O Ye Mountains High

It was quite an eventful week.

On Monday, my ward hiked to Ensign Peak. I went there the long way on Memorial Day, but this time around we went from Salt Lake. I found it very easy. The only other time I've gone that way was when I was thirteen, and I was the slowest person in my ward and huffed and puffed my way up the hill. I've come a long way since 2002.

I don't usually take picture-taking devices on my trail runs, but since this was a casual walk, I had my phone with me.

The Ensign Peak monument

I get views like this a lot from the Bonneville Shoreline Trail.

Looking north to the radio towers. I usually run north of them.

 Wednesday was the birthday of my niece, Allie. That means I have been an uncle for twelve years. Crazy.

On Thursday morning I had to pick up my car from the repair shop. They're not really sure why it occasionally won't start, but they fixed some corrosion, so hopefully I won't get stranded anymore.

On Thursday evening, I went to Bountiful's Handcart Days parade, since my sister lives next to the parade route--not because I'm particularly fond of parades, but because that's what you do for holidays. I was glad to see many non-Mormon participants, because I think sometimes Pioneer Day is too much of a Mormon holiday. The arrival of the pioneers is a historic (and not just religious) fact. I'm no Pilgrim, but I still celebrate Thanksgiving. I've enjoyed reading the accounts of the earliest July 24 celebrations. The first one occurred in 1849, when they raised a sixty-five-foot American flag, had a procession where participants carried copies of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and fired cannons. I had wondered why they didn't have a celebration in 1848, but then I realized: A few weeks after arriving in 1847, Brigham Young and many others went back to Iowa. They returned the following year and didn't arrive in time for July 24.

My family left very early on July 24, so I spent the holiday mostly by myself. Since I have come across North Canyon in pioneer documents, I thought that would be a perfect place to spend the holiday. I wanted to get to a place called Rudy's Flat, which I had heard about but never reached. (This was my third time at North Canyon, but only my first time at Rudy's Flat.) I wanted to run up there, but I ran out of energy (I think I didn't have enough breakfast), so I walked probably 80 percent of the way up. It was very enjoyable, although I wish I had been able to run the whole time. Once I got up to Rudy's Flat, I was expecting a sign identifying it, so I kept going; but since the trail was going down, I realized I had probably passed it. A tattooed cyclist confirmed that it was indeed Rudy's Flat. I did have enough energy to run back down the trail; it took me forty-three minutes (including when I let cyclists and horses pass).

There were lots of aspens, Utah's new state tree.

I will definitely have to come back in the fall.

I don't know what kind of trees these are, but they intrigued me.

I saw a cool metaconglomerate boulder. What is a little disappointing about the hills near my house is that they all have conglomerate bedrock, a relatively boring rock.

I was expecting Rudy's Flat to be a little more obvious.

I hear a lot of people camp up here.

The tattooed cyclist told me I could get a better view southeast of the meadow, but I didn't go up the mountain he described.

Lots of wildflowers, but unfortunately sego lily season is over.

On the way back down.

My grandparents invited me over to their house for lunch and then I had a good visit with them. My pioneer heritage comes from my dad's side of the family, but my mom's parents are pioneers in their own right.

Then I spent the rest of the day at home, alone. Fireworks are forbidden in my neighborhood now, and I didn't think it was worth it to go someplace else to see them.

I watched 17 Miracles. I like the movie, but some things bother me. What stuck in my craw this time was that they said "Chauncey W. White" was called on a mission to Siam. I've been working with that very missionary's letters, and his last name is West, not White! Even the most elementary research should have made that clear; Farr West in northern Utah was named (partly) for him. Also, I don't count that many miracles, even with a liberal definition of miracle.

I also watched "The Building of the Transcontinental Railroad" from This Is America, Charlie Brown--not the strongest offering from the Peanuts franchise. The driving of the golden spike is generally considered the end of the pioneer period in Utah.

I slept downstairs that night, since the AC broke. (Last year it broke on the Fourth of July.)

And thus Pioneer Day is over for another year. This year was an experiment for me on whether I want to formally add it to my canon of holidays. I want to try again next year, but I'm still undecided. It was relatively easy to celebrate, and it did feel like a holiday, and it's certainly more meaningful for us Utahns than St. Patrick's Day, and it was a good, valid extension of the Fourth of July season--but it still doesn't feel like it has the same status as the other holidays. For now, at least, it's unofficially added to the canon.

The repairman came to fix the AC yesterday, and I got to hear an authentic Cockney accent in real life! He wasn't overly friendly--not mean, just not super friendly. Which I suppose is how I come across as well.

My parents and sister and niece are off visiting several national parks, while I'm stuck here. I have thought I should put it on my bucket list to see all the national parks. But then I thought that before I do that, I should see all of Utah's state parks. And then I thought that first I should see all of North Salt Lake's city parks. So I decided to scratch one park off the bucket list and went to Fox Hollow Park. It wasn't much of a park, not even having a drinking fountain. It was, however, near the Legacy Parkway Trail, so I decided to run on it. The only other time I've been there was five years ago, when I rode my brand-new bike there. It's not a terribly pretty trail, and I've never seen so many rodents in my life, but it's nice to get a change. I ran across the pedestrian bridge over Legacy Parkway and went by the Legacy Nature Preserve. Again, not very pretty, but it seemed a little more trail-like (since it was dirt, whereas the other side was paved), and I ran to 500 South in Bountiful, and I saw lots of teasel plants.

