What’s Up everybody?
OH MAN! has it been a cold week for us out here in Utah. I know that it fall but it has felt more like winter. In fact while I’m sitting here writing this post, I’m staring at our snow capped mountains. Adventure doesn’t hibernate during the winter though. No, it just heads south for warmer weather. Just kidding. Believe me, we’ve had plenty of winter adventures and I’m sure that we will add a few more to that list this year.
Ever since we moved back, our lives have been pretty hectic. Whether it was unpacking, catching up with friends or just trying to get re-familiar with the area. Needless to say, our weekends have been busy. We have been looking forward to having a nice relaxing adventure that would take little to no effort. That is what we found, for the most part but I’ll get to that later. Before we left Chicago, Erin had found out that there would be a lantern festival coming and she really wanted to go. Unfortunately we moved before we had the chance to go. Luckily she found out that Utah was going to have one. We packed up the car and headed out to Tooele for the 2018 Lantern Fest.
Tooele……Well, the Utah Motorsports Park, where the event was being held, is about 35 miles from Salt Lake City. When we first arrived we were a little confused. For as large of a event that Lantern Fest was supposed to be, there was nobody to be seen. We drove around the facility thinking that maybe we missed the entrance. We finally found some one that worked there and he informed us that it had been postponed do to high winds. Understandably, I was irritated that they didn’t send us an email or something that would have informed us that it had been postponed.
Frustrated, I thanked the guy and we went on our way. It wasn’t until we were on our way home that we received a texted say that the date had changed. I guess they were have issues with their system or something. What a waste of a day, if we would have been notified earlier we could have planned something much better. I guess its dinner and a movie for us. We saw Small Foot by the way. It was a cute, fun movie. I think it was worth seeing.
Fast forward two weeks and we are back at it again. Packed up our car and headed back out to Tooele. This time when we got there, everything looked right. The parking lots were full of cars, there was people waiting in lines, and tents had been set up. Luckily for us, we purchased our tickets online so we could skip the line and head right in. We made our way to the tent that had our care packages. Inside of them was one lantern, a marker to decorate and a s’more kit. With our kits in hand , all we had left was to find a place to sit and enjoy.
Now I will have to say this. If you have a large group you should probably get there early so that you can all sit together at a fire pit. The fire pits are not assigned and there is only so many of them. We arrived a little later in the day and ended up sharing a pit with a few strangers. It turned out that Gabe, Alanna, Sarah, and Hasam ( sorry if I misspelled it) were very friendly and we quickly meshed with them. Come to find out, none of us had been to Lantern Fest before. We would be losing our Lantern Fest virginity together. How exciting! I’ll be honest, I’m not a huge fan of being stuck with people that I don’t know but it was really fun to talk with them and to here their stories.
Around 8 o’clock, we got the OK to light up our lanterns. You know the scene from Tangled were they let the lanterns go and they float into the air and fly away. That is what it looked like. Well for some of us. I will admit that I pictured it like this. We would light the lanterns and they would graceful lift out of our hands and float away. That didn’t happen for us. Instead. As we were waiting for the lanterns to fill up with hot air, a wind gust came through and flung them away from us. Like fools we chased after them with the hope that we would get a chance to get them into the air. It didn’t happen for us but for many they went without a hitch. We learned some valuable lesson for next time we go.
I have always associated lantern festivals with Asian culture and traditions. For good reasons too. The Chinese have been doing it since the Western Han Dynasty dating back to 206 BCE. Better known as the Spring Festival, it was held on the 15th day of the first month of the Chinese Lunar Calendar (February / March) to celebrate the New Year. The lanterns would be plain or simply decorated. Nothing too flashy, unless you were of Nobility and you could afford to have a more ornate one. The releasing of the lanterns had different meanings for everyone, but for many it was to symbolize the letting go of the past self to make way for the new self.
For us modern day celebrators, our lanterns were simple and plain. Made out of biodegradable materials because we are more environmentally friendly than our friends from the past. We all took a moment to decorate our lanterns with the marker that was provided. As with the past, everyone had their own reason to release the lanterns. Some wrote messages of hope and inspiration. Others for love and lets face it some because they could. For us, it was to celebrate the ending of one chapter of our book of life and starting a new one.
My message was a simple one. To those who came before and to those who come after. Let the adventure continue. I stand by these words. It took many to get us to where we are today. For those that come after us, they will live our legacy and continue to move forward to build their own.
I hope that you get a chance to attend Lantern Fest. We had an amazing time and met some great people.
Until next time. Thanks for stopping by.
Josh
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