Utah

I've been home since Tuesday night. I guess that puts me at four full days home.

And I love it.

I guess I didn't really realize how many things I love here. True, the mountains may be browner than the Alps, but they are still beautiful.

Tonight, I went to a play put on at the Scera shell, an outdoor amphitheater with the Rockies as a backdrop, and enough little kids running around on the hills marked "no rolling down hill" to make the German Minster for Family Affairs and the Preservation of the Race jealous.

I went with my family to see "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" which was performed by a large cast of community volunteers starring a friend from my Freshman ward who was also Jordan's mission companion. I went around back to meet him after the play, and found my room mate from Sophomore and Junior years, who was there with his wife and two kids. Then another kid from Freshman year rolled up with his wife and newborn kid. They gave me a hard time about being married, and I told them that in Germany I was considered an "alter Wurst" -- an old sausage. I figured "sausage" was a better translation than the colloquial "wiener".)

But despite the pressure to get married and have kids, I still love this place.

I love the wide roads and the grid-system streets.

I love right-hand turns on red.

I love Cafe Rio. And Costa Vida. And Maria Bonita's by Maceys in Orem.

I love root beer. And ice cream that gets crystally as it sits in a root beer float.

I love the way the houses are spread out, spaced by beautiful lawns.

I love the dollar theater.

I love the radio stations that play one genre of music so you'd never hear Michael Jackson then Abba and Aerosmith.

I love the BYU Creamery and their banana splits.

I love being with my family, my friends, and my friends' families.

I love Maceys, where you meet two or three friends from high school every time you go there.

Man, it's good to be home.