One day in 1995 we stopped with the kids at Parowan Gap to see the petroglyphs. Continue reading Parowan Gap, Utah Petroglyphs
Tag: Utah
Tomato Soup in the Temple
In the second week of June of the year 1965, our parents took us for a trip across the country to Salt Lake City, Utah to the Mormon Temple to be sealed to each other for time and all eternity. For better and for worse. No, I don’t think that was actually said, but it was supposed to be a binding experience and one not to be taken lightly nor forgotten.
There were, at that time, four children in our family.
We drove from Michigan and camped out along the way. When it started to get late they found a spot and set up camp. I have a memory of waking up to a school bus load of kids peeking at us in our sleeping bags as we had slept outside a country school in Illinois my parents thought was no longer in use.
Once we arrived at Salt Lake we were dressed in our best white clothing and taken to the Temple. Our parents had interviews and other things they had to do before we were to be sealed to them, so we were taken to the Temple Nursury for several hours.
I recall the big old baby buggys, lined up against a wall for infants. The older ladies who were in charge were much like our own grandmothers, kind and trying to be fun while keeping a spirit of reverence.
We were used to always having our mother’s cooking so when it can time for lunch we didn’t quite know how to take the, “new” food placed lovingly on the table before us.
When mom made us Tomato soup, it had cream and sugar instead of water and never rice in it. I don’t remember what the exact cause was but another boy was there waiting for his parents too and he and my older sister decided to get into a mess. She was around five and he was close to that age too.
The poor ladies never saw it coming.
Right from the beginning of the food fight it was a mess. These little children, all dressed in their best white clothing, now covered in soup that could stain.
All I remember is they were not happy ladies, the food fight ended and we were cleaned up and separated until our parents arrived.
I do remember our parents arriving at the room and taking us into an elevator and going up to a room where it looked like a place from a fairytale castle and we criss crossed our little hands one on top of the other over the altar and the man in charge said a prayer and declared us an eternal family.
We left that day with a totally different story of our first time at a Temple than most, and I am certain we helped initiate a new menu plan for the Nursury.
My parents were very happy that day, and as we left Salt Lake they took the above photo of the Temple. Decades later, after my own marriage in that edifice, I found myself living almost where the bottom right hand corner of the picture starts.
Everytime I eat Tomato Soup I think of the Temple.
Tip-toeing and camera flashing through the tulips
It’s become a tradition of sorts to drive down to Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah during Tulip Festival.
The girls were just tiny the first time and now every spring their words come begging to know when they can go.
When I looked at this photo from a year or two ago, I wanted to name it something else. I wanted to call it, “Not As the World Giveth” and I wanted to photoshop out the ladies in the background. Then I realized this one includes them too.
We try to go to the festival when we think the least amount of other people will be there, because we all go to see the flowers, to breathe in the smells of nature, to feel the spray of water as you walk the pathways.
We all go there to find peace.
It is like any other beautiful spot, a place of reverie, we lean over and smell the flowers and peer into their amazing artwork, and as children, they just enjoy the moment and then it moves on.
For adults, like the woman taking pictures, we try to preserve these moments for as long as we can. We prepare for this day. We choose our clothing so we can feel as pretty as the flowers. We find the best camera for our needs. We make sure we will have the perfect picnic lunch. Some gather the children to take while others get sitters so they can spend this time alone. Others go there hoping to meet a romantic stranger.
But we all go.
And sometimes, even if just for a moment, we find peace.
a storm over Manti
One day as we were driving along the backroads of central Utah with LaVan Martineau and his girls, he looked over and asked what could I see in the mountains?
There was silence for a bit as I took a look out the window and finally the answer came very quietly. “All I ever see when I look at the mountains are birds.”
He got his big grin out and said, “Yes! That is what you are supposed see!”
Now, that is not all you are supposed to see, one day he showed me a large snake on the mountain, but a small landslide had occurred recently that changed the snake to a broken snake and he pointed this out to us and possible meanings. It’s a fun thing to be able to drive along with someone who can read the mountains and teach at the same time.
Many would not listen to thoughts such as these, but then, they miss out on all the fun too!
This picture here above was taken high on a mountaintop west of Manti, Utah. It was a very stormy day and one in which no sane people would be driving up there, but there we found ourselves. As we got out to take this picture a very large eagle descended upon us so we rushed to the truck for cover, beautiful & scarey at the same time.
You can’t see the rainbow that was just forming on the other side of the valley, but maybe, just maybe you can see the bird?
His tailfeathers are spread wide and he is about to swoop down over the valley.
What things do you see when you look at the mountains? Whatever it is, I hope you have fun looking!
Go Get My Sticks
I didn’t always use them. I’d never seen it done. Dowsing was for crazy old loons wasn’t it?
Our family spends an inordinate amount of time hunting down old family cemeteries and graves, hoping to find a piece of ourselves. (The above is my Dad at Snells Bush Church Cemetery in New York)
One day at work in Burlington, Iowa, a co-worker said she was going with a group to learn to dowse so they could find the graves in a Paupers Field. This interested me and was the start of many small experiments with “the sticks,” as we call them.
Thay came in very handy when Gideon couldn’t talk to tell us what was wrong, or when deciding which oil to use to help heal.
Sometimes we take them with us out into the desert while petroglyping so as to know to stay away from shallow Native graves under big rocks. 
Sometimes, like in the above picture up Diamond Fork Canyon, they all go bonkers and then you know to leave it be.
They come in handy when a remote gets thrown in the garbage by tiny hands or finding most missing items.
For mine I prefer a cheap hangar bent at just the right places and cut down to size.
I may tell of a few other times when some rods appeared just when needed but that is for another story.
My kids all know just where to look when they hear the words, “Go get my sticks!”
Safety in the Fall 