My default winter run has been the eleven miles to and from the Bountiful Temple, but that can get a little difficult and repetitive, so I thought I would change it up this week. I knew that last summer, North Salt Lake put a launching area on the Jordan River, so I thought I would check it out. I didn't particularly care for running down Center Street, because I had to stop at three stoplights, and the sidewalk kept switching sides. But I made it down to Porter's Landing. That was the first time I've been on the shores of the Jordan River. (This run was only 6.6 miles, but it saved the hard part for the end.)
Since I want to go to all 29 counties while I'm 29, I realized that while I am unemployed, it would be super easy to knock off Morgan County. So up I drove through Weber Canyon to go to Morgan. I stopped for lunch in a burger joint. Then I thought, "I'm only twelve miles away from East Canyon State Park. Why not go there?" So I did!
I pulled up to the toll booth (well, it was more of a building than a booth) and stopped to pay the fee. But no one was there. It was $10 to get into the park, but I only had $1 with me, so I put it in an envelope and drove in. But I don't feel bad about it, because I didn't use any of the park's facilities--everything was closed, though there were a few random cars there, and the roads had obviously been plowed. There was really nothing to do there, but I was glad I made it there.
I drove to the other end of the park/reservoir, where there was a resort, but again, there was nothing to do at the resort. It would have been quicker to head home by going south and through Salt Lake, but the road was closed in that direction, so I had to go back through Morgan. I stopped at another burger joint and got a mint shake. Then I headed home.
Thursday was March 1, St. David's Day, the national holiday of Wales. St. David's Day really came on my radar last year, when I was researching Dan Jones and nineteenth-century Wales. I thought I would celebrate it this year, though it's a little hard to do so when you're the only person who even knows what it is. (It has often puzzled me that St. Patrick's Day is the only national holiday besides our own that we really celebrate in the United States.) Our furnace went out that day, so I was happy to wear my red sweater in the house. I listened to some Welsh Celtic music, and I cooked a few things.
First I made caramelized leeks with quinoa. That is definitely not Welsh food, but leeks are one of Wales's national symbols. It was decent. I wasn't looking forward to the leftovers, but they were fine mixed with leftover beet burritos.
I also made Welsh cakes, which are like a cross between sugar cookies and pancakes, with currants mixed in. (I was really disappointed I forgot to add nutmeg, because I love cooking with nutmeg.) They were quite tasty. I might have to make them next year. (I found an Americanized recipe, because most of the recipes were too British for me to understand.)
Also this week, the book At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-day Saint Women, which came out last year, was released online for free. I went all through that book before it was published and saw all the behind-the-scenes stuff. Footnote 28 of chapter 43 is one I greatly contributed to (though I was later embarrassed about some factual discrepancies that another editor pointed out before publication). I posted a screenshot with my name on Facebook shortly before I went to bed.
That night, I dreamed that my post was somehow public, but Facebook wouldn't let me change the settings of the post to make it private. And in the dream I got all sorts of snarky comments from anti-Mormon hecklers who hadn't even read the book. Because, unfortunately, in real life the internet is not a safe place to be religious. That's why in my review of Peeps Mystery Flavors, I framed my scriptural quotation in the context of academia--not in the context of a religious practitioner.
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