Weekends in Winter

I like to go into the west desert in the winter, because the east mountains aren't as accessible, except for skiing and snow shoeing. Here are some pictures from the past few winter weekends in western and southern Utah.

If you saw the eagle perched on a utility pole on my Facebook page, you're probably wondering if this is the same eagle and why the sky is white. It's the same eagle, and the sky in the other picture is blue because of PhotoShop. Now look closely at this and tell me whether that's a mouse in the eagle's clutches.

I love how the utility poles, fence and train tracks all follow the same line. I guess that's expected, but it looks cool.

This is Magnesium Corporation of America, MagCorp, which is in the news frequently for polluting. A titanium plant is next to MagCorp.

I drove out to the Great Salt Lake shore on February 5. I got off I-80 at the Lakepoint exit (Tooele exit), and as I exited I saw a guy parked on the eastbound side of the freeway and walking across the 75-mph lanes. "Natural selection," I thought. As my exit ramped met the ramp that enters I-80 westbound, I noticed a couple other cars parked and people walking toward this collection pond. This is right where the westbound on-ramp transitions from a 55-mph straight ramp to a sharp right-hand 20-mph loop. It took me a second to figure out that a vehicle had gone into the pond, and by then I was past the point of being able to stop safely, although I considered going back. But because a few other drivers had stopped, I decided to continue on to Subway. Plus, a Highway Patrol car arrived just as I was leaving the off-ramp. While waiting in line for a sandwich, I saw a couple of fire trucks and an ambulance go by. With my sandwich on the passenger seat, I tried to get back onto I-80 westbound, but the ramp was blocked by emergency equipment. So I U-turned and got on the freeway eastbound, made a U-turn at Highway 201, and headed west again on I-80. As I passed the accident I snapped this picture. On the way home later in the evening I heard on the news that the Utah Highway Patrolman who had arrived was Travis Williams, whom I had taught when he was in my 13-year-olds' Sunday School class. He's Sara's age. Apparently two women had gotten out of the van, but one was unable to get out of her seat and was screaming, so Travis went into the ice-covered water and freed her. I still wonder if I should have, could have stopped and helped. Apparently the other drivers didn't go in to get the lady out, and she ended up in the water for 20 minutes. I think or hope I would have gone right in to help if I had stopped. The lady had hypothermia, but was okay. The driver said she'd been cut off by another car, but that is hardly possible, since there's only one on-ramp lane and had been for 1/4 mile. She just wasn't paying attention to the sudden curve, I'm sure.

This train is crossing the road that goes to MagCorp.

I travelled on I-80 past Delle and got off at the Lakeshore exit. About 20 miles north of I-80 is this rock and a small gravel pit that is a great place for target shooting. Just past here, the road makes a left turn onto "No Tresspassing" U.S. Air Force property. A dirt road continues north to the shore of the Great Salt Lake. It goes through a fenced-off munitions disposal area that is posted with signs that tell drivers to stay on the roadway. A gate at one point has a sign that says something like, "Closed for bomb disposal." The gate is usually open.

At the lake's shore is a strip mine. I think this is just a rock mine for roadbeds and such. It doesn't look like there are any valuable minerals, but I don't know for sure. I came out here about 10 years ago and found several white camouflage military tanks lined along the shore. Unfortunately, I've found no trace of them since.

This tire must be difficult to repair.

Trains run through the mine property.

Above the mine is a hill with a radio tower, a great place to view the lake. This causeway is the Lucin Cutoff, which takes the railroad tracks across the lake rather than around to the north, along the route the original Transcontinental Railroad took.

This is a view of the Lucin Cutoff form another hilltop to the east of the mine.

This area has bizarre rock formations. I think this is the skeleton of the famous Great Salt Lake Monster. See his eyes and nose?

This looks to me like a moonscape, but I know I'm not on the moon, because I can see it rising in the east.

