Salt Lake City

Sunday, October 9-Monday, October 17

Salt Lake City felt like a nice place to stay put for a bit, getting ready for the final push home. It was marvelous to enjoy the comforts of life not on the road, even for just a short while. Was this a taste of what home would feel like soon? I also had a lot of errands to run and things to take care of in a city, so I got my list ready and started on my To Dos.

I did lots of computer work, including catching up on a lot of email and the always-behind-the-actual-day blog posts that needed to be written. My tenants in the house back in Silver Spring were also getting ready to move out, and so there was lots of correspondence that I needed to take care of on that front.

My tenants had sent me another big packet of mail, which I needed to sort through, too. That always necessitates taking care of a number of additional items, and so I kept the administrative energies flowing.

I also started facing the fact that I was heading home soon, and the thoughts of professional next-steps were pervading my mind more and more. They needed some attention.

I made some phone calls that week and sent some emails to start warming up my professional network. I also dusted off my resume for the first time in about nine months, and freshened it up a bit. Since that is actually a non-stop process, I ended up with several iterations over the course of a few days.

I clicked open a few of the daily job digest emails that I had been automatically deleting the past several months, and I started to take a look at what was potentially out there in the communications field for me. Turns out there were a few things of interest, so I ended up applying for one or two of them. (As of the publish date of this blog entry in early November, there has been no response.)

But no response right now is all OK. I still have a lot of unanswered questions in my own head about exactly what it is that I want to be when I grow up. Taking my time feels like a good way forward for the moment.

Throughout the course of the week in Salt Lake, I got the oil changed in the van, took Auggie’s dog leash to be repaired, got my hair cut, went to the post office, did lots of cooking and … took Auggie to a local dog wash.

He HATED it!

Look at him. You can just read it on his face here … “Why?”

I was happy that Auggie no longer smelled like wilderness and mud, or carried the remnants of that fly fishing creek in his fur. He, on the other hand, was not happy with me for a while. (I did buy him a pig’s ear at the dog wash place to help apologize for the bath … that helped. J )

While in Salt Lake, I also had time to visit two of the city’s must-see tourist attractions: Temple Square, and the Great Salt Lake.

Temple Square was a very interesting experience. It is the home of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (shortened to LDS in this blog and in many circles outside of this blog). This church is also colloquially referred to as the Mormon Church. (Here is the link to LDS on Wikipedia; I found it helpful in doing research before I got to Salt Lake, as well as while I was there and afterwards when I’ve had questions (and I’ve had many questions).)

The LDS Church owns much more than the city blocks that Temple Square occupies. They are actively developing part of downtown Salt Lake with new buildings and other large-scale city-planning efforts. And I’m certain there is much, much more that they own and administer that I have no idea about from my short visit to the city.

Here is a shot of the administration building. It is massive – bigger than many corporate headquarters buildings I’ve visited in my career. And being present on Temple Square in Salt Lake City helped me to realize just how active and well-funded a church LDS really is. It is truly a massive multi-national corporation, with all that that entails. Wow.

On Temple Square, I was able to view the pretty Mormon Temple. (No, I was not allowed in, nor are most people, including most LDS brothers and sisters. Only “approved” LDS church members are ever allowed to enter this or other Mormon Temples. Many (most?) LDS church members never set foot into a temple during their lifetimes.)

[N.B. – You can get a “tour” of the inside of the Temple via an intricate small-scale model that is viewable in one of the Temple Square Visitor’s Centers. Video presentations describe all the rooms inside the Temple.]

Here are shots of the outside and inside of the acoustically almost-perfect Mormon Tabernacle. Both the Temple and the Tabernacle are real architectural wonders. They are both built with wooden trusses, wooden pegs and rawhide – no nails were used in the construction of these buildings!

Wikipedia carries some interesting facts about the Tabernacle, as well as its organ, which is one of the largest pipe organs in the world.

After I walked around Temple Square, I went across the street and took a tour of the LDS Conference Center, which was opened in 2000 and replaced the Tabernacle as the official site of the LDS Church’s semi-annual General Conferences.

 Another wow.

Pristine, beautifully architected building. Much of the religion’s prized artwork. A 21,000-seat auditorium to house the semi-annual crowds that visit Salt Lake for the Church’s meetings. And at the back of that auditorium is the broadcast center, which simultaneously translates (into more than 90 languages!) and broadcasts around the world via satellite the messages of President Monson and other speakers during the conferences. 

