Stadium of Fire, Printing Museum, and Camping

Stadium of Fire this year was on Saturday, July 1. We didn't feel like paying the money to go to the stadium itself, so instead, we decided to take a trip up to the "Y" and watch the fireworks from there. It was quite the experience. Instead of looking up at the fireworks, we looked down on them with the Provo city lights as a backdrop. It was very cool. Too dark to take pictures, though...

On the Fourth of July, we went rollerblading in Provo Canyon in the morning (covering about 11 miles), got Jamba Juice for our "second" breakfast, and then went to the Crandall Printing Museum in downtown Provo. There, they have the only working replica of the first printing press that was designed by Johann Gutenberg. Johann Gutenberg was ranked #1 on A&E's "People of the Millennium" countdown in 1999. This is because his invention, the printing press with movable type figures, was the single most important invention in bringing the world out of the Dark Ages. Before Gutenberg's printing press, all books had to be hand-copied. This, obviously, was a long and expensive process, taking about five years just to copy the Bible. However, with the invention of the printing press, books could be printed more quickly and efficiently. This allowed more people to own books and to use these books to learn. Thus, people became more enlightened as they had access to more information and the Dark Ages ended. Here is a picture of us in front of the printing press.


One other thing to note is the importance of the printing press in publishing the Book of Mormon. Without printing, the Book of Mormon would not be so accessible to us and we would probably only have one copy per family (if we took the time to hand-copy it). That is one of the things that the museum points out. They also point out the the Internet and computers are really an extension of the first printing press. I would highly recommend visiting the Crandall Historical Printing Museum at 275 E. Center Street in Provo, Utah if ever you have the chance.

Lastly, we went camping this weekend. We made foil dinners to take with us, which had carrots, red potatoes, broccoli, steak, and onions. We also discovered an important secret about cooking the foil dinners in the fire. After wrapping everything in foil, you put two layers of damp newspaper around the foil and then another layer of foil. This helps to evenly cook everything inside. Then, it just took about 45 minutes to cook. Very delicious.