Conference Weekend

This was a good weekend. Saturday started when I opened the front door and was greeted by a pheasant walking up to the porch, just five or so feet away from me. I've never seen a pheasant in our front yard. I'm used to quail, and ducks even wander over frequently to rest on the lawn or play in the puddle in the low spot in front of our yard (see my previous blog on the blacktop for that pot hole). I had just read that Midvale City approved zoning so people can raise chickens in their yards, and when I first saw the pheasant, I thought, "What is that? Is it a chicken rooster?" It took several seconds for my mind to register that this was a pheasant. He ran away when I went out to take his picture, and this was the best I could get.

I decided to drive up to the Uintas to see if any beavers were active, so I loaded up the Toyota with camera gear and winter clothes. On the way I went to breakfast with Randy at Kneaders. They have great apple bread french toast with carmel syrup, whipping cream, and strawberries for $4.99. I invited Randy to go to the Uintas, since he just got a new camera yesterday. He was going to go, but then we realized he didn't have any warm clothes, and there's certainly still snow up there from last week's storm.

Just as I was leaving Kneaders, Jared called and asked whether I wanted to go to the Golden Spike National Historic Site with him and the kids, so I changed my plans and we headed to Corinne.

Just near the turnoff to the Golden Spike NHS is the ATK rocket headquarters (formerly Thiokol or Morton Thiokol). ATK builds the solid rocket fuel motors for the Space Shuttle and various other rockets and have a bunch of rockets on display in front of their plant. This is Jackson and Tanner at the base of a Minuteman missile. The Minuteman is the United States' only land-based nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile.

Waiting for the missile to fire.

This is the business end of a rocket's motor.

Jared, Jackson, and Tanner playing inside a section of a rocket.

Next we drove the last 10 miles to the Golden Spike NHS. Here's the group waiting for the train.

And here comes the 119, a replica of the Union Pacific's coal-fired engine that came from the east to Promontory Summit in 1869.

The engine lets off a lot of steam as it rolls. It needs to refill the tender with 2,000 gallons of water about every 35 miles, and fill the tender with coal about every 100 to 150 miles, depending on the terrain.

Jackson and Tanner are on the rails in front of the wood-burning Jupiter, which came from the west as the Central Pacific's representative for the driving of the Golden Spike.

Jared, Jackson, and Tanner sitting on the rail over the tie where the Golden Spike was driven.

And Michael with Jackson and Tanner.

Tanner dreaming of being a steam engineer. (Bonus, you can see the stripe where he cut his own hair the first of this week. Sara had to cut the rest of his hair off to try to match.)

Jackson looks pretty happy here, but a few minutes before this we were standing next to one of the engines when the steam pressure built up and a release valve popped open on top, letting out a loud steamy whooshing noise. Jackson and Tanner ran in two directions at top speed with their hands over their ears. Jackson never quite recovered, and on the way out he said, "I'm never coming back here. We can go to the rocket place again, but I'm never coming back here."

We tried to go on the west auto tour, but it was locked up (after we had driven seven miles down a dusty road to the entrance), so we came back to the National Historic Site at 4 p.m., when the Park Service put the trains away. We watched as the train blew its whistle (which also made the kids jump again, since we were sitting very close and the whistles are very loud, but this time we were expecting the noise), chugged up the track and back, and then chugged away and into the barn. The kids enjoyed this.

Sunday morning came with lightning, hail, and rain. And wind. And cold. This is the flag at Murray Park, where I listened to the morning session of general conference.

At 1 p.m. we went to my dad's for our traditional general conference pot luck. Janet made her great chicken salad sandwiches on croissants and seven-layer salad, and everyone else brought salads, brownies, cheese cakes, and other good stuff. I asked who brought the watermelon with real seeds, since I haven't seen oblong-shaped watermelons with seeds in any stores around here for a long time. The last one I tasted I bought in Green River when Randy and I went to Mesa Verde a few weeks ago, and it was the best watermelon I've tasted since the last time I had eaten a seeded watermelon several years ago. It turns out Reed Tranter and my dad were looking for something to do one day, so they drove to Green River and bought a watermelon. Green River is about four or so hours from here.

At the dinner were Nancy and Cecil; Andrea, Jordan, Maddison, and Kaitlin; Lindsay, Ryan, Thomas, and Emma; Janet; Jennifer and Stanton; Chieko and me; Sara, Jared, Jackson, and Tanner; Paul, Cindy, Megan, and Marcus; Heather, Jason, and Parker; Tiffany, Mick, and Addy, who came later after they unloaded their boat from a Lake Powell trip; and Neil and Julie Scovil (Linda was invited but was hosting a singles dinner in her ward). Did I miss anyone?

After dinner, Jennifer took the kids to her house to feed Stanton's lizard. It eats live crickets and meal worms (pretty much little maggot-like worms that turn into beetles if lizards don't eat them first). The kids all had fun holding and petting the lizard. Some were more timid than others, but Tanner was not one of the timid ones.

Jackson was a little more timid, but after his first turn holding the lizard, named Skinny, he wanted a second turn.

We also watched the last session of conference. Some watched most of it in the TV room upstairs, and some of us watched just President Monson's closing remarks in Janet's living room.

You can download full-size versions of these pictures and some others from my gallery at http://gallery.mac.com/michaelastle. Email me for the user name and password for this album.