I tell you – it was eye-opening and head-shaking to see the infrastructure that the LDS Church has implemented. As a communications professional, it was also impressive to see such a strong, effective and well-run messaging infrastructure!

Here are a few shots of me on the roof of the Conference Center, with the rest of Temple Square (and, of course, the beautiful mountains) in the background.

Later in the week, Auggie and I drove to the Great Salt Lake, the largest salt-water lake in the western hemisphere. Another very cool place.

The lake covers a very large portion of land but is actually very shallow – it’s only about 20 feet at its deepest spot. And because there is no outlet from the lake, the water can only evaporate, leaving a high concentration of minerals, which is what makes it so salty. I didn’t swim (or float!), but I did stick my finger in at one point. It was unfortunately at a spot where there was a lot of goo floating along the shore, so I’m not sure I was able to discern high salinity from the icky goo I was worried about getting off my tongue. Hmmmm … there’s got to be a more scientific way to measure salinity!

Officially, Auggie and I had driven that day to Antelope Island State Park, which is the largest island in the Great Salt Lake. It’s also a Utah state park. In recent years, a causeway was built from the mainland onto Antelope Island, and roads were constructed on parts of the island to enable easy car access and transport. Auggie and I took these photos from the causeway over to Antelope Island.

 Look at the mountains on the other side of the lake – they look like they are floating.

And see how the lake is so calm it’s acting as a mirror.

There are bison on Antelope Island – but we didn’t see any antelope. We had been in and through so many states on this trip where bison live, but we hadn’t actually seen any of the mysterious creatures. I did a small cheer when I saw this big guy – it was our first live, free-roaming bison of the trip!

Auggie and I drove to the western side of Antelope Island, where we hiked the Lake Shore Trail. It was a little longer than we had time to fully hike before the sun went down. (I didn’t want to get stuck in the middle of wilderness with only a small flashlight. The potential for critters – bison, snakes, coyotes – was high and I didn’t want an incident.) So we hiked what we could in the dry, grassy, rocky terrain.

At one point along the hike, we were on a hill and I wanted to hike down to the water. Auggie and I left the trail and were about 30 feet down the hill when I saw a snake. It was a baby snake, but on quick glance, it had a diamond-like pattern on its body and I quickly got the willies. No – no snakes, please. (I wasn’t sure if it was a rattlesnake, but at that point I didn’t care.) I called Auggie to stop, and then I walked to him so we could walk together back to the trail as I watched for more snakes. We stayed on the trail after that!

After we had turned around and were making our way back to the Champagne Chevy, we saw the sun getting lower on the horizon. We had planned our trip to the Lake for the second half of the day so we could see the sunset – it was going to be pretty!

We were finishing our hike and were almost back to the van. We could see the Champagne Chevy on the parking lot and it was only about 10 more minutes walk from us. As we rounded a big bush on the trail, suddenly we saw this BISON about eight feet away from us. It had been completely hidden by the bush and the angle from which we were approaching.

All of a sudden, there I am with a massive, 1,500-pound wild animal eight feet away from me, an 80-pound canine at my side, and we are suddenly all just standing there, looking at each other.

“Which one of us is going to move first?” I thought.

“Me,” was my immediate reply. No sense in letting the bison make the first move, because that was going to be scary, and probably wasn’t going to be a good one for me and Auggie.

I grabbed Auggie by the collar and pulled him quickly and quietly to my side. I immediately started talking to the bison, in the softest, friendliest voice I could muster. I told Mr. Bison that me and my dog were just going to keep walking here on this little trail and that we were just headed down the road a bit to our car, where we would get in it and leave his sweet little bison self to his peace and quiet.

At the same time, I kept pulling Auggie’s head back to front to break the eye contact with the bison. No need for a stare-off challenge between the beasts, you know. We would not win that one either, I was sure.

We walked on quickly and quietly, and a few times I threw a quick glance over my shoulder to see where Mr. Bison was. He was gratefully standing still, not moving after us, not moving away from us … just standing still. Good boy, Mr. Bison.

Auggie and I made it back to the van and I got him some water, continuing to throw a few glances in the direction of Mr. Bison, just to make sure he wasn’t changing his mind. Nope. We were fine.

And then I took in the fact that the sun was continuing to set and that we had a sunset to watch. We recovered fast, and I drove us to the nearby hill – ironically called Buffalo Point – and we climbed it quickly so we could see the sunset from the highest spot.

It was lovely!

