Lehi

I spent 7 months in Lehi, Utah as a green missionary 20 years ago (yikes), back when it was a dusty little town where not much happened. It's funny to see it booming now with new homes and strip malls as a bedroom community to Salt Lake. In the good old days they used to say the road between Salt Lake and Provo would someday be built up like one big city, and it's coming true.

There are these nice little rounded mound hills on the north side of town along the Alpine Highway, I've not seen them anyplace else like this. I went to shoot those as the shadows started to get long, but ended up finding some nice flowers in the way. Up along that rise you can turn around and look out over Utah Lake.

Cross-Section

I usually have my lens pointed out the window when I'm airborne. I was crushed when Julieanne Kost recently released her book Window Seat — she beat me to the punch.

Great Salt Lake

Going home I picked a window seat on the left side of plane on purpose; I wanted to see if I could coax some colors out of the lake. At left is Fremont Island, and just about out of the picture in the bottom left corner is the northern tip of Antelope Island.

General Electric

The view from the stairwell landing looking out our north windows just before 1:00 a.m. The second image was taken 2 minutes later.

Atmosphere

From the top of the mountain at Park City. It must have been divine intervention stepping in to help us survive the zipline Depends-free.

Pioneer Day

After my meetings this week I stuck around SLC for Pioneer Day and one of the biggest parades in the U.S. These people take their holiday seriously — the announcer said there were 111 entries in the parade and it lasted two hours. I was amazed at how many stakes and cities from around the Salt Lake Valley put together intricately decorated and mechanized floats. Float builder is not a church assignment we have in New York.

The biggest entry and the one that got everyone on their feet applauding was the servicemen and women marching through. The response from the crowd was touching.

The Samoan and Tongan communities brought floats, bands and dancers and were the most entertaining, they would stop marching and dance in the street.

Add in the horses, wagons, handcarts, bonnets, marching bands, three agencies of daredevil riding motorcycle cops, politicians, prophets (highly surrounded and difficult to see), beauty queens, antique cars, Taiwanese sister city dignitaries, clowns, plus the rodeo and fireworks before and after and it's a whole lot of fun. For outsiders it's a case study in taking pride in your community and heritage.

Peaceful Panic

Today after our meetings in Salt Lake City our team went up to Park City to look around the beautiful mountains. Being men, we encouraged each other to try the 'gravity-based' rides.

After a chair lift to the top of the mountain you step out onto a platform 40 feet in the air, get into a harness, drop from a chute (the worst part), and speed down the mountain on a thin metal cable. The same trip that must take 10 minutes coming uphill on the lift takes 45 seconds going down on the zip line.

A couple of us (including me) had second thoughts when we saw the description of the ride posted at the platform once you get to the top of the mountain: "A high speed cable ride with a sudden abrupt landing." Park City really needs help in the marketing department.

Temple Square

From today. Tonight I found a great spot overlooking the Salt Lake Valley to shoot lightning but didn't get any good shots.

SWKT Pano

This is a large panorama made of several shots taken from the 12th floor of the Kimball Tower. There are no windows looking outside up there so a friendly researcher took me up to shoot. Prominent on the left is the new building that replaced the SFLC, it's a beautiful building with a spiral staircase in the front lobby.

SLC

I landed in Salt Lake City today around noon and I was thinking I really didn't know that many people here anymore. So I come out of the jet bridge and there I see Vance and Emily Yoshikawa from home sitting right there in the terminal. How did that happen?

On top of my work meetings this week I have several other tasks while I'm in town. Eat a pink cookie: check. Visit my old school: check. Eat pizza at Brick Oven: check. Meet new twin nephews: later in the week. Here's the view around downtown for now.

Restless

One of the many moods of Seneca Lake last week at Young Womens' Camp. The sea was angry that day, my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli.

Sam I Am

With my swimming buddy Tuesday night, Samantha, at the church youth activity. The 12-13 year old young men planned it out, asked the Olsens if we could come over, and arranged the root beer floats. I just showed up, my favorite way to go! Photo by Sharon, who stole my camera ... but I ended up with the memory card, heh heh.

Empire State Plaza

I've been watching for clear skies this week so I could shoot again at the Empire State Plaza. I previously showed you the Capitol, which is on the north of the Plaza. Here's a Google Map showing the layout from overhead.