Along the south side of this hill is a fenced area, part of the bombing range or munitions disposal area. This tank is in a little wash that also has a couple of burned-out cars, a tipped-over pickup truck, another tank, a missile on a stand, and a couple of black buildings. I assume these are all targets, or very unfortunate Weekend Warriors.

This lava rock is full of cracks that have been filled with a carmel-colored mineral.

I can usually depend on seeing antelope whenever I come into the west desert.

This is an island in the Great Salt Lake north of the mine at Lakeshore.

To the right in this picture is a the Lucin Cutoff causeway with a train heading east. From the radio tower I could see the lights from trains while they were still in Nevada. The sectioned areas in what I think is Clyman Bay are evaporation ponds. The water collects in these ponds and evaporates. Then workers collect the leftover salt, minerals, and precious metals that had been suspended in the dense water.

Sunset over Clyman Bay.

On Monday, February 7, we went to the Weavers' for Superman Tanner's birthday.

He wanted and got an Easy Bake Oven. Tanner is quite the food connoisseur--he has always loved shrimp and other expensive foods. So I wasn't surprised to hear he wanted an Easy Bake Oven. Then I wondered why it's always been marketed to little girls--it has pictures of little girls on the box--especially considering that the majority of famous chefs are men.

On Saturday, February 12, I drove out to Antelope Island. This is a state park and costs $9 per car to enter. It's a great place, especially this time of year. The island is accessible by this causeway (Antelope Drive exit from I-15).

A thin layer of fresh water on top of the heavy salt water of the Great Salt Lake freezes. The wind and water then push the ice into these piles.

This is my Sequoia crossing the causeway.

The visitor center is worth a stop, and it's home to this fiberglass bison that has forward-pointing horns. I don't know what is normal for a bison, but the live ones I saw on the island had upward-pointing horns.

This is looking south from Buffalo Point. They're too small to see in this picture, but seven bison bulls are down in the valley on the left side of this picture. While I was cooking and eating my freeze-dried beef stroganoff, the bison wandered up to the road just below the Buffalo Point picnic area.

After a short staredown with the car, this bull did a little jump to his right and walked off.

The bulls were meandering around eating the winter grass.

Here's a herd of bison on the way to the south part of the island. I'm on my way to the Garr Ranch.

The ranch looks like a pretty fun place for kids and families.

Inside a workroom on the ranch.

A housing room on the ranch.

This is a stroller from some bygone time.

A few old tractors line a fence behind the ranch buildings.

These tractors are really old, but they look like they still run. There used to be a Massey Ferguson sales lot on State Street and about 5800 South, where there is now a gas station. We walked past the lot every day on the way to and from junior high school.

This is Salt Lake City as seen from the Garr Ranch at the south end of the paved road on Antelope Island. The island continues farther south, but the dirt road from here is closed to the public.

This is looking toward Kaysville and the Weavers' house from just north of the Garr Ranch. I'm pretty sure the white structure is the concrete silo next to I-15 at the 200 North Kaysville exit.

Antelope Island does have native antelope. The bison are not native. Twelve bison were brought here in the early 1900s from a ranch in Tooele County, which got them from Texas, when bison nearly disappeared from the United States. By disappeared, I mean killed by hunters, who slaughtered them by the millions for sport and to drive the Indians, who depended on the bison, off the plains. About 750 bison from the original 12 now inhabit Antelope Island. They are rounded up yearly, checked for health problems, and vaccinated against diseases such as brucellosis.

Traveling back across the causeway I saw what looked like a stream within the lake. It broke up the ice on the south side of the causeway.

On Presidents' Day weekend (Sunday evening) I decided to drive down Highway 89, since I hadn't been on that road for several years. The town in the distance is Aurora, where my dad spent his childhood.

Dad learned to swim in a canal in Aurora. This is a major canal that runs right through the middle of the town, so I assume it's the one he swam in.

This is some business now, but it looks like it used to be a school. I'm guessing it's the elementary school my dad attended, but I need to ask him. Maybe it's never been a school, and maybe it was built after he lived there.

