Blast from the past.

The last couple of days my best friend from high school has been in town staying with me.  We get together every year or so, whenever business brings him into town.  This time it wasn’t business, his father just passed away and he had a week before summer term started at the university he teaches at.  So, he came down to ski, so his kids could visit their grandparents (his ex-in-laws), and so we could just decompress for a couple days.

We reminisced over the old days, compared medical situations, discussed past and present (neither of us have a present) romantic interests, went up to Duchesne to see the property my brothers and I have and then visited local haunts from our adolescence.  You get the details to the trip to Duchesne and a couple haunts.

I’m going to warn you now, this post has 29 pictures that go along with it.  You’ll have to click below to see the rest of the post, this new feature on my blogger interface lets break the post in two pieces so you don’t have to spend the time waiting for all the pictures to load unless you want to.  Hope you enjoy.

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When we got up to the property it became obvious that it had seen a lot of snow up there this winter.  There were broken tree branches all over the place, and here you can see where the snow brought down a large branch that blocked the road to our campground area.  My best friend and I moved it out of the way, which wasn’t an easy feat.  It entailed rolling it over and simply hoping it landed somewhere useful.

Because of all the water our state has seen this spring there were wildflowers all over the place.

Blue ones.

Yellow ones.

Pinkish-purple ones.

Blue and white ones together.

And red ones.

If you haven’t been up there, you may not realize this, but this is an amazing amount of wildflowers to be growing up here in the middle of June.  Remember, we live in a desert, this is usually almost all dried grass and sage brush.

These are all in same field, on the uphill (southern) piece of the property, but the sight was common all over.

And yet a closer look.

Unfortunately, there are people in the area with little respect for other people’s property, so the railroad tie we placed to block this road they were making was simply moved out of the way.  There was not a road there just 2 years ago, but because someone blocked a previously used road, people on their ATVs just blazed a road through our property wherever was convenient for them.  With no regard for the desires of the owners.

This is what results when an area in the desert mountains is driven by ATVs over the course of 2 summers.

My friend and I returned the post to it’s place and even put rocks on top so there would be no question about our wishes, because legally, if we don’t do anything to prevent people from using this area of our property for access, after a few years (10, I think), it becomes a legal right-of-way and we are no longer allowed to block it.  (I think we’re going to have to do something more permanent to keep the inconsiderate &^$%ers from continuously moving our blockade, or just going around it.

This basin is adjacent to Strawberry Reservoir, on the opposite side of US 40, and usually is a dry meadow.

At times I thought I was driving through Scotland, the grass was so green.  This meadow should be brown by this time of year.

This is Strawberry Reservoir, well above it’s normal level.

Here you can see a dirt road that usually runs around the shore of the reservoir, so boaters and fisher-men and women can get to their favorite place to boat/fish.

This is on the side of US 40 up by the Jordanelle Reservoir.

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In the middle of a residential area on the east side of Salt Lake City is a small park called Miller Park.  Because it is tucked in a gully and bordered on each side except one by the back end of private homes, a lot of people don’t even know it exists.  This also gives one a sense of isolation when walking along the creek that goes through the middle of it.  Because of this feeling and the popularity of the Lord of the Rings books with teenagers in the late 70’s, when I was in high school we always referred to this park as Middle Earth.  I have no idea if we (‘70s kids) made up the name, or if we inherited it from previous generations, but I’ve heard a few of my students refer to it as Middle Earth quite recently.  My friend and I, of course, had to make a pilgrimage to it today.  Here are some of the pictures I took, with explanations where necessary.

At the east end of the park, where the water comes from an underground culvert out into the open.

A stairway from one of the two entrances to the park (other than through the back yards of private residences.)

Still up at the east end of the park.

That’s me, sitting in a little bench area there.

The other side of that same set of stairs a couple pictures back.Somewhere in the middle of the park.

At the west end of the park.

A sitting and fire place at the west end of the park.

Gratuitous picture of my ‘69 Ford LTD, sitting in the parking lot at the only noticeable entrance to the park.

This is a combination of a picture I took today of my best friend and a picture I took back in ‘78 of a different friend sitting on that same bridge.