Pioneer Week

 At This Is the Place, we have four "trains" (more like a truck): the Betsy Jane, the Blackhawk, the Jupiter, and the 119. So far this season, I've been driving the Betsy Jane and the 119, but this week I got to drive the other two. It was...an experience.

Monday was the first time anyone drove the Blackhawk in a really long time. I found some gloves and saltwater taffy on the caboose, so I'm guessing the last time it was driven was October 2019. They had tested it beforehand, but this was to be the first time it was actually in service. Monday was a busy day with the SUP and DUP in the park, so they wanted to drive both the Betsy Jane and the Blackhawk, and the honor fell to me to drive it for its first time back in service.

Well, I took the Blackhawk around the park a few times, but I did have to press the gas really hard to get it to go. But at one point, as I was driving up the biggest hill in the park, the truck/train was really struggling. I looked down at the temperature gauge, and it was all the way at hot. I thought, "I just hope I can make it to the top of the hill to the train stop!" Well, I barely made it. As I pulled in at the stop, smoke and steam billowed out of the engine like in a movie. Coolant was dripping all over the road. We had to get everyone off and call the mechanic. They coasted the Blackhawk down the hill, and while the conductor and I waited at the top of the hill, Dallin H. Oaks rode by on a golf cart. The mechanic wanted me to drive his truck down, but I got confused because its PRND21 didn't work, so I didn't drive it.

Since we couldn't use the Blackhawk, they had me drive the Jupiter instead (the first time I have driven that one as well). The Jupiter will randomly shut off while it is waiting, which is not ideal, but you can just work with it by putting it in neutral and starting it again. I used it for a while, and then I went to park it for lunch. It parked fine as long as it was on. But once I took the key out, it would keep rolling. So I had to call the mechanic, and he came and fixed it. He is usually off on Mondays, so it was a good thing he was there that day!

On Wednesday, I stopped at the Book Garden in Bountiful because I saw that they had an old book that I want to cite for my Pioneer Day project, and I haven't been able to go to the Church History Library to look at it, so I decided to buy it. But they didn't have it on site, so they are going to get it from their storage. I also saw the book Plain But Wholesome: Foodways of the Mormon Pioneers, which I have wanted to read, so I bought it. And it is always fun to see my own books out in the wild.

The Saints Abroad (in the middle) is the book I coedited. It's my greatest achievement of my career...so far.

Thursday was my day off, so I thought I would do something pioneery. I went to visit the American West Heritage Center outside of Logan, a place that is similar to This Is the Place. When I started working at TITP, my boss told me that when you visit living history museums, they give you discounts for being a fellow historical interpreter. But whenever I have asked, they have not done so. Oh well.

AWHC has a few pioneer cabins that have been relocated to the site, as well as some replicas. They also have a farm and a miniature train. I enjoyed walking on some little trails, but then I learned that the area was closed. How was I supposed to know that when there were no signs where I entered the trail? I could tell they were short staffed, which I can certainly understand; we are short staffed at TITP as well. I enjoyed the 1917 farmhouse with the tiny upstairs rooms.

This is their train.

I think AWHC's farming side is better than that of TITP, as is their train. But TITP is better for historic buildings, and I would say it's better in general. I don't think it's worth going out of your way to see AWHC; it's worth a visit once if you're in the area. It was fun to be on the other side of the tourism/living history industry for once.

Since I had gone all the way up there (and got a chip in my windshield!), I thought I should do something else in that area of the state. I looked on Google Maps to see what else was nearby, and I decided to go to the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. The museum was closed, and I didn't feel like walking on the shadeless trail in the middle of the mid-90s temperatures. But I went to the auto tour, which was twelve miles away and which was itself a twelve-mile tour. It was amazing! Even though it's the off season, and it was the middle of the day, and we have a severe drought, I saw lots of pelicans and other birds; it's a must-see spot for any ornithologist. I definitely hope to go back sometime.

There were lots of birds here.

