Two thousand eighteen

Well, it's the end of another year. Often I find myself sad at the New Year, but for some reason I don't feel that sad this time around.

Twenty eighteen was a very unusual year for me. So. Here are memories of all the strange happenings of 2018.

January. I started the month unemployed, actively searching for jobs. I had an interview at BYU, but I didn't get it. I went to the Midway Ice Castles and downtown to a devotional with the Uchtdorfs. In the middle of the month, I flew to California to spend nearly two weeks with my nephews, including the birthdays of Nathaniel (who turned 8) and Franklin (who turned 10). Franklin had a lot of migraines and needed someone at school with him, so I spent a few days in his class. While I was there, I began growing a beard, which I have had ever since. After I returned home, I had a job interview out in Dugway. I didn't want that job, but on the way back, I stopped in Iosepa, a Hawaiian ghost town in Tooele County. I went snowshoeing up North Canyon and ended up with sore heels.

I arrived in California on Nathaniel's birthday, and we ate at In-N-Out. Apparently I became narcissistic this year, since so many of these pictures are of myself.

February. I started counting calories for Lent. I drove down to Cedar City and St. George in my quest to check off counties and county seats. I had a few random drives up north, including one through Morgan and up to East Canyon State Park.

I couldn't do anything in East Canyon State Park in February, so I didn't feel too bad that I couldn't pay the whole fee.

March. I observed St. David's Day, the national holiday of Wales on March 1, by wearing a red sweater and cooking Welsh cakes. In one week, I saw Phillip Phillips in concert and the Utah Opera. That was also the same week I headed to Manti for a job interview (I didn't want that job, either) and attended a snowy St. Patrick's Day parade in Salt Lake. I attended the Tabernacle Choir's Messiah concert. I went to March for Our Lives at the Capitol to protest politicians' refusal to do anything about gun violence.

If you can pass a background check, why would you object to one?

 April. On Easter Sunday, which was also general conference and April Fools' Day, I made a layered carrot cake. I ran (most of the way) to the top of Frary Peak on Antelope Island. I pulled out my dad's old record player and got a couple of records for it. I observed Earth Day by picking up litter and Arbor Day by pulling up myrtle spurge. Most significantly, I accepted a job at This Is the Place Heritage Park. The pay wasn't great, but it was better than doing nothing all year.

This is the longest my beard got before I started keeping it trimmed.

 May. I observed Cinco de Mayo on my own with my ward and then Train Day at This Is the Place. I participated in a triathlon, which consisted of a 350-yard swim, a 12-mile bike ride, and a 3-mile run. It was fun, even though it was cold and wet. I drove up to see Spiral Jetty, which was on my bucket list, and had dinner in Brigham City. I was awestruck at all the beautiful wildflowers on trails and aww-struck by the adorable feral kittens at work.

I was glad to finally see Spiral Jetty. It was almost completely dry.

 June. This was a big month. I went to Panguitch's Quilt Festival, and on the same journey I also visited the county seats of Fillmore, Beaver, Kanab, Junction, and Richfield. Then my family took a vacation to the East. We spent a few days in New York City before driving out to Mystic Seaport, Connecticut; Rhode Island; Plymouth, Boston, and Salem, Massachusetts; Maine; Mount Washington, New Hampshire; Sharon, Vermont; Québec; and Lake George, New York. It was a wonderful trip, and I especially enjoyed Plymouth. After we got back, I made a day trip up to Ogden, Logan, and Randolph.

My sister and me by Plymouth Rock.

July. I wore a flag-print suit to church on July 1, the same day that my nephews came in from California. On the Fourth of July, they came and visited me at This Is the Place. After a job interview in Provo, I stopped in Price, Castle Dale, and the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry. I had to work Pioneer Day, but I got to be in the park's mini parades, and I even got the men to carry the Declaration of Independence, consistent with the first decade of July 24 parades. My friend Susan invited a group of us to her family home in Jerome, Idaho, so that was a fun road trip.

Here are my niece and nephews in the print shop at This Is the Place with me.

 August. My stake had a massive camp up at Cinnamon Creek in Cache County. It was fun, but I felt out of place as one of the older YSAs. On one of my days off, I wanted to go down to the Wayne County Fair in Loa. I was a day or two too early, but I decided to go the extra way to visit Capitol Reef, where I had a fun, spontaneous trail run among the red rocks, against my better judgment. Later in the month, I checked off more of my bucket list by going to Timpanogos Cave and swimming in the Great Salt Lake.

The signs on the trail were a little confusing, so I worried I was going to be lost in Capitol Reef in a thunderstorm.

 September. My family went down to Fillmore Canyon on September 1, our traditional Labor Day excursion, though it had been many years since we'd been. The next weekend, my old friend David accompanied me to visit Moab and Monticello, and then I finished my goal of visiting all twenty-nine county seats while I was twenty-nine! We also hiked Mount Peale, the county high point of San Juan County, though I didn't make it all the way to the summit. I went to Antelope Island for the third time in 2018 to see the National Parks band in concert. My parents bought a new trailer, and they first used it at the end of the month at Wasatch Mountain State Park. I spent the evenings there with them, and their last day there was the day I turned thirty. I heard people say that twenty-nine was worse than thirty, but for me it's mostly the opposite, I think for a few reasons.

Mount Peale was beautiful, but I felt a little uneasy without a trail.

 October. This Is the Place held an event called Little Haunts. To prepare, I bought books on the history of Halloween and then typeset my own paragraph to use as a park decoration. I also got to don orange tights to play Alice the Dragon, which was physically difficult but fun. The season ended there, but on Halloween, I had my first day of work at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City.

I mostly made this because I wanted to use the Halloween dingbat.

 November. For a few weeks at Sundance, I had little to do, so I was able to proofread the PDF of the book I have coming out in the spring. I spent my breaks running on the nearby trails. On Thanksgiving, I ran a 10k and made stuffing with Cap'n Crunch because I had a dream about it. Once Thanksgiving was over, work became busy, and I had lots of overtime, which was a little sad to have during Christmastime.

I only got a week or so of good trail running in Park City. Oh well.

December. I discovered that I can go hiking in the snow; in the past, I've always been too afraid of it. I attended the Lower Lights Christmas concert and then the Tabernacle Choir concert with Kristin Chenoweth after a stranger gave us tickets. My nephews came to visit for Christmas. It was good to spend time with them, even though I had to work a lot.

My breaks at work became more interesting again when I started wearing boots so I could hike in the snow.

It was a fun year, but a weird one.

So what does 2019 have in store for me?

Well, in three weeks my job at Sundance ends, just in time for me to use the free Festival tickets they gave me. I will once again be on the job hunt, but I can go back to This Is the Place if all else fails. In May, my book The Saints Abroad: Missionaries Who Answered Brigham Young's 1852 Call to the Nations of the World will be for sale. At the end of 2019, I will age out of the YSA ward. And then it will be time to reflect not only on the end of a year but the end of a decade. (Don't give me that nonsense about "the decade ends in 2020 because numbers start at one." We talk about the 80s and 90s, not "that decade that began in 1981 and ended in 1990.")

But other than that--I have no idea.