Looking north towards the Capitol. These reflecting pools run up the center of the Plaza with the buildings arranged around the perimeter.

The Egg is a performing arts center. I still need to get inside there and see what holds it up. There's all sorts of abstract art around the grounds. So hip in the 60s, it's sort of retro now.


There are four agency towers on the west, and here's a shot of buildings 3, 2, and 1. They are interesting to see up close — they each sit on a narrow pedestal with the main bulk of the building supported atop a cantilevered base. All the buildings connect in an underground concourse below the reflecting pools, which I'm sure is just fine by state employees during winter. There's even a McDonald's down there, where Malcolm and I had lunch when he visited my work. See the Capitol reflected in the Agency 3 North windows.


This is the State Museum and Archives. I've taken the kids here a couple of times. Their favorite part is the large animal displays of the bears, moose, and woolly mammoth.

This is the Corning Tower on the east, tallest building in New York outside of NYC. I've been to the State Division of Veterans' Affairs offices at the top — the view down is dizzying.

Getting Some Zzzs

I was playing with a borrowed macro lens tonight to try some close-up pictures for the first time. Not bad — you can see the tiny spikes on the stem. It takes a lot of patience to line everything up, and you need a tripod for sure. It's deliberate work that takes patience. I'm still trying to determine whether it is relaxing.

I call this image, Still life with zucchini stem on scripture case. Zucchinis are coming now in our garden, it's our first batch of the year. This one's only a stem now because I ate the rest sauteed with butter, pepper and garlic. Meaning summer's officially here.

Happy Birthday, Buddy

Today is Buddy's 17th birthday! As newlywed college students (like less than a month in) Joanie and I were bored one Sunday afternoon, so we looked at the classifieds for free kittens and drove down to Springville to pick him out and take him home. Buddy's lived with us in Utah, rode in the U-Haul with us to Missouri, then came with us and baby Madeleine in the Ryder to New York, and he's on his third house here. He's a wise fellow, getting a little thin, but not doing too badly for a senior citizen. He even got mail from AARP the other day. He's starting to tolerate people, and I'm his favorite one.

This is one of the best pictures I ever took, it's about 15 years old and is always found on top of our TV. Trivia: his full name is Larry "Bud" Grandon, named after Larry "Bud" Melman from the old David Letterman show. Mad feeds him on odd dates, Malcolm on evens; tonight I told Malc his older brother was waiting for dinner. The tuna juice flows for ye today, old man!

Charlton Heights

Yesterday I played frisbee, got a haircut, pushed the mower between the trees (rare), mowed the rest of the lawn, washed my car, then waxed it. I was beat; yet for some strange reason the kids still wanted to go to the playground. So add "played tag" to that list. I didn't realize it but they ripped the old playground out of Charlton Heights Elementary and replaced the entire thing. It's fabulous now! It's perfect for both our little kids: instead of the old dusty gravel ground cover, they've put down shredded tires. Claire fell down a few times, but literally bounced right back. Malcolm and friend Samuel seemed to like it, too, based on the number of shredded tire bits in their shoes when they got home.

Rockhound

Like her great-grandmother before her, Claire collects rocks. It wasn't until I saw these pictures in the computer at full size that I realized she was running around the playground the whole time yesterday with one little rock in each chubby fist.

Seneca Lake

I spent a night, a day, and a night at Madeleine's Young Womens Camp this week to help out — picking seaweed out of the lake, hauling picnic tables, helping sick young women, setting up chairs, being manly, etc. The camp is in a gorgeous setting on Seneca, one of several Finger Lakes that slice through central New York, surrounded by grain fields and vineyards. The weather rolls through variously all day long, keeping things interesting. I was on strict orders from my daughter not to acknowledge I even knew her (she's 13). Luckily, I had a message to give to her from her mother (drink extra water) so it didn't really count as me talking to her.

Independence Day

We had a really busy Independence Day with lots of parties to go to. Earlier than necessary on a holiday morning, we had a pancake breakfast at church. Jonathan brought one of his fleet from Otto's Balloon Flights (man, what a professional looking website) and gave the kids and adults tethered hot air balloon rides, which was the hit of the party.