In Panguitch, I stayed in the Color Country Inn, one of only three or so motels that were open. The several other motels had a foot or two of unplowed snow in their parking lots. By the time I went to bed, I was the only guest, but I did see another car when I left about 5:30 in the morning. Once I got here, I decided the only interesting thing to do was to go to Bryce Canyon, and I figured I may as well go see the sun rise.

Bryce Canyon is a year-round national park, but almost all tourist places around Bryce Canyon are closed for the season.

I stopped at Inspiration Point just inside the park entrance, partly because I was afraid I would miss the sunrise if I took the time to go farther and partly because the road is closed beyond here. The moon was getting ready to set as I arrived at the Inspiration Point lookout.

A young guy from Germany was also here. He said he comes to the U.S. Southwest about twice a year and spends four weeks each time. He said people in Europe get more vacation time than people in the United States. He works for a carpet manufacturer in Dusseldorf, which sounds like a very flat, densely populated industrial area. He said it was -2 degrees F in Bryce Canyon when we were there, which didn't take into account the windchill. I'm guessing that was -10 or -15.

Looking south from Inspiration Point.

Snow-capped spires.

I think this is the choir.

Bryce Canyon bowl from Inspiration Point.

The snow was quite deep. Luckily a lot of people had tramped up to the lookout since the new snow on Friday and Saturday, so the trail wasn't too difficult to negotiate.

Another view of the snow.

This is going down the canyon from Bryce Canyon National Park. This whole area has rich orange rock.

A cliff on the drive down.

I think this is the Sevier River. Those are clumps of ice floating down the river.

A chilly marriage.

Don't plan a motorcycle trip for winter in southern Utah.

This homesteader finally gave up the ghost.

I think this guy helped build the original Highway 89.

This is beachfront summer rental property for some lucky family.

A lot of abandoned homes are scattered throughout this part of the state.

These are two of 18 12-foot crosses erected to honor Utah Highway Patrol officers who died on the job. The Texas-based American Atheists, Inc., sued the Utah Highway Patrol and a private group that paid for the crosses claiming these are unconstitutional, because crosses are religious. Three stupid judges on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals found in favor of the atheist group, reversing a lower court ruling. I'm not sure where this case is in appeals, but for now these two crosses are still here.

I've been playing around photographing falling-down buildings in light brown tones.

I forgot where this cemetery is for sure. It's on top of a hill outside Circleville or one of those towns on Highway 89.

These petroglyphs (chiseled into the rock) are called Newspaper Rock in Fremont State Park outside Richfield on I-70. There are also pictographs (painted on the rock) in this park.

The petroglyph that looks like a train is a train. It was carved by Paiute elder Hunkup in the late 1800s after he rode a train to Chicago and back. This is among several pictures that are hundreds of years old, and also some very recent additions. I'm not sure which is vandalism, but anything since 1900 seems like it fits that category.

This caboose is at the end of a bike trail that was laid on an old railway bed up a canyon. It looks like someone is building a train park. Update (April 2011): I just learned that someone is turning this place into a resort of sorts (maybe the Big Rock Candy Mountain people across the highway), and this and other cabooses will be motel rooms.

Drive to Texas in March 2010

I was just deleting interviews and other stuff from my voice recorder and found my observations from when I drove to Irving, TX, to drop the Corolla off so John could use it for the summer. I'm not sure why I'm putting this here, but it seems a waste just to delete it all. I already covered this trip with pictures a year ago. The following is pretty much a direct transcript of what I heard on the recordings:

Gas Prices

I’m curious about gas prices. Of course, gas prices in Utah are ridiculously high. When I got down into New Mexico, I actually almost ran out of gas. I got off of I-40 and went south toward Roswell on a big four-lane divided highway, not a freeway, but divided, and I had maybe half a tank of gas. I drove miles and miles and miles and never went through a town and never saw a gas station. I was getting to about a quarter of a tank and was getting worried. I finally came to a little town in the middle of nowhere with one gas station. Gas there was $2.79 (and I filled up). Later I got to a town called Artesia, which is south of Roswell, and it’s actually an oil-refining town. Gas there was $2.99. Why is it that in the oil-refining towns gas is more than way out in the middle of nowhere?

