On the Labor Day holiday, a couple of weeks ago, I had the good fortune of taking a day trip to Capitol Reef National Park.  We decided the night before that  we wanted to hit the road for a little change of scenery.  So,  I arose at the crack of 8:30am and we roared away from home at 9:30am.

   Nothing like an “early start” I say.  I don’t know what time my travel mate got up, but I do know she was up in time to  make our picnic lunch.  That included one of my trailside favorites – tuna fish sandwiches.  (I love high quality protein with omega 3 fatty acids slapped between slices of Grandma Sycamore’s white bread.)

   It takes a couple of hours to get to the park.  We stopped in at the visitor’s center and looked around.  Then I wanted to go into the Gifford Homestead house to see what pies were being offered.

   Cherry was the only kind in stock, which is actually my favorite fruit pie, but I had a hankering for peach pie.  So, I passed on the pie and saved the $9.99 price of the small pies, which are probably the equivalent of two pieces of pie in a restaurant.   So really, it’s not that bad of a deal.

   Then we were off to the trailhead of the Hickman Natural Bridge hike.  We’ve done several different hikes in Capitol Reef, but this has become our “go to” hike when we’re doing a later start day trip.

   It’s only about 2 miles round trip, but the hike outbound feels much longer than coming back.  Going out it’s kind of steep and demanding.  Coming back feels much shorter.

   It’s like that Steadman’s Recreation dealership advertisement slogan that they’ve used for years on TV, “It may be 300 miles to Tooele, but it’s only 30 miles back” (referring to the distance from Salt Lake to Tooele)

  We had the good fortune of finding a shady spot for our picnic at the span of the huge, 133 foot, sandstone Hickman Bridge.  And we had the good fortune of making friends with a very nice,  young couple from Poland.  We took each other’s pictures, exchanged email addresses,  and had some nice hiking and conversation together.

   I just noticed that once again I’ve been meandering and not getting to my topic.  This may be a pattern that has seeped into this column.  Maybe it’s subconsciously becoming a stylistic trademark.  Yes, that’s what I’ll call it! – for now.

   I’ll now make some sort of  not so straight “beeline” to the topic.  You’ll notice that the title at the top of this piece is “Good Fortune.”  And,  some of you may have noticed that I’ve used the phrase “good fortune” (on purpose) multiple times so far here.

   Saturday night, after all of my college football frenzy of flipping channels had calmed down, I settled in for a while on the PBS channel.  There was a Ken Burns documentary in progress.  It was about Ernest Hemingway, the legendary American author.  The show originally aired in 2021.

   I’ve been an admirer of Hemingway’s writing style.  I especially like the idea of shorter sentences without tons of flowery description.

   He had a complex life.  He had four wives in his lifetime.  Mental illness was a struggle for him.  (not that those two things were necessarily correlated)  He took his own life in Ketchum, Idaho – near Sun Valley.  I’ve been to the memorial by Trail Creek where there is a bronze bust of the author.

   In the documentary on TV, one of the commentators on Hemingway’s life quoted  the ancient Chinese, Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi:  “Good fortune is lighter than a feather, but no one knows how to carry it; misfortune is heavier than the earth, but no one knows how to escape it.”

   I suppose what that means is that when we have good fortune or good luck, it’s so easy that it’s often difficult to appreciate.  Misfortune, on the other hand, is a heavy burden and makes life hard to navigate.  Hemingway’s personal life, I suppose, was difficult for him on both sides of that equation.

   So when we came down from Wayne County and Capitol Reef, we detoured into Richfield.  We went to dinner, spur of the moment,  with relatives at the Little Wonder Cafe’ downtown at 101 N. Main Street.  It’s been there since 1929.

   I had the Chinese Special dinner.  At the end of the meal, I received what appeared to be a home-made fortune cookie.  The fortune inside read something like, “You will have a great breakfast at the Little Wonder Cafe’ soon!”   I thought that the better fortune would have been, “Bearer is entitled to a free breakfast at the Little Wonder Cafe’.”

   Good fortune hasn’t been happening for Chinese restaurants around the area lately.  It seems to have been a misfortune.  We’ve mourned the loss  of The Snow Dragon in Ephraim.  It was destroyed in an awful fire.  And,  South China Cafe’ has closed in Richfield.

   While writing this column, I cracked open a fortune cookie which I’ve had laying around. It  came from The Happy Dragon Express in Cedar Hills when we were there several weeks ago.

   I’ve been waiting for the right moment to open it.  I sometimes weirdly think that saving a fortune cookie makes it more valuable – like an old, unopened pack of baseball cards.  The problem is that the cookie goes stale.  And I actually like the taste of them.

   My fortune in that cookie read, “Your energy will be high in September.”  That begs the question, “In which year?”  (I’m trying to make it true now in 2026)

   There’s much that can be said about good fortune.  Maybe we’ll visit the topic again sometime.  But for now, here’s something to consider.

   There are approximately 8.315 billion people on earth.  There are approximately 349.5 million people in the United States.  Utah has a population of approximately 3.55 million.  Sanpete County’s population is estimated at around 32,025.

   Based on the premise that it is good fortune to be an American, I am one of the 4.2% of the world to be American.  Following that thread of thought, as a Utahn, I am one of 0.04% of the world.  And finally, as Sanpeters, we are 0.00039% of the world’s population.  (If you wanted to say that in words, it would be 39 millionths of one percent.)

   I consider it good fortune to live in Sanpete County.  It’s a “feather” that’s been put before me and I’m grateful for it.   I’m willing to do my best to “carry” it properly and proudly.  — Merrill