Here is an interpretive sign about invasive carp, but it was completely dry here.

There was a lookout at the beginning of the auto tour where I saw three pelicans, but there were lots more pelicans later on.

You can see the new chip in my windshield.

That evening, I had my fifth Utah Taste Off kit. This one was Utah-themed foods for Pioneer Day. The foods themselves wouldn't have intrigued me that much, but since I hope to become the world's authority on Pioneer Day, I wanted to get this kit. It had honey, fry sauce, Jello cupcakes, beignets, and funeral potato Pioneer Chips. I loved the cupcake, beignets, and fries and fry sauce, probably because I was hungry. The beignets won the overall Taste Off.

I love Pioneer Chips; they are probably my favorite chip brand. But the funeral potato flavor is probably my least favorite flavor. (The stuffed jalapeño flavor is positively amazing!) But I guess it says something about the quality that I can still eat them, since I hate most cheese-flavored chips. They also gave out cards for free drinks from Swig. I don't drink soda, so I got drinks with a light lemonade base, since lemonade is a traditional Pioneer Day treat. Even though I have an incurable sweet tooth, I'm not a big fan of sweet drinks. I drink Gatorade for the electrolytes, and that's about it.

On Friday, it took me an hour to get to work because of the Days of '47 parade. Two years ago it took a long time, so this time I went a different route. I picked the wrong route. When I got there, I got a surprising note. Apparently a guest had come to the village and one of the supervisors told her about my research. So she left a note for them to pass along to me. She is writing a novel, and the protagonist goes to a Pioneer Day celebration in 1937, so she wants some information about what would have happened in real life at such an event. What a surprise! I will have to do some research and get back to her. 

We had a busy day on Friday as part of Days of '47 and Pioneer Day weekend. It makes sense; if there were a Pioneer Day door in The Nightmare before Christmas, it would lead to This Is the Place Heritage Park. I was helping with gold panning, and we had a steady stream of guests all day.

But then, of course, the really busy day was Saturday, July 24. Once again, they had me drive the Blackhawk. I helped the mechanic with some repairs in the morning so that it wouldn't overheat.

Well, it worked for a couple of hours. But I don't like driving that train because it is/was very noisy and hot. None of the trains have AC, but the Blackhawk's cab is worse. After a few hours, the engine got a little hot, so I turned on the heat while I went up the hill. It also slipped when I took off from one of the train stops. But it got to the point that the temperature gauge was all the way at hot again. Luckily, it didn't smoke or boil over, but I knew it wouldn't be sustainable. The mechanics took the Blackhawk out of service, because they determined there were too many people. I drove the 119 instead. That train is always hot, but after driving the Blackhawk, it felt nice and cool! The train people decided to take the caboose off the Blackhawk, then brought it back in service. And apparently that fixed the problem—no longer did it slip when taking off from the stop, no longer did it overheat, and no longer was the cab super hot. They calculated that the weight of a full load of passengers was more than that train was meant to pull. 

Initially, I kind of resented that I would have to drive on Pioneer Day. I'm the world's expert on it, and I'm just being relegated to driving the train, where I get little interaction with the public? But in some ways it was nice; I get stressed out when lots of people come into sites, but this way I didn't have to deal with that.

Then we finished out the Pioneer Day season by going to my sister's house and watching Bountiful's Handcart Days fireworks from her driveway. It was a great view. 

It wasn't the most exciting Pioneer Day this year. And that's OK.

Fish, fries, facts

 On Tuesday at work, I was helping with "gold" panning. There is a stream where we mix the pyrite into the sand, and this stream empties into the pond that is surrounded by the mini train.

There are fish in the pond, and this week they decided to raise the level of the pond. But that meant that a lot of the fish were swimming up the stream! Then the kids would find them and pick them up. We couldn't have that, so all day we were battling fish. The stream was so shallow that they would get stuck. The stream goes underneath a sidewalk between the pond and the main portion of the stream, and a lot of them were hanging out under the sidewalk. At the end of the day, I used a hose to flush any remaining fish from under the sidewalk back into the pond, then we placed rocks to keep them from swimming back upstream. I find it so interesting that these fish have an instinct to swim upstream, even though there is nothing for them up there.

