“Every summer there are a number of nights, not many, but a number, when everything is perfect. The light, the warmth, the smells, the mist, the birdsong – the moths. Who can sleep? Who wants to?”
– Fredrik Sjoberg
Reminding us that even in the darkness there is beauty.
Ogden, Utah has kicked off its annual Pioneer Days celebration. Many cities across the state have a holiday air around July 24, the commeration of Brigham Young and his followers entering the state. It has grown to emcompass a wider celebration of the pioneer spirit and the people who are keeping it alive today.
There are all sorts of western events this month. We didn't want to miss the Horse and Hitch parade, epitome of home grown fun. People line the downtown streets to watch local groups and stables parade down the wide boulevards, many in costume. Big people and very little people cowboy up on this kick-off evening.
Americana at its finest. Love. I hope when my kids think back on summer they think sidewalks and sandals and flying candy and marching bands. Magic doesn't have to break the bank. It most definitely doesn't exclude those who aren't blessed with bulging pocketbooks. Dad's folding chair lined up next to your's on a summer evening trumps the hundred dollar Disney pass and hour long lines. Every.single.time. : )
Thought you might want to take a look around downtown while we are at it. Each year the painted horses are on display in Ogden, painted to showcase some part of local culture.
There was some debate over where to see fireworks this year, our first in Utah. Zach and Megan were in town and voted Park City since none of us have been yet so that's where we headed.
First stop while it was still light out was the Alpine Slide. One boy needed to think about a few minutes before committing. We don't push that sort of thing but do encourage when they are on the fence and seem intrigued, if a little unsure. We walked closer to the gondolas and slides and watched for a while and that cinched it. Tickets were ordered and up they went….
It was a loooong ride up. So long that they texted us selfies. Then let us know they were on the way down.
Down was awesome. At least until catching up with Tess. Then it became increasingly less awesome til the end. Cautiously spontaneous, she is. She was dead set on doing the ride but did it her way. (read: slow ; ))
Since we have had a stretch of scorching hot, dry weather we didn't consider that the cloudless skies would be anything else yesterday. All our years in the Rockies should have made us wiser than that. The wind picked up as we arrived and the Weather Channel app was warning of rain coming in right about showtime. We debated for a while, but having lived in the Rockies we decided to ride it out and see. Good call. With a change in wind direction the clouds went off course and all predictions were cancelled. We enjoyed a beautiful show.
Before the road trip we hit the Ogden Arts Festival on a hot, sunny afternoon. Live music, great booths, and a fabulous vintage fashion fair. Back story – I was something of a hippie kid. Summer weekdays in Milwaukee were sticky, sweltering, grimy. If you hung on til the weekend you'd hit a festival – all summer long. And we did, my single 20 something mom and I. I can still feel the heat radiating from the fairgrounds cement and smell the hops from the brewery as we passed by on our way to the lakefront. (If you drove through in that era, you know exactly what I mean : ))
Summer of '15 in Ogden is uncannily similar, right down to the shoes and the stickered vans lining the streets downtown. If there was a soundtrack for summers like this it would be this. And for the record I heard them perform this live though not in'73.
I hope your summer is filling up with happy hot afternoons and sandals and sizzling food on paper plates.
Yesterday morning began like most mornings do. Coffee was brewed, breakfast made, lunches packed, and people sent off to work and summer football practice. I was giving myself the celebratory pat on the back (you know, go Self! They are fed. They are packed. They are launched into their day and it isn't even 8am!) when I thought I saw something move back behind the trees. The thing I thought I saw was a pony. There is no logical reason for this other than once upon a very long time ago we had such a pony. That pony never scaled the side of a mountain however. And that didn't happen yesterday either.
Nope.
Much as it may have looked like a pony bum for a minute there, it was not a pony in my yard. It was a…..
MOOSE!
oh.my.word.
It was a gosh honest truth, real live MOOSE and it was just meandering around the yard nibbling on trees til it got full and decided right there would be a perfect place to….