The sun was throwing all kinds of beautiful colors onto the nearby White Rock Bay, which was lighting up in yellows, oranges and the start of some pinks.

It was also pretty in pink behind us across to the eastern shore of the Lake.

And then the twilight blues and purples set in.

Altogether – a very lovely sunset following a very lovely day. I tell you - we've seen some AMAZING sunsets on this trip! 

On the weekend, Andy and I decided to go camping. (We had all the equipment already, you know!) We threw together some food, convinced Auggie that he did want to leave the comforts of civilization, and then I gave Andy the driver’s seat again since he was the local.

He drove us out to the Wasatch National Forest, only a quick hour’s drive from Salt Lake. Yet another very pretty place! 

Andy had thrown his fishing rod into the van, and we got to our camping spot with plenty of sunshine left to get some fishing in.

Andy took his rod, and Auggie and I followed the noise of the bubbling brook behind our campsite to this pretty stream. Let the fishing begin!

Andy warmed up the stream for us and caught a few – very small – fish. One was so small, Andy actually flung it from the water when he pulled the line to set the hook.

I’m not going to spin any fish tales here – we caught some fish, but they were all small!

Look at that little guy in Andy’s right hand.

I actually caught the biggest fish of the day (that’s not really saying much, and it’s not this one pictured here). But the fact that I caught three fish is a big deal in my own personal history book.

I FINALLY CAUGHT A FISH WHILE FLY FISHING!!! See how proud I am?   J

Woo hoo!

Auggie just wondered when it was time to eat some fish. 

We had a blast in Salt Lake City. Monday morning finally came, though, and we woke up early to get packed and on the road. We thanked Andy for having us and for a great time. Then I dragged Auggie from his cozy spot on the couch back out to the van and he slowly, begrudgingly, painstakingly climbed in. I explained to him that this was the first step in making our way home to our cozy beds … but he didn’t seem to get excited about that. Dogs are so silly sometimes.

And there we were … headed east toward the Atlantic, accompanied by some more Willie Nelson. It was a gorgeous, sunny day for driving. We were on the road again. 

Capitol Reef National Park, UT / Drive to Salt Lake City

Sunday, October 9

It was still cold when we woke up, but the blue sky was hard to resist. It was time to get out and hike!

Andy, Auggie and I drove down the road just a short way to Capitol Reef National Park, another gorgeous red-rock mecca in Utah. We went to the Visitor’s Center at the park, where it was confirmed that Auggie could not hike in the national park (aaargh – that’s really maddening by now!). So we went just outside the boundary of the park and pulled the Champagne Chevy off the road to park. We were going to make our own hike.

It really was a gorgeous day. For our hike, we followed a dry streambed up into a valley as far as we could, and then did a bit of clambering over big, red boulders. Auggie gets a gold star for hanging with us and doing his own boulder-bounding. What a cool dog I have!

Here are some shots from the hike.

We took off for Salt Lake City just after noon. It was about a five hour drive back to SLC, so off we went.

On our way north to Salt Lake, I saw my first (and only) "Speed Limit 80" sign of the trip! 

On the outskirts of SLC, Andy took a detour into the Timpanogos Range in the Wasatch Mountains so I could see Sundance. This was the real Sundance … of Robert Redford-indie movie fame … it oozed coolness. 

And it was certainly lovely on this pretty fall afternoon, tucked away in these pretty mountains, with fall colors on the trees and the pretty alpine stream bubbling through. 

We poked around a bit, got a coffee and then headed the rest of the short way back to Salt Lake.

It felt nice to be back in a city, in the midst of people and a bit of bustling traffic, even on a Sunday afternoon. It was also nice to be in an apartment with running water, a kitchen and a full-fledged heating system. Aaaaaaah! Life on the road has been wonderful, but there are also some things that a house and home have to offer, too. It was time to indulge these “foreign” things for just a bit! 

And I also noted that we're not that far from the end of our trip, so my brain was starting to think about these things ... 

Torrey, UT / Fly Fishing

Saturday, October 8

We were all scheduled to meet at 6.45 or 7.00 a.m. at the guys’ hotel on Saturday morning. It was COLD again that morning, so I’ll chalk this up as not my easiest morning out of bed on the trip, for sure.

