Day 15 & 16 Mt Pleasant to Ephraim

Ephraim is an awesome town of old-time charm and class. We had people coming out of their places of business, or stopping on the street even though they were late for work, to give us encouragement and donations. By the time we ended the day we had raised $219 – our best day since leaving Utah Valley.

I have lots of fond memories of Ephraim that go back to my childhood, when we would come down to visit our friends, the Snows. As I passed all of the turkey farms coming into town I was reminded of an incident one summer, long ago. One of the best parts of visiting the Snows was the opportunity to ride their horses. They had a smart little quarter horse named Penny, who had been trained as a barrel racer and could cut a corner faster than you could blink and didn’t especially care it the rider stayed with her when she made her cut. They also had another rather non-discript mare, Sugar, who’s only defining feature was that she was blind in her right eye – a gift from an abusive former owner.  

Sugar acted like a typical dude ranch horse – she hated to go out of the stable and fought all the way out, but got excited and difficult to rein in when she was on her way home. On this particular day, I was riding Sugar, and Gary Snow was on Penny. We fought the fight to get out and away for an hour or two, but then it was time to come home. As we got closer, Sugar predictably picked up her pace and was clipping right along with her barrel racing buddy when a cottontail popped out of the fields and scurried down the dirt road we were on. Gary couldn’t resist chasing the rabbit. As soon as Gary and Penny took off, Sugar kicked it into high gear and started to head home at break neck speed. All I could do was hang on.

As we raced along the road, I noticed for the first time that there was a large turkey farm to the right of the road. The racing horses spooked the turkeys and they started flapping and squawking and running into the fence. All the racket stirred up by the turkeys caught Sugar’s attention and she whipped her head around so that she could see what the fuss was about with her good left eye. Up ahead  I saw the road we were on ended in a “T”. The rabbit rounded the corner, then Gary, and I started to lean into the turn. Sugar felt the shift and turned her head back to what was in front of her and realized the road was ending. She panicked. With all she had in her, Sugar came to a stop as sudden as I have ever seen a horse stop. It was the one time in all my riding that I wished my saddle didn’t have a saddle horn. Yeah, I stayed on the horse, but would have been much better off to have been hurled over the top and pitched on my head.

Further into town, I passed the old graveyard we once had played hide-and-seek in when our ward had come down to Snow College for Youth Conference. The game didn’t last long. No one wanted to be the one that was never found.

Ephraim, part of Little Denmark, is host to the Scandinavian Festival. I first experienced Swedish meatballs here several years ago. That is a piece of my heritage I really enjoy. What a great place!

 Some friends from Utah Heritage Credit Union came out to greet us and presented us with some donations. They had heard about us on the radio and were waiting for us to come down the street. They were soooo nice!