Now I don't get another weekday off until Labor Day. And there's not another really fun holiday until Halloween.

Boys in cars

As a contingent employee, I don't have many vacation days, so I got a rare, short vacation this week.

My three nephews--Preston (10), Franklin (7), and Nathaniel (5)--were visiting us from California, but it was time for us to take them back home. On Tuesday we got up early and drove until we arrived at their home in the Bay Area. I sat next to Franklin on the ride, and he has a real problem with throwing up. After eating some trail mix, he threw up in a bowl, and he was delighted that he "puked a rainbow" because of the M&Ms. I was able to take my laptop and do some work in the car. But don't worry that I was doing boring stuff on vacation, because it was something that was interesting, and I found a few gems in these 1850s letters, such as "the sun hot enough to bake one’s brains" and"We came to a wet marshy place, and could discover marks of the feet of the lion and the tiger; having no weapons of war with us, we concluded to beat a speedy retreat."

On Wednesday, we considered coming back home, but we didn't. We went to Muir Beach and waded in the salty water and looked at various shells and barnacles.

We also went to an overlook and thought we saw a whale, but it was just a rock.

Then that night we went to the drive-in to see Minions, which I think was the first time I'd been to a theater this year. I hadn't seen the Despicable Me movies until the previous week. I thought the Minions weren't the best part of the movies; they were just there for marketing purposes (especially in the first one), so it's hard to have a movie all about them. It would be like making a movie about Olaf from Frozen. But props to Minions for throwing in a reference to Bewitched, the queen of all 1960s shows.

Thursday we drove back to Utah. It was a much quieter car ride. At a random rest area in western Utah, I did a quick run up a small trail in the desert.

On Friday, I had a work party up in Parleys Canyon. I know hardly anyone in the Church History Department, so I was sitting by myself. Then some employees' wives invited me to sit with them, which was probably more awkward then sitting alone. As I went to leave, my car wouldn't start! The battery was fine, so I recognized it as the same problem as happened at Halloween. I was annoyed that the rare time it didn't work, I happened to be up in Parleys Canyon, which also happened to be the time that my mom's cell phone was dead, which also happened to be a (not-so-rare) time that my parents ignored the phone because they were watching a movie, which also happened to be a time that our answering machine was full. I had to call my sister to go tell my parents to come get me.

At Halloween, we couldn't get it to start, but the next day my mom got it to work. Saturday we went back to my car and I couldn't get it to work, but once again my mom somehow got it to work! Although it was working, I still took it in to get repaired, because I'm tired of getting stranded.

Last night I ran the longest I've ever run continuously, an hour and twenty minutes.

Then I had really weird dreams last night: our cat taking a bath in the toilet, hanging Christmas decorations with a drone, watching a family video from the 90s in which a strong windstorm hurled a van over our family's vehicle, my mom driving a Jeep through a four-foot puddle, a trail with signs warning of a baby murderer, a bus driver who loved Boyd K. Packer, and a party game that consisted of picking up balloons with your teeth.

The Pioneer Day spirit

With this being the first time I've been formally celebrating Pioneer Day, I've been trying to do things to get in the Pioneer Day spirit.

I've been listening to Utah Pioneer Heritage Arts' CDs about Sanpete County and Sevier County, Saga of the Sanpitch and Valley of the Trails, and I pre-ordered the Kane County album, A Canyon Peoples' Portrait. For music that nobody knows about, it's surprisingly good.

I wanted to see sego lilies, so I went running where last month I saw tons of them. But this time they were all gone, even though they were abundant last month! They must be a June thing.

When I eat downtown, I usually go to Kneaders. I think Kneaders is overpriced, but they have the best selection of seasonal desserts in town, so I'm like, "Here! Take all my money!" I would have been satisfied with the patriotic sugar cookies they had for the Fourth of July, but this time they had beehive cookies, which are even better! Their sugar cookies aren't the greatest, but they have great designs.

On Friday I got to go to the funeral for Boyd K. Packer in the Tabernacle. From a distance I got to see the First Presidency and Apostles. I was thinking, "I see everyone but President Uchtdorf and Elder Andersen." Then they announced that they were out of the country, so I was right. I was happy that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang a beautiful pioneer hymn, "The Wintry Day, Descending to Its Close." I understand why we don't sing it often--it's a little long, and it's very Utahn, and it's a little hard to play--but it's nevertheless an underappreciated song.

Then yesterday my family went to Sugarhouse Park, where we waded through its stream. The location of the park is where Utah's first prison was built in the 1850s, and my great-great-great-great-grandfather Frederick Kesler was a prison warden at some point, I think in the 1860s. I wanted to see the park's historical markers, but I think the park was too big for me to easily find them.

