Wedding Bells!

Drew Madsen, my roommate of two years, got married today in the Manti Temple. I got to watch him be married. It was glorious. Check out the happy couple coming out of the temple:



The Manti Temple itself rests upon a hill, and is the county's dominant landmark:



Beautiful, isn't it? Interestingly, this majestic temple is out in the middle of nowhere!

Sanpete County, Utah is a sparsely-populated agrarian and mining area that's dotted with tiny 200-or-so-inhabitant "towns." Most of these towns' residents are descendants of the original pioneers sent by Brigham Young to colonize the land. Driving through these towns, you really see how old everything is:



...and, most of the pioneers who settled the area were (like Drew's ancestors) Scandinavian, as attested by the ubiquity of Nordic last names:




...and outside the little towns it's just farmland as far as the eye can see:



Wow, isn't that awesome?