There are two fish in this picture; one is trapped by a rock.

There are several fish hiding under the sidewalk here.

Tuesday night was the last night with my nephews in town, so I took them to get ice cream. They love french fries, but since they're from California, they didn't recall ever having fry sauce. I had to rectify that while they were still in Utah, so I grabbed some fries and sauce from Arctic Circle. Preston (16) liked it, but the others didn't—but they might have liked it if I hadn't told them beforehand that it had mayonnaise in it.

They left with my parents early in the morning on Wednesday, which was also my day off. But it wasn't much of a day off, because I had to spend most of the day wrapping up my freelance project. But at least I was in air conditioning all day! I am now in the house all by myself.

When I'm at work in a site but there are no guests, I find things to do. I know some of my coworkers get bored at work on slow days, but I never get bored. When I was at the mini train this week, I used a shovel to dig up massive thistles. 

I also finished reading a book on the history of the Fourth of July, and I started reading a book on the history of St. Patrick's Day.

This is related to my project where I'm writing the history of Pioneer Day. Sometimes I discover things in my research that make my jaw drop. The Twenty-Fourth of July has been celebrated since 1849, but it wasn't called Pioneer Day until the 1870s. Last night in my research, I discovered that before the name "Pioneer Day" was used for July 24, the notoriously non-Mormon railroad town of Corinne had its own Pioneer Day on March 25! 

Sometimes I search Twitter (even though I don't have Twitter) to see what people are saying about Pioneer Day, but inevitably I get frustrated by all the borderline anti-Mormons mansplaining (or the religious equivalent) Pioneer Day. I also see a fair amount of well-intentioned people, even scholars, getting the facts wrong. For example, it is widely reported that 1857 was the first statewide celebration of Pioneer Day. No, it wasn't. And sometimes people make it even more wrong by omitting the "statewide" part. I also saw a recent video by a historian explaining Mormons and the Fourth of July. Even though he's the professional historian, I couldn't help thinking, "This information isn't wrong, per se, it's just incomplete." 

I'm hoping that maybe by the end of the year, I can have my academic article submitted! I do need to make some changes still. But I kind of don't want to, simply because it's currently twenty-four pages long, which is a perfectly symbolic number of pages.

Mid-July

 On Monday, everyone had the day off for the Fourth of July, except for those of us who work in the tourism industry. I was driving the train at This Is the Place. On these hot days, we usually drive one train so the drivers can switch off and cool down. But it was so busy that we had to drive two trains, so I had to be in the hot cab all day. I couldn't help but think, "They don't pay me enough for this!" 

Apparently there was a small fire in Parleys Canyon, so all day I saw a helicopter flying around. It even came down into the park to get water from the pond by our mini train.

On Tuesday I was in the print shop, my favorite site at work. But it is across the street from the ice cream shop, so people get ice cream, then think, "Let's go into the print shop!" Ugh! Why don't they get ice cream after they go in the print shop? They bring it in, and it drips all over the floor. It has driven me crazy since 2018! This year I've been trying to stop people before they come in, but the problem is when I'm already talking to a group, and then another group comes in. I decided I wanted to make a sign to discourage ice cream. That way, it would help with the problem when I'm talking to other people, and it would seem less mean to ask them not to bring it in when there are also signs asking them not to. 

I didn't make very good signs, but they get the message across. Since we aren't actually a functioning print shop, it isn't realistic to make a perfect sign, since we don't have the resources. But I have a coworker who actually took a printmaking class, and she made some signs that were better.

These are my signs.

 

These are my coworker's signs.

(I have decided that during the Pioneer Day season, I can have ice cream that is made in Utah. So I am pro–ice cream, just anti–bringing it into the building.)