Rattlesnakes (NM)

I did a U-turn at a rest stop before Roswell, probably about where, no, I think Gene (see below) told me that there's one alien crash near the highway that goes from Santa Rosa to Roswell and it's about halfway between the rest stop and Roswell. So I was turning around at that rest stop and I noticed a sign that said, Truck Parking, and there was another sign under it that said, Beware of Rattlesnakes. I was thinking that if I had to go to the bathroom I would suddenly decide that I didn’t need to go that bad after all.

Aliens (Roswell, NM)

Were there aliens or not? Gene, at the souvenir shop in Roswell, says there were three crash sites. Aliens were attracted here because we (the U.S. government) were doing above-ground nuclear testing, and the nuclear bombs we set off were fusion, which is a nuclear explosion, and what stars do is nuclear fission, which is an implosion. So the aliens recognized the difference and were attracted to it (fusion), and they went to Hiroshima and Nagasaki first, but they realized that was just radiation left over, that there was nothing going on. So then they came over here and checked out White Sands and the three places where they were testing nuclear bombs in New Mexico. And some of those were just radiation. But then they went up north, where nuclear bombs were still being built, and that was hot. So they sent three ships, at least, to investigate. And because of the way the mountain ranges are situated—there’s a mountain range that goes north and south; I’m not sure if it’s the Guadalupe Mountains. Then there’s a piece of mountain near Roswell that goes east and west off of those. And that causes weird storms and extreme winds and so forth. I think it was on July 4, 1947, that these aliens came to investigate the nuclear whatever was going on here, and two of them got caught in the winds and crashed. Each of those spaceships had two beings aboard. And they died, supposedly, or supposably, as Gene said. The third one, which was out more on the west side; there were some archeologists doing a dig, and they were really ticked off because they had permission to dig there, and no one else did, and they found a camp site. They reported it and the police or someone came out to investigate and found that it was aliens and there was an intact spaceship. They chased down the aliens and caught them. All of the spaceship pieces—the debris from one crash site stretched over 20 miles, or 400 yards, I don’t know. All of this material got taken to someplace in New Mexico. Gene doesn't know if anything was taken to Area 51. It was taken up north in New Mexico. And Americans first claimed it wasn’t anything of theirs; it was the Russians or Germans or somebody spying on our nuclear activity. Anyway, they took all the pieces to the same place where they took other stuff, like pieces of MIGs, so they could do reverse engineering on them. If it was an American device that crashed, they would have taken it back to an Air Force base in the south part of New Mexico. But they took this to the north place, where they do foreign investigations, so the American claims afterward that this was an American weather balloon or something were false, because if it were American they would have taken it to a different base. Also, the ranchers and so forth around Roswell knew the difference between weather balloons and other stuff, because they were actually being paid $30 or something if they retrieved weather balloons and hauled them in to Roswell and gave them to the Air Force. Anyway, that’s Gene’s story, and he’s sticking to it.

Aliens Part Two (Roswell, NM)

So the alien that I saw, I’m not sure it was an alien, but I have my suspicions. It looked like the body of a sheep with the head of a cow, so I have my suspicions that it was an alien in earthly disguise.

Cactus to Carlsbad Caverns (NM)

Driving up to Carlsbad Caverns is a little canyon with a little stream, although there was no water in it when I was there. On either side, things were pretty green, green with a lot of cactus and bushes that were just as stiff and mean as the cactus. Everything that grew there was just ornery. Anyway, so I was taking a picture of a cactus, because they have pretty flowers. I kind of squatted to take a picture, and when I stood up I reached back and discovered I had a bunch of cactus spines sticking in the bum of my pants. Luckily they didn’t go all the way through, and luckily I found them before I got in the car.

