Up to Baguio . . .

President Edwards asked us to accompany the area presidency to a training meeting in the stakes around a place called Baguio (bah-GEE-oh, hard “g” like in guess). This is north of Manila, up in the top portion of Luzon. Baguio is in the mountains. These mountains are high and steep, not rocky, covered with jungle foliage. People told us we would need our coats when we went to Baguio.

We left before noon on a Friday and traveled for about six hours, part of the way on the NLEX, but most of it on provincial roads – two narrow lanes. We had seven of us: the Edwards, the Kos, the Roundys, and Sister Millett. (Her husband had gone up a day earlier as part of his Church assignment.) Elder Edwards drove his van. He drives like he had taken lessons at the demolition derbies, and fast.

Along the way we stopped for lunch in Tarlac. This was a seafood Chinese restaurant. We had a large round table with a turning “Lazy Susan” in the center. We each ordered a dish of our choice and then shared, turning the Lazy Susan around and around. The Kos ordered a fish to eat, with head and all. No one but Elder Ko and Sister Kim (husband and wife) bothered with the fish. The rest of the fare was pretty good.

About an hour before dark we got to the base of the Baguio mountains. President Edwards had apparently taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way, so this road was one he had not been on before, but it was a delightful mistake. Up the winding mountain road we went, back and forth along the contours of the hillside, across narrow bridges between peaks and back and forth up the next summit. It had been raining and the road was wet. Water falls poured off the hillside, plunging down into the river below, terrace after terrace. The green leafs shining in the wet air. Rainbows glowing in the shafts of sunlight. The terrain looked like what often is seen in pictures of Peru and the high mountain villages in South America.

You could see the clouds rising up the mountainside, and eventually we worked our way up to them, then through them and on higher up the road. Looking back we could see the clouds below us, snuggling around the hills like a soft, wool fleece.

Baguio is built on the hillsides. There is not a flat place there. The houses are cascading down the side of the mountain and perched on the edges of the cliffs. No backyards to play in, lest you spill into the valley below. The roads wind through the city, back and forth, up and down. From here you could see the ocean coast off to the northwest – faintly through the haze.

We stayed at a place called Camp John Hay (named after one of President Lincoln's cabinet secretaries). This was a nice, almost ostentatious resort. The Travel Department had secured for us a place with two bathrooms, a living room, a bedroom, a kitchenette. The living room and kitchen was larger than our whole apartment in the Temple Housing. We stayed there Friday and Saturday nights. We had dinner with the others in the dining room. Again, this was a rather formal affair, at least the menu and service were.

On Saturday Elder Roundy went with President Edwards and the mission president, President Collado, back down the mountain to the stake center in San Fernando La Union (off the mountains somewhere north of Baguio) and attended the training meetings all day. Sister Roundy didn’t. She went shopping and site-seeing with the other sisters. The mission president’s wife had arranged to have someone guide them on a shopping tour of Baguio. She saw the military academy, the strawberry fields, a silk factory with live silk worms. She said she enjoyed the day -- a welcomed break from the computer. Elder Roundy attended six hours of meetings, not needing to say a single word (nor taking minutes either, it should be added).

On Sunday the group split up and went their separate ways. Elder Ko and his wife, Sister Kim, went to another stake to dedicate a new building. Brother and Sister Millett stayed at the hotel for an extra day of vacation, and the Roundys joined with the Edwardses to dedicate the new Naguillian chapel (nah-GOOee-lee-on).

Then it was dead-head back to Manila. Edwards deployed his driving skills and got us back in five hours (well, six and a half if you count the trip down the mountain from Baguio to Naguillian).

Wonderful adventure.