I couldn't think of any puns for Manti.

I went to Manti on Thursday. I came back to Provo on Saturday. Even though Manti is an hour and a half away, I felt so much farther than that.

My grandparents, who have lived in central California my whole life, moved to Manti this summer. They've had a house there for years but they decided to relocate. It's a little pioneer house right at the mouth of the canyon. I went with my mom, who came to visit her parents for their 50th wedding anniversary and she let me tag along.

We got there Thursday in the late morning and the grown ups left for the temple immediately. So I went exploring. My grandpa owns something like 3 acres so I had a lot of ground to cover. I just started by walking out the back door and there was already alot to look at.

Chickens. Grandpa owns 24 chickens. I think the chickens are crazy. When they finally realized that I wasn't a predator, they decided to make an appearance. That's where the crazy came in. Well, actually, it was a crazy chicken that came out of the coop. This chicken comes running out into the fenced off area. Running. Full speed. Like something inside the coop just paid him a million bucks to get out of there as fast as he could. Well, the outside area is plenty big enough for Crazy to slow down before he hits the fence. But no, Crazy runs straight ahead, into the chicken wire. Do you think Crazy stopped there? Oh no. Crazy then runs to each corner of the chicken wire at full speed, only stopping when the wire prevents him from making any more progress. Maybe there was someone in that coop that paid Crazy a million bucks to run into each corner of the coop...

After the incident with the chickens, I wandered off and found Friendly. Friendly is a horse. (All names have been changed to protect privacy.) I saw a horse pen off in the distance, not on my grandpa's property but I figured if it really bothered anyone, they'd let me know, right? So I wander over, thinking I'd scare away the horses like I scared away the chickens. No way. I think the horses saw me first and started walking towards me before I even thought about them. So by the time I get over to the fence, the 2 horses are waiting for me, begging for me (ok, not begging, but they looked a little anxious). I don't have a lot of experience with horses so I didn't really know what to expect from such a friendly horse. Friendly was really excited about a visitor, but I was not about to get horse juice all over me. So I kept my distance and inched closer and closer as Friendly and I started to understand each other. We were practically bffs when I left.

My other explorations included venturing up the outside stairs to the attic (nothing exciting there), swinging in the tire swing (always great fun), and exploring the house (all 4 rooms, and no hallways).

The rest of my vacation in Manti will be posted in near-future posts. Stay tuned.