Carlsbad Caverns (NM)

So, this is how they make you feel comfortable at Carlsbad Caverns: People wonder whether rocks fall off the ceilings and kill people. And the answer is, No, you don’t have to worry about it. Rocks hardly ever fall off the ceiling. For example, that great, big, ginormous rock in the center there that we call The Iceberg fell off of the ceiling. But that was a long time ago. And that doesn’t happen anymore. And see those things that look like sticks in the bottom of that little pool? Those are stalactites that fell off of the ceiling, we think probably during an earthquake. But don’t worry; we don’t have earthquakes anymore, and when we do, they’re usually pretty minor.

Green Algae (Carlsbad Caverns, NM)

The green color you seen in Carlsbad Caverns is algae that wouldn’t normally grow there, except the wavelength of the lights they use, the Park Service uses, happens to grow that type of algae. The other colors, the orange—the natural color is white, because most or all of the stalactites and stalagmites are gypsum, the same thing you make sheetrock out of. If there’s orange, it means there’s iron in it. The other colors are other elements.

Bats (Carlsbad Caverns, NM)

I wish I had a thermometer. Down here by Carlsbad Caverns, heading out toward Texas, it feels like about 90 degrees. The temperature inside the Caverns is a constant 53 degrees with 90 percent humidity. And I have to say, going into the Caverns, as you approach the main entrance, it stinks. There are bats in there. In fact, these caves are famous for the Carlsbad Bats. If I were here this evening, every night at 7:30 they have a program, they have a little pavilion set up, and they say hundreds of thousands of bats fly out every night in big clouds. They also said the guano, when people first found the caves in the 1920s they used to “mine” the guano and use it for fertilizer. It was 40-feet deep in places. When I was there swallows, called Carlsbad Swallows, were flying around the entrance. They migrate south and come back in February or March. They just fly around and around and eat insects. Inside the cave, in the water, they tested for bacteria, some guy did, deep in the cave where it’s completely black, and he found more bacteria there than they do in the water in the Amazon. They also said that around the caves there are more different species of wildlife than in many forests.

Carlsbad City (NM)

Carlsbad Caverns were pretty cool, but Carlsbad the city, I don’t care to stop there.

Carlsbad Pavement (NM)

The pavement on the roads in Carlsbad city is worn down, maybe because of the heat. The places that weren’t worn were where there was paint. So the dotted lines between the lanes are probably two inches taller than the pavement in the lanes.

Stinky Andrews (TX)

I’m just driving through a little town; I think it’s called Andrews. Man, this place stinks. Like raw oil right out of the ground.

H2Oil (TX)

I just passed a bunch of oil tanks. One of them had painted on the side in big block letters: H2Oil. What does that mean?

Fall and Winter 2010

I haven't updated this blog since our Japan trip, so here goes a quick review of the three months following that trip.

I'll start with November.

In early November I took my last drive over the Mirror Lake Highway. I was planning to go back the week before or after Thanksgiving to cut a Christmas tree, but a couple of big snow storms took that possibility away.

I discovered that Liberty Park has free Internet wi-fi, so I spent a little time there working. Liberty Park has become one of my offices. Crews were still cleaning up the oily muck that spilled into the pond from a Chevron pipeline break near Red Butte Garden in June.

I also started working at Novell as a contractor through Niche, which means I have to drive to Provo one Tuesday every other week. And going to Provo means going to Tommy's for a chili hot dog or chili burger and fries.

A heavy November snow took out a lot of big branches from trees that hadn't lost their leaves yet. Erickson Dairy looked like a war zone on this Sunday morning.

Thanksgiving at my dad's house. That's him at the far end of the table.

Now let's go into December.

On the Saturday before Christmas every year the Wasatch Lawn Cemetery decorates the entire cemetery with lit candles in paper sacks. There are thousands. And we've gone the last three times, since my mother died. (This picture is out of focus, because auto focus was off, and in the dark I couldn't tell. Sorry.)

