were victorious in the Payson City Council election. I wish I had been there, but this is the next best thing. The results as reported were:

PAYSON CITY COUNCIL 8 of 8 precincts reporting: 100%
Brad D. Daley
19%
1,704
Brent Burdick
15%
1,312
H. Kim Hancock
18%
1,630
Jo Lynn Ford
21%
1,832
Larry Skinner
14%
1,270
Steve Hanson
13%
1,179

It was a great day.

Well, we spent this last weekend moving the second oldest of the Hardy Sons, and his darling wife. I won’t say that it was incredibly fun, but it was incredibly satisfying to have almost all of the family there, helping each other. I guess I am really proud of my family. They are a “bunch” of wonderful people. The trip to and from Wyoming, was as always, long, and not so satisfying. However, we were kept safe from harm, so I am grateful. For the Grandpa of course, one of the highlights was seeing once again my grandson. Braxton is so cute. Anticipation is running high that we will soon have a new granddaughter. We were grateful to see all the family.

I have been doing some thinking lately about the march of time. Days come and go, they march by sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but always marching. As I have marched, I see less and less of my fellow marchers, as they drop off because of this or that ailment. I myself have a few challenges. Yet, amidst all of this, I do have things that keep me busy, and people that keep me company and march with me. Most of all I am so grateful for my beloved wife, who has marched at my side for all of these years. I can’t imagine life without her, and should she go before I, I know I will know and understand true loneliness. I love her deeply. So, the sands of time move us on in our journey, pushing us, swallowing us, and sometimes burying us, but as long as we have others, the march is bearable.