…sit a spell.
In my YARD, y'all.
And there he sat for the better part of the morning, with us periodically peeking out at him til he up and wandered off, all casual like. As if this sort of thing just happens.
Our neighbors said they spot one every once in a blue moon and generally they don't cause trouble. We watched from a safe distance just the same. Moose are prey, not predators, but they can reach speeds of 35mph when they are defending their young or during mating season (in the fall) or say, when the neighbor Corgi tries to herd them and they get super annoyed.
They sound like a cow which we didn't know until later in the evening when he returned and made actual cow sounds. Our neighbor texted me from her porch. We couldn't see at first in the dark until she said he was over eating our apple tree. This enlightened us to two things. First, we have an apple tree. Who knew? Second, we probably shouldn't count on a lot of apples.
He has made one more appearance so far, chasing the aforementioned Corgi back to her porch early this morning. To be fair she sorta had it coming. By all accounts this doesn't happen very often so this may be our only opportunity to see such a magnificent creature so close. Still, I will probably look over to the hillside in the mornings just in case…
That evening when they were playing out back and discovered what time the sprinkler system was set to go off?
Magic.
"Because children grow up, we think a child's purpose is to grow up. But a child's purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn't disdain what lives only for a day. It pours the whole of itself into the each moment."
Tom Stoppard
Some snaps and notes from our moving days…
8am Eyeliner is wonky. I really could use a shower but husband called to confirm the plan for the piano placement. So instead I straighten my hair, fill the to go mug, and head over to the new house.
10:30 Kids move from doing schoolwork upstairs to an empty bedroom
…while we tag team checking in boxes and Alannah directs mover traffic in the lower level
11am First casualty, a big green glass demijohn bottle. Sigh.
Some comic relief
noon lunch break.
Alannah drives Moira to work. Husband and I muse about the possiblity of nodding off.
3:30pm three books randomly fall out of a box. One happens to be the title an adult son asked me to please read. (Soon, I promise)
4pm B is worn out. Abbie is reveling in that moment when you find the box with your toys.
5pm A child reports, "I hear swearing in a bunch of different languages," which confirms my hunch that they have begun to move the piano. God bless them. That was no picnic.
7:30pm Take out pizza and salad for the family. Make a cold meat and fruit plate for myself.
Now comes the unpacking.
I fell behind logging some of our hiking adventures. In retrospect now though Wheeler Creek is probably my favorite trail so far. It is just outside Huntsville, UT and runs 11 miles. We didn't see all 11 miles, mind you, but probably got a third of the trail explored.
The nice thing about this hike is that the trail – at least from the trailhead up about 3miles – is so wide. Though it is a steady incline it is also regular walking the whole way, not too much actual climbing. After the last few hikes which entailed a fair amount of actual climbing and hoisting and well, sucking air for some of us, this one is remembered fondly.
The trail wound up the canyon with views of the mountains all around and the stream running alongside. There were mountain bikers and the occasional fellow hikers but by and large it was much lower traffic than many of the other trails we have hit. Making a note to self to return especially as the trees turn in the fall.
Few things make Colorado girls feel like they've come back home like a night of college rodeo. It's about as iconically American West as it gets and it never gets old. When we found out we had arrived in time for the regional college rodeo we sure as heck weren't missing it. At $4 a head it was half the price of your average movie ticket.
Every place has a story. This one is reading really well.
There's a story behind those chaps. I'm tellin' you. There's gotta be. You don't sew that into leather for nothing.
Aidan said if he was ever to do a rodeo event it would be steer wrestling.
His sisters pointed out that you don't get to pad up like football for steer wrestling…
So much fun. But I'm pretty sure we are all gonna be saying, "Son of a gun!" for the rest of the week now at least. Have I mentioned the emcee?
awesome
Because when you move back to America you should at least once have your own Slurpee. And because our family really does earn that 7th one free.
A very good way to end a very good weekend.
Starry Sky Journal 