Wednesday was my day off, but I was still working—I had things I needed to do for the freelance project I was working on. I had several books I needed to consult. I wanted to make an appointment at the Church History Library, but all the available slots filled up, so I had to find other libraries. I could have gone to the University of Utah, but getting there sounded like a hassle. Instead, I looked online at what libraries had the books I needed. First I went downtown to the newly reopened Family History Library. Then I went to the Bountiful Library, which I frequented as a kid. And then I went to the Centerville library, where I got a used Halloween book for a quarter. I was able to look at all the books I needed to that way. Even if I had gone to the U, I wouldn't have been able to see all the books I needed, so this was a better way to use my time.

I got very little running in this week, thanks to the heat and spending time with my nephews. On Thursday, I took them to get ice cream. (They wanted shaved ice at the fireworks, but the line was long, so they opted to take a raincheck.) On our way, Preston (16) said, "The stereotype for someone who still lives with their parents is that they are unproductive and don't have a job. But you are very productive, and you have a good job." I said my current job isn't that good, but he said I could still afford my nice car. He asked why I still live with them. Since I have only had temporary jobs since I graduated from college, it hasn't made sense for me to move, and I said I really don't have a reason to move out. And Franklin (13) said, "And Grandma and Grandpa are awesome!" 

I love all the sunflowers that grow up everywhere every summer! I think they started earlier this year than usual. As I have said before on this blog, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, sunflower and sagebrush were considered symbols of Pioneer Day, so it really makes me happy to see them at this time of year. One day when I was driving the train, we drove past a field of sunflowers, and I remarked how they made me happy. One of my coworkers said I seemed like the kind of person who would be happy from sunflowers. So I'm glad to know that I don't come across as grumpy.

Happy Fourth of July!

 This is my first time ever blogging on the Fourth of July! The last time it fell on a Sunday was in 2010, but I didn't start my blog until 2011. 

I love all the cookie shops we have, and they make me want to be creative with flavors. One iconic treat is the red, white, and blue ice pop, which have the flavors of cherry, lemon or lime, and blue raspberry. I wanted to turn that into a cookie.

My mom had an old recipe for lemonade cookies from like the 1970s. So last Sunday I made them, then put cherry-flavored baking chips in the batter. (I wanted to make these last year, but I couldn't find the cherry chips.) Then I made a buttercream frosting with raspberry extract and blue food coloring.

I need to work on my food photography skills, I guess. Though I can take some impressive pictures if I try.

I think my family liked them better than I did. They were overly sweet and artificial, and I think the frosting really needs some tweaking. But they were reminiscent of Bomb Pops! I'm really pleased with how the concept turned out, even if I'm disappointed with the flavor outcome.

On Tuesday evening after work, I headed up to Moosehorn Lake in the Uintas, where my parents and nephews were camping. We have camped at Moosehorn for longer than I can remember, but I'm pretty sure this was our first time going in June. I can remember driving by on July 1, 1999, and the campground was closed because it was covered in several feet of snow. This time there was nary a patch of snow in the campground. As I was driving into Kamas, there was a severe cloudburst. I was scared—I couldn't see very well because the rain was so thick, and I worried about hydroplaning. I slowed down, but I worried that other drivers wouldn't and might crash into me.

On Wednesday, it rained off and on all day. We had wanted to climb Bald Mountain, but we couldn't. My nephews were disappointed. But we were able to spend some time out in our inflatable boats between showers. I came home Wednesday night since I had to be at work the next morning, and my nephews decided to come home with me because they were bored, leaving my parents by themselves for the last night.

On Thursday, I did my fourth kit from Utah Taste Off, this time a red, white, and blue one. I had my nephews participate, and Franklin (13) said he felt fancy being a food reviewer. But my nephews complained about some of the treats being too sweet. They don't have the incurable sweet tooth I have.

