The final countdown

Well folks, we made it to September.

That means I have less than a month before I turn thirty. Eek!

It also means that meteorological summer has officially ended.

But even while it was still August, I felt like it was already fall. We had some cool days, and everyone has gone back to school. Work was super slow this week. I wasn't even surprised to see changing leaves.

Fall is my favorite holiday, and I am excited for changing leaves, cooler temperatures, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and pumpkin spice everything.

But I have enjoyed summer more each year. I will miss long daylight hours, road trips, popsicles, lake excursions, and summer wildflowers.

I still enjoy baking with grapes. Last week I made grape oatmeal cookies. They were fairly good, but they weren't as good as grape bread.

I want to mention a few work incidents. I was in the Deseret News Print Shop one day, and a guest came in and started talking about the Book of Mormon. He asked me, "How long did it take to print the Book of Mormon?" I said I didn't know, and he said, "There's some homework for you!" Perhaps I shouldn't be, but I was decently annoyed. First of all, he's the one with the question, so why is it homework for me? Second, the Book of Mormon is a (1) religious (2) book published in (3) New York in the (4) 1820s. I work in a (1) state park's (2) newspaper shop in (3) Utah in the (4) 1850s. It's not even the same thing!

On Friday, I heard some kids approaching our barbershop, which has a striped pole outside. One kid proclaimed, "Is that Santa's house?" That same day, I said to a guest, "What brings you into the bank today?" and she responded, "Interesting. How are you?" That makes me feel better about the times I give an illogical response.

On Thursday, I headed out to visit another county seat, Tooele. I went to Tooele County back in January, but I didn't stop in Tooele itself.

On the way, I stopped at Great Salt Lake State Park, where I had never been. They had a small visitor center, and they had a marina for people who boat on the lake. There was access to the beach itself. I didn't swim in it, because I didn't have a swimsuit, and it wasn't worth buying one from the gift shop. But I waded in it. This part of the lake looked a lot murkier than at Antelope Island last week, and there were no showers. It also had a much more sulfurous smell.

You can camp at this park, but it's not very pretty (other than the lake).

This old soap dispenser was on the wall in the restroom. Took me back to elementary school.

Then I visited Tooele and got dinner. I didn't realize that Tooele was so far away from the freeway, yet it's still a sizable town. Now I only have two county seats left!

On Friday, I decided to visit Trolley Square Barbers for a haircut. (I really hate talking about getting haircuts.) I worried that I would be stuck with an intimidating hipster barber when I went in. But I just happened to get one named Dan who wanted to talk Church history! It was great.

On Saturday, my family headed down to Fillmore to visit family in Fillmore Canyon. When I was growing up, it was always a tradition to go camping in Fillmore Canyon on Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend. After my grandparents died, the tradition became more sporadic, and we hadn't been there since Memorial Day 2012. We didn't camp this time; it was just a day trip. One of my aunts and one of my uncles were there with their families. There were lots of cute little kids.

I wore my running clothes on the excursion so I could take advantage of trying new trails. So I ran over to the Copleys Cove trailhead, which I have often seen growing up but never been on. After running 1.6 miles to the trailhead, I ran about 1.3 miles up. I was ready to stop then anyway, but the trail just vanished. It was difficult because it went up and up, and the trail wasn't well groomed. I don't think this trail is worth repeating, though I didn't try the Horse Hollow Trail.

There was watercress on this stream. In some of my research, I learned that the descendants of Jacob Houtz, a pioneer, were very proud of the fact that their ancestor introduced watercress to Utah. Never mind that watercress is an invasive species.

We were amazed at how dry Chalk Creek was.

Then we headed home. I requested that we stop for dinner at Nebo Queen in Nephi, which I discovered in March. Pumpkinundation roundup officially returns in two weeks--but since it is September and we don't live near Nephi, I cheated and got their pumpkin spice shake. It was similar to Arctic Circle's--the spiciness was reminiscent more of November than the day after August. 8/10.

I had a lot of ideas on where to take this post, but it didn't really go anywhere. Oh well! Happy September!