Manila is a really fun town and chapter. It's a super small community-only just over 300 residents, but has a ton to offer. You may have heard of Flaming Gorge Reservoir before, well that's where Manila is. I had been there once before for our State Officer team retreat. 
It's Blake's hometown and since he has a boat and a place to stay, we went there. It was a lot of fun! However, this trip to Manila panned out a little differently than my first one did. All was well when I got to Blake's parents log cabin. Only his mom was home so we settled in and watched a movie. I was pretty tired from the long day so I headed to bed. When I woke up in the morning, Sue, Blake's mom was already gone to work as the Manila School secretary. I gathered all my things up and headed for the school. I got out to my car after locking the house up and realized that my keys were nowhere to be found. I had left hem on my bed. Thankfully, I had my cell phone with me and I Cha-Cha'd the school's phone number so I could call her. There was a spare key in the garage and I was only 15 minutes late to the visit. Luckily, Manila is pretty laid back and Sue went in and told Mr. Schell, the ag teacher, what had happened. When I walked in the room I was pummeled with a million jokes about where my keys were etc. Those kids are hillarious! I already knew many of them from COLT in the summertime so it was fun. BUT...the classes seemed even more empty than they would normally with a graduating class of 12. Why? The Deer Hunt. Everyone goes out for the deer hunt. It was still fun though and it was good to see some old friends.
This is where the story gets interesting. To get back home to Logan, you have two options. A) You can go on I-80 West to Evanston, and from there get on I-84 to Ogden and head home from there. and B) You can go to Kemmerrer and head to Bear Lake from there. The Kemmerrer way is about 50 miles shorter and I had been on the road with my dad once or twice before. I asked Mr. Schell which way he thought I should go and he told me to definitely go the Evanston way, seeing as how it was the deer hunt and a weekend, so more people would be heading to the Bear Lake area. So, I went on my way heading out of Manila. Rain started to come down a little bit, but it wasn't bad..yet. I got on I-80 and headed toward Evanston. I've always been taught that if I feel something strongly, and it tells me something, it's the Spirit. So when I saw a sign for the Kemmerrer exit, and felt very prompted to go that way, I decided I had better. When the exit came, I knew that I had to go that way. I hadn't felt this strongly about something in a long time. So I exited and headed that way. I got to Kemmerrer and decided I should fill up my car before I started the hour and a half trip to Logan.I asked the gas station attendant specifically, "What's the best way to get to Bear Lake?" He asked a fellow co-worker just to be safe and confidently said, "Take a left here, and follow the road until you see a sign that says 'Big Piney'. Go to Big Piney and follow the highway until you see signs that say Bear Lake." It sounded simple enough so I followed his directions and sure enough saw the sign that directed me toward Big Piney. I got to Big Piney and hadn't seen any signs yet, but since he was son confident about it, I kept going. Now, what I should have done was stop in Big Piney and make sure I was in the right place, but I just wanted to get home and me, being a trusting person, knew I would see a sign that directed me to Bear Lake somewhere up there. Mile after mile I drove. And drove. And drove. Cell phone dying. Gas tank still quite full luckily. What should have been ugly Wyoming scenery had turned into some really pretty scenery.
This is when I knew I was on the wrong road. Below are pictures of my road. The one with the North 189 sign is what Wyoming should look like where I wanted to be. The other ones are what I began to see on my little excursion. 
The one with the river is Big Piney, the other, with the big mountains, is Daniel, 20 miles before I turned around.I was able to get a little service at the top of a mountain and called Dad and asked him to look at a map and tell me where in the heck I was. As soon as he saw Daniel on the map he said, "Oh my word you need to turn around"
Well, I was only 150 miles in the wrong direction. I was paralell with Idaho Falls and only about 50 miles from Jackson Hole. The man at the gas station had failed to mention that at the Big Piney sign I needed to go the OTHER WAY. Needless to say, I was a little upset. Rain was pouring for part of the way and at the moment, I hated Wyoming. 2 and a half hours later, I was back in Kemmerer and I had never been so happy to see the ugly sagebrush and weeds. I so wanted to go into that Maverick and chew the guy out-but you all know me, and I would never have the guts to do it. So instead I went to a grocery store and asked the old service desk lady. She gave me very clear directions and I was in Garden City in less than an hour. What should have been a 3 hour drive home from Manila turned into an almost 7. Isn't it funny how one person can tell you something and it ends up making you on the road for 4 hours more than you should have?I was pretty upset about it but I did get to see a lot of Wyoming that I wouldn't have seen otherwise. The next day was General Conference. One of the apostles gave a talk and part of it was about having a good attitude. He told a story about his family getting lost on family vacations regularly and one time they had even driven almost 3 hours in the wrong direction. Sound familiar? He said that all they could do was laugh about it. Wow, apparently I needed to hear that! To this day I don't know why I felt so prompted to go the Kemmerer way, nor do I think I ever will. But, all I know is that I'm glad I listened to the Holy Ghost, even if I made a mistake and went a few hundred miles out of my way. Maybe it was just a test for me. Looking back on it, it really was a beautiful drive once I got out of the yuckiness of southwestern Wyoming :) At least I could come home and tell a good story.
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