Answers to Silent Prayers Or...

Our First Adventure of the Year!.....Or.......Many other titles.

We spent the day just doing absolutely nothing. What a great day. We didn't even eat breakfast until it was time for lunch. (That way you only have to have two meals instead of three.) We watched the parade, and a few football games, thought of taking down the Christmas tree but didn't until after our "adventure." I did spent some time in the den doing some paper work and signed up for a school site which required me to use my debit card, so I knew that my wallet was in the den at one point of the day. And that lead to part of our adventure. I actually even spent some time in the kitchen making out a menu for the month, including a shopping list. I'm sure the menu won't be followed, but it was a start. And also part of our big adventure.

I started getting ready to go to the grocery store (aka Food Ranch). When I stepped back into the living room my wonderful husband suggested we take a ride up the canyon to see the lake and the snow up there. I thought it sounded great, so we grabbed our coats and headed out. The drive was beautiful. We even needed our sunglasses because of the reflection off the snow. Straight Canyon was cold, and we watched the temperature go lower and lower. When we got to Joes Valley we saw only one lonely fisherman sitting on the ice just before we reached the first boat ramp. We hadn't passed very many other vehicles along the way at all. As we drove around the turn by Lowry Water I always look in the tall dead trees to see if there are any eagles. There was a huge one! It was then that I realized I had thought about getting our camera but I hadn't followed that still, small voice and had left home without it. It was a huge bird, probably the biggest we had ever seen. We drove on around the lake and I realized I did have a camera on my phone, which I had never used, so I got out my phone and went about trying to figure out how to use it. We drove toward the Marina, but at the intersection to Seeley Creek the road had not been plowed so we turned around and headed back home. As we neared the place where the bird was in the tree, we slowed down and thought of trying to take a picture because the bird was still in the tree. Of course, the phone camera didn't zoom in, but I wanted a picture anyway, just to see if the camera worked. We tried to roll down the window, but it wouldn't go down. We hoped it was frozen and not broken like it had been earlier this year. I opened the door just a bit so I could avoid taking the picture through the window, but it was too cold to step out, so I closed the door and took the picture through the rolled-up window. Couldn't see the bird in the tree, but got a nice picture of the mountain across the lake.

As we drove home we came to Paul Peacock's home and had to stop because of a truck in the middle of the road. We soon found out the truck was stopped so the occupant could wait for a huge buck to cross the road. He almost didn't make the first jump up the mountain, but we watched as it climbed on up the mountain. It was a huge buck, over 5 points, big and beautiful! Again, didn't get the camera out fast enough, and the phone camera wouldn't have gotten the majesty of that animal.

I mentioned that we needed to go to the grocery store and, of course, I had to make a pit stop as well, so we headed home. At home we gathered up the shopping list, and since I thought I had taken my wallet to the car when we first left home, we went back to the car. But I couldn't find my wallet out there in the car, so we went back to the house to look for it. We walked back through the house and couldn't find a wallet. I thought back through the day and remembered I had it in the den, went there, but no wallet. We looked high and low, searched the house and the car, but no wallet. It wasn't like it could be buried anywhere (Ok, in my house, it could have been!) I remembered placing it on the piano when Garth suggested we go for a ride, but it wasn't there. I couldn't remember actually taking it to the car so I wasn't sure it was ever there, but we checked around in the car. (We did find the insurance cards Garth had misplaced.) We were both getting to the point that we were wondering where in the world it could be. We walked back through our drive and knew that we hadn't gotten out anywhere.....then I remembered that I had opened up my door to take a picture, but I never stepped out of the car. That was the only place where a door was opened until we got home in our driveway. That was the only place we hadn't looked.

So....back up the canyon to the only place that we could imagine that wallet to be. In order for it to have fallen out of the car, it would have had to have been on my lap when I opened the door, and I didn't remember it there. All the way up Straight Canyon I thought of someone stopping and picking it up. I knew there weren't many people on that road, and anyone who was on the road was probably from Emery County and they are all nice people. They would bring the wallet home to me, wouldn't they? There wasn't any money in it, but there was my bank card (with my monthly salary that had just been deposited into my bank account). My insurance cards were there, and two of my medical debit cards...and my drivers license,...and my temple recommend....I'm sure someone would bring it back to me, wouldn't they? Silent prayers were said all the way up the canyon. I would be lost without my wallet. I'm always telling my girls to keep their things in their wallets and keep their wallets where they can find them....and here I had lost mine. It was getting to be 5:00 and we knew there wouldn't be much more sunlight, so we were in a hurry. And again, near Paul Peacock's, a deer ran across the road........Garth pushed on the brakes, and missed it....a silent prayer answered....
The rest of the trip was uneventful. We passed a few vehicles heading back down and I wondered if each one was bringing my wallet back to me. Again, we rounded the turn around Lowry Water and slowed down, looking for the exact spot where we stopped to take that picture. There, sitting nice and happy on the side of the snow drift, was my black wallet. A bit frozen, but not hurt at all. What a blessing! I have never been so happy to see something in a long time. It is so strange that it fell out at all. I didn't open the door very wide, didn't step out, didn't even lean over. I'm just so glad we found it!

On our way back down the canyon, the big buck had come back down the mountain and was in Paul's yard. I think we will go back up tomorrow around 5:00 and see if we can get a good picture with our good camera this time. And I'll leave my wallet at home.