That same day, I had a lucky, "right place at the right time" experience. I had clocked out at work, but as I was pulling out of the employee parking lot, I second-guessed myself. So I pulled off into the public parking lot to make sure I had indeed clocked out. Since I stopped to check, I found myself behind a slow-moving pickup truck. "Ugh," I thought, "I did clock out, but since I stopped to check, now I'm behind this slow truck! I didn't need to check!" But then I noticed that the tailgate was open, and there were things that could potentially fall out. So when we got to the stop sign out of the park, I parked my car and went up to him and said, "The back of your truck is open!" So he went and closed it. If I had not felt a need to double check that I had clocked out, then I would not have been able to tell him his truck was open—and would anyone else have done it? (I can't decide whether it's good or bad that I didn't tell him, "It appears that your blinker lights aren't working." 🙄)

Yesterday, July 3, was the traditional North Salt Lake July 3 fireworks after last year's hiatus. I took my nephews and niece up to visit the food trucks. I'm pretty sure it was busier than usual, but I think we also got there later, so the food trucks had lots more people. My nephews and niece got their food, and then I got food from the slowest food truck. But while I was waiting in line, I found myself next to Brady and Megan Parks of the band the National Parks. I said to them, "Are you guys working on a new album?" So we had a brief conversation; I told them they were in my top five favorite artists, and they complimented my patriotic outfit (flag hat, patriotic shirt, flag shorts, flag socks, flag shoes). Was that creepy? I tried not to be creepy. And then later another guy came and asked for a picture with Brady. 

It was fun to be at this tradition again. My nephews like the fireworks but are concerned about the pollution impact.

Then today, for the Fourth of July, I wore my flag suit to church and got several compliments. I also had to teach the Course 15 Sunday School. I still haven't figured out the best way to teach teenagers and get them to participate. Oh well.

This afternoon we made various Fourth of July foods and took them to my sister's house to eat outside. I made some apple pies using the pie filling my mom made from the apples that fell on the ground after last fall's windstorm. I already posted this on Facebook, but after I was done cutting out the stars for the top crust, I randomly threw the remaining dough on top. I later realized it made a perfect turkey, complete with head, wattle, feet, wing, and feathers. I could not have made a better turkey if I had tried. Ben Franklin would be proud.

It cracks me up every time I look at it.

We ate the pie with vanilla frozen yogurt, and my cousin Quin was eating when he said, "I'm done!" There was a spider in the puddle of frozen yogurt on his plate! We have no idea how it got in there. But I didn't get to take a picture before my sister forcefully threw it away. 

I have been reading a book called Celebrating the Fourth all about the Fourth of July between 1777 and 1826. During this period, the iconic holiday foods were turtle soup and ice cream. Turtle soup is obviously obsolete, but ice cream has kind of taken on a life of its own. I have often seen ice cream in accounts of July 4 and July 24 celebrations of the nineteenth century in my research. And I can think of many more recent pop-culture references connecting ice cream with Independence Day. In recent years, I have seen many decorations and pieces of clothing with patriotic ice cream images. So it appears that ice cream is definitely a Fourth of July food. But it just seems so generic and broad to be that special.

Tonight my mom and I watched We the People on Netflix, which is like an updated version of Schoolhouse Rock: ten animated songs about different aspects of American civics. It is executive produced by the Obamas, and a lot of the musical style is R&B and hip-hop. I love Schoolhouse Rock. I even bought a used copy of the America Rock CD to add to my Fourth of July playlist; it is a little dated, but overall I think it has held up very well. So what do I think about We the People? I really like it, and I hope to add its songs to my playlist next Independence Day. But I feel like the animation tries too hard to be trendy, so I don't think it will age as well as Schoolhouse Rock. It's fairly neutral, but at times it does lean a little to the left, which made me, a left-leaning person, mildly uncomfortable. But I would give it 7/10.

Ever since I started officially celebrating Pioneer Day six years ago, it has made the end of the Fourth of July less sad, because the red, white, and blue extends three more weeks!