Fresno, California

On Wednesday

January 21, 2014

We decided to fly to Fresno, California

(Boise to Salt Lake to Fresno).

Our flights went well and we arrived in 

Fresno a little before noon.

As we exited the secured area of the airport

we entered the

"Giant Sequoia Forest"

It is an amazing display and very life-like.

We rented a silver Mazda 3

and drove to our hotel

the Piccadilly Inn Shaw.

After checking in we drove up to the

temple site

(which was only a few minutes from the Hotel)

and took a few pictures while there

was still some daylight.

On our way back to the Hotel we stopped

at Jack-in-the-Box

for some lunch....

....imagine our surprise

when we walked in and saw

the "security wall" at the front counter.

After resting for a couple of hours we

got ready and left to do a

session at the temple.

It was all lit up and so beautiful when we left the

temple after our session.

Linda, standing outside the Celestial Room

with the words:

 Holiness To The Lord

The House of the Lord

inscribed above the windows.

While in the dressing room one of the workers asked

Linda if she was visiting to which she replied, 

"my husband & I are visiting from Boise".

the worker told Linda she had grown up in LaGrande

which opened up a whole other conversation.

The worker turned out to be 

Shirley Ann Smurthwaite (Enns).

She was a year ahead of Steve in school and

her parents were good friends with Steve's parents.  

After our session Steve was able to 

visit with her for a few minutes and talk

about the good 'ole days. 

We had dinner at Denny's before returning

to our hotel.

Thursday morning we had breakfast at the

hotels restaurant .... Oliver's, packed

our bags, checked out, returned our rental car

and headed to our gate, all by 11 a.m.

oops....we didn't get on the flight to Salt Lake so

we switched from Delta to United

and caught a flight to San Francisco instead.

There were some delays and gate changes

but we were able to get on a late afternoon

flight to Boise.

We arrived home in Star at about 8:30 p.m.

We were tired and ready

for a good nights rest.

It was a quick, yet fun trip.  We got to visit the only

California Temple we hadn't been to yet and

quite unexpectedly got to 

meet an old friend.

It was a good trip!