The fly fishing guide, Steve, was there at the hotel with the guys and was going through the plan for the day. The location he wanted to take the group was at altitude, accessible only by a very curvy, steep road. There had been lots of snow at altitude overnight and in the past couple of days, so in the end, the mountain location got nixed; it was time for Plan B due to too much snow and a high danger factor. Plan B was to go back to the fishing stream Andy and Jeff had fished the previous day. That spot wasn’t snowy, and it didn’t require a treacherous, death-defying drive up a snowy mountain road, either.

[Good call, Steve.]

We geared up at the hotel, with me again putting on my waders and boots that didn’t quite fit. The stream was only a few miles down the road, so the group piled into two trucks and off we went. I drove Jeff, who had his camera rolling out the window behind the other truck, so he could get some footage for the shoot. (This shoot was really cool and fun from a professional – as well as adventure – standpoint!)

Once out of the trucks, the guide, Steve, started out giving Jerry some basics about fly fishing, since fly fishing was a new thing for him. I listened closely, since I was a newbie, too. Then they all walked down to the stream and climbed in. Since I wasn’t 100% waterproof, I stayed in the mucky part next to the stream, watched everything roll out and took some photos.

Here are the on-camera stars with Steve, the guide, getting their rods ready.

Here are the guys with cameraman, Jeff (in the red backpack), in the stream, too.

And here’s a shot of the whole shoot going down, with Andy in the blue in front-left, the fishers in their tan neutrals and Jeff with the red backpack on the right side of the stream.

The funniest part was actually Jeff, who almost went down in the stream a few times. Apparently the bottom of the stream was really mucky. When he tried to walk, one foot would lift but the other foot wouldn’t move from the mud, which was almost deadly for him a few times!  (Sorry to giggle, Jeff!)

After about 45-60 mins of watching the guys shoot, I was cold and a little wet. That was enough for me. I went back to the truck with Auggie to warm up and read Potter. I was getting very close to the end of Book Seven and was happy for the solitude and reading time.

Back in the truck, I made a few phone calls, wrote a few postcards and then broke open Potter Book Seven. I had barely gotten into one chapter of my book when the guys came back – no fish were biting after a couple of hours. They wanted to move to another spot on the stream.

We packed up quickly and moved the trucks. The guys got out, had some snacks and went back to the new spot in the stream. I wished them well, told them not to come back without a fish and got back to my book. Auggie took a nice, long afternoon nap.

Those guys took me seriously – they were down in that stream for hours! At one point, Jeff came back and said they still had not caught a single fish. From an NBC-segment perspective, that was a total bust. They needed to catch a fish to be able to make a segment out of it all. So they decided that Jeff and Andy would put down their cameras and put their rods into the water, too, just to see if anyone would catch a fish. Jeff headed off back to the stream.

I read on voraciously, and I finished the final Potter book with tears in my eyes. Wow. What a story. As anticipated, I was very sad to have finished Book Seven, since that really did mean there were no more to read. That’s really bad news. However, the story had come to its logical conclusion, and any next book would be like bringing “Rhoda” to the screen after so many successful years of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” – it would only be a quarter as good and not nearly as addictive. All good things must come to an end. L 

As I finished the book, though, I looked out the window of the truck and saw a doe down in the field by the stream. (For those of you who have read the Potter series, you will understand why that doe freaked me out a bit!) Was this a sign? Was this doe sent to this spot to be a symbol of hope and good for me? I guess we’ll see …

I was done with my book now and starting to get restless after having been sitting for so long. I got out of the truck and took Auggie for a walk around the fields. He smelled the deer and took off on a little jaunt. He came back (he always comes back) and we headed back to the trucks to wait, keeping our fingers crossed that the guys had caught some fish.

Alas, it was not to be! The guys finally came back to the truck, but had not caught a single fish, even with five rods in the water. Oh my.

[Note to self – you REALLY have to like the process of casting and trying to figure out the fish, since you can spend an entire day at it (even in the cold) and not catch a single thing. Hmmmm … I’m not sure this fly-fishing business is for me … ]

Andy and Jeff were trying to figure out how to salvage the shoot, but kept coming up empty. The excitement factor of showing fly fishing in a cold stream on a cold day in Utah without an actual catch was hard to magic up. They were starting to work on their own Plan B.

The day had been long and we said good-bye to Steve, the guide, and to Jeff, who was heading back to the Salt Lake area. We had some quick dinner with Bob and Jerry, and then they, too, took off on their drive back to the Salt Lake area. Andy and I were off to Capitol Reef National Park the next day, so we were happy for warm showers and an early night of it after such a cold and early start to this fish-less day.