I promised Randy I'd take him to lunch in Wendover for his birthday last March. I thought I should make good on the promise before Christmas, so we went one Saturday. On the way back we drove into the mountains above the Bonneville Raceway (which is covered with several inches of water this time of year).

Sara's family invited us to make gingerbread houses. This is the first time I've ever done this. If you can't tell, mine is an outdoor park pavilion with a Santa Claus greeting candy corn kids. Sara's is a train. The others are houses.

The Provo Tabernacle, where the graduation for my master's degree was held, burned down in a spectacular fire. I took this picture on one of my Tuesdays at Novell.

This is Christmas morning. A car ran through a brick fence on Sunnyside Avenue just above Foothill, so the people used the hole to frame their Christmas decorations.

Still Christmas morning. This is a building on the edge of the Great Salt Lake.

And this is Santa's flight. That's all the Christmas pictures I have. I hope you weren't expecting to see us open presents, because I was so excited to be opening presents that I forgot to take pictures. We also spent the afternoon at my dad's, as is tradition, eating ham, funeral potatoes, sweet breads, raspberry punch, and other stuff.

In the evening, Chieko and my clan went to Murray Park to take some family pictures. These are the Astle and Weaver kids: Caroline, Jackson, Tanner, Mei, and John Elliot.

The Weavers.

The Astles.

Not many people at Novell were working the week between Christmas and New Years, and because there was no one to give me work, I ran out. So I took off Thursday and Friday (December 30-31) and went to Milford. This picture is of a building in the Newhouse ghost town west of Milford. The temperature was 3 degrees, not counting the wind chill, and my fingers just about broke off.

A huge windmill farm near Milford started operation last summer.

Now let's go to January.

For my dad's 85th birthday on January 4, we took him to the Market Street Grill for a halibut dinner and then went to his house for cake and ice cream.

On January 6, we went to the Weavers' house to celebrate Wells's (January 5) and Annabelle's (January 6) first birthdays.

One Sunday afternoon, after our morning church (I like morning church), I took a drive to my West Office.

This is a ghost house off the highway south of Stockton.

And another ghost house in Ophir. This is a cool little old mining town where a few people are now retiring. You should drive up here one day if you get a chance, in the winter or summer. In the summer, I think you can drive quite a way up the canyon.

I decided to go ghost-town hunting near Ely, Nevada, on Martin Luther King Jr Day, a holiday at Novell, but not at Niche I found out. I went the night before and stayed in a Motel 6.

Ely has one old casino, and a couple of newer hotels with casinos.

Some Ely farmer has a sense of humor, or just has long winter days with not much to do after the cows are fed.

Crosses are all along Highway 50, The Loneliest Road in America, where drowsy drivers are probably a frequent problem.

Unfortunately, MLK day turned into January Thaw Day, with the temperature in this part of Nevada getting to 55. That meant the dirt roads leading to ghost towns turned into sloppy oatmeal. I drove about a half mile down the 10-mile road to Hamilton, but even at 8 a.m. the road was thawing out and I was sliding all over. I figured that even if I could get in the 10 miles, the road would completely thaw and I wouldn't be able to get out. I then drove down another road that looked pretty good, but I almost got stuck there until February, when it might freeze again. So I drove on the paved highway to the almost-living town of Eureka, Nevada. This is one of that town's fine homes and is typical of Eureka.

About 15 miles outside Eureka, on Highway 278 toward Carlin, is this very little LDS church in the middle of nothing. There are no homes within viewing distance from here. Just a few cows.

Just south of Carlin.

This is also coming into Carlin from Eureka.

Sharon's is a bar and grill outside Carlin. There's actually also a building that's in a little better shape than this catering bus.

This bulldozer is at the Oasis-Montello exit off I-80. I think it's for snow removal on this rural road.

The California Trail Interpretive Center, which is just east of Carlin in I-80, explains the terrible weather and desert difficulties pioneers went through on this path to California. The center was closed due to it being winter. I find that ironic.