Red, white, and blue, especially red and white.

On Wednesday this week, I needed to do some research for work about Hong Kong in the nineteenth century. The Church History Library (where I work) is a good place for Mormon history, but not so much for Hong Kong history. The best, closest library was the U's Marriott Library, so that's where I needed to go. I'm a BYU grad, but I don't think that my school's better than the U, at least when it comes to academics. I detest rivalries, especially when they extend beyond sports into academia.

However, it sounded like figuring out parking there would be a headache, so I decided it might be easiest just to take the bus. It's been a long time since I've used public transportation, especially UTA. I wasn't entirely sure of what I was doing, but I got where I needed to go.

Once I got there, it was my first time ever visiting the U's main campus. Someone asked me for directions, but I was lost myself, so I couldn't help him. I made it in the library--I must say that I think BYU's Harold B. Lee Library is a bit more visitor friendly. It wasn't too different from BYU's library, except that the students showed more skin and hair and I smelled coffee.

It kind of puzzles me that people my age smoke there. I understand that once you start, it's hard to stop, but why would you start in this day and age? Ever since elementary school they've told us how bad smoking is. Smoking is a habit that is extremely unhealthy, expensive, inconvenient, and smelly. You'd have to be a complete idiot to start smoking nowadays, and complete idiots don't go to college, especially not the U.

Since I didn't have to go to work on Friday, July 3, I got up early to go running. When I got home, my ten-year-old nephew Preston told me he'd never seen someone so sweaty, but I've been sweatier. My seven-year-old nephew Franklin was amused to watch my throat when I drank, saying, "Up and down and up and down and up and down..." That made me laugh, and he was very tickled that he made me laugh. Then he wanted to run around where I went, so I drove him and five-year-old Nathaniel up to the trail and went to the little Banner Grove. At one point, the boys were talking about roly-polys, and Franklin said, "They're harmless. Who would want to hurt them? Only people who hate nature, and we don't hate nature." Nathaniel loved talking about how dangerous our hike was, that if we fell off, we would die, even though the trail was extremely tame. I hope my nephews grow up to be like me.

We went up to North Salt Lake's fireworks display, which was really good this year. Then we stayed up late talking about horrible parenting.

The Fourth of July was all right. In the evening we went to my sister's house to light fireworks, since they are forbidden in our neighborhood. It annoys me that there are people who feel entitled to light them even where they are forbidden. I mean, the rest of us would like to light them where we live, but we believe in celebrating our country by obeying its laws. (I know they're city laws, but still.)

Normally, July 5 is a sad day for me, as there are no real holidays to celebrate until Halloween. This year, however, I'm experimenting with formally celebrating Pioneer Day as I do the other holidays.

Three years ago, I said this:
"Sometimes I wonder why I don't celebrate Pioneer Day more, considering that I'm a Utah Mormon of pioneer descent. There are eight holidays I formally celebrate, and in the past I have added Chinese New Year, Mother's Day, and Father's Day, but those became too cumbersome to celebrate the way I celebrate the other holidays, and I worry that the same thing would happen to Pioneer Day. But there is nothing stopping me from watching fireworks and enjoying a day off.... Some people use Fourth of July themes (red, white, and blue and stars and stripes) for Pioneer Day; however, I reject this association. The pioneers fled the United States because they wouldn't do anything for them. It's like putting up British stuff on Independence Day."


Well, not quite. Although the pioneers were frustrated with the way they had been treated, they still loved America and wanted to become a state. In fact, the earliest Pioneer Day celebrations involved displaying American flags, shooting cannons, reading the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and talking about the Spirit of '76. Pioneer Day was more like the Fourth of July for the pioneers--the ones who invented the holiday and the reason we celebrate--than it is for us.


In the past, I've said that if I learned that the earliest Pioneer Day celebrations included American patriotic decorations, then I would accept patriotic things for the 24th of July. And that's exactly what I learned. Additionally, there are American flags on the Utah flag (along with a beehive and sego lilies, traditional Utah symbols).


I hope that we can have the 24th of July celebrated as a state holiday (which it is) rather than simply as a Mormon holiday. When I worked at Walmart, one coworker said she didn't care about Pioneer Day because she wasn't Mormon, but it is nevertheless a fact that Utah's first permanent settlers were Mormon pioneers. (The Native Americans were mainly hunter-gatherers, and the Spanish explorers and mountain men were only temporary.)

There are some problems with celebrating Pioneer Day: It's only a state holiday, so once you cross the border, it's no longer a holiday. As such, there's not much marketing for it, and let's face it, marketing is a big driving factor in holidays. It's perhaps observed mainly by Mormons. And I worry that it may remove some of the specialness from the Fourth of July.

On the other hand, there are good reasons to celebrate it: Since it's like a second Fourth of July, the timing is perfect to extend the patriotic celebrations. I celebrate St. Patrick's Day, even though I'm not Irish, and Pioneer Day is therefore more meaningful. It decreases the gap between holidays. And there are symbols and songs for the holiday, although it'll be a challenge to find Utah decorations. It's basically a ready-made holiday that I haven't formally celebrated before.