Where the clear blue sky arches over the vales of the free

I had several new Facebook friends this week, so if this is your first time to my blog, welcome! I hope you like it here, though most of the content is pretty vapid. 

Since Pioneer Day is both a Church and a state holiday, I had the day off for both my Church job and my state job. But I think I had some kind of mild illness: unusually tired, achy, etc. So I took the day very easy: no exercising, no cleaning, no cooking. It was honestly a little boring—how do people do nothing all day? But after being so busy the last several weeks, it was nice to have a day to do nothing. And it was fitting, since Brigham Young was sick on July 24, 1847. 

Back in January, when Top Hat Video went out of business, I bought multiple cheap holiday DVDs. One of them was a 2002 movie called Handcart, so I watched it for Pioneer Day. It wasn't a good movie, but it's hard to be hard on it when it was obviously so sincere. Parts of it were filmed at This Is the Place, so that was very distracting for me. I couldn't get into the feel of the story when I knew they were at my former place of employment. (It sure took them a long time to travel one thousand feet!) In my research, handcarts didn't become a substantial part of Pioneer Day until the 1890s (and even then, they were separate from the pioneers of 1847), but by the mid-twentieth century, handcarts were synonymous with pioneers.

One thing I did opt to do to celebrate the day was to see the drone show at Liberty Park. Last year they did a laser show, and I wasn't impressed, but I wanted to see the drones. I invited a few ward friends, and we went to the hill at the park. They had the radio station NOW 97.9* providing the music.

As they started, 97.9 played "Utah, This Is the Place" while they showed various Utah symbols. That's the state song, but no one else has recorded it, which means we're stuck with obnoxious children's music. And then they played the Tabernacle Choir version of "The Handcart Song" while the drones showed an image of a handcart (again with the handcarts!). Then they played various pop songs while showing various images. I think some of them were Native American symbols, but I don't know their significance. So here they are, in reverse order, because in 2020 Blogger changed the way you do images and made it worse.

"Happy Pioneer Day"

The 9th and 9th whale 😆

Moon, earth, and sun. The moon actually revolved around the earth, and the earth went around the sun (until it was time for the next image)

This eagle was red, white, and blue, then turned golden

The new Utah flag

Salt Lake City's flag. I wish the new Utah flag had incorporated the sego lily.

Handcart

Honeybee

The Beehive State

It was honestly better than I expected. And I liked them better than fireworks. I hope this becomes a tradition!

*97.9 is, like, the worst radio station. They play the same songs over and over, and they're old songs. "Today's best music," if by "today" you mean 2016. Oh, and they always say the artists' names, but they mispronounce Taio Cruz and Camilla Cabello.

The rest of the week, for the most part, wasn't that eventful. Once the holidays are over, July isn't that great of a month. It's just hot and boring.

However, I did make Friday night fun. As I was thinking about what I wanted to do for cardio, I thought it was too hot for running. But then I had the idea to go to Farmington Pond. I checked the water quality, and it was safe for recreating! So I took my paddleboard and invited some friends who I knew enjoyed paddleboarding. I did some swimming while one friend used my board, and then I got on my board. I stood up for forty-five minutes before I fell in. It was easy when there wasn't a wake on the pond. I didn't grow up going to lakes or ponds very often, and I have learned that I really enjoy them.

joo lie

 I was busy this week! Even though issue 2 of Wayfare has gone to the printer, I still had a few new articles to edit for the website. 

And since it was so hot, I spent a few nights taking my headlamp out on the trail in the dark. I'm glad I can do that, but it's not ideal. The headlamp messes with depth perception, and I can see every single spider, since their eyes shine in the dark.

I also happened to see Governor Spencer Cox twice this week. At my Church job, we received a notice that there was going to be a cattle drive downtown ahead of the Days of '47 rodeo. I don't particularly care for cattle drives or rodeos, but I do care for weird happenings associated with Pioneer Day, so I went out to see it. Unfortunately, right before the cattle arrived, I got an important phone call about the images I wanted to include in my Pioneer Day article. (It sounds like there are too many copyright complications to include one of my favorite images, but I should still be able to use some others.) Since I was on the phone, I couldn't take pictures with it. But I saw the governor on a horse and all the longhorn cattle. 

My state job has various meetings, and I never know what ones I'm supposed to attend. I work for the state from home, but I went into the state office for the board meeting. I sat in the back instead of at the table (because of impostor syndrome, and also because I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be there). Cox made a brief appearance, and there was someone there taking pictures for his social media. And I ended up in the picture he posted! 

And the last couple of weeks, I have continued to use our large supply of frozen cherries. I have made cherry guacamole,

cherry lemonade,

chocolate cherry crisp,

cherry chocolate chip pancakes,

and cherry ice cream.

I had a pretty busy week. But I don't need to bore you with all the other details.

Minuscule vacation

Last month, my parents brought my brother's youngest kids, Franklin (15) and Amity (13), to stay with us for a few weeks. They don't like long car rides, and my parents weren't necessarily looking forward to taking them back. So my parents offered to pay for me to escort the kids on an airplane back to California.

It can be hard to take time off, since I have two jobs. And Franklin likes to say I have four jobs, since I also do The Impulsive Buy and Wayfare. So I opted for a very short trip, less than twenty-four hours. I flew out Friday night with the kids, and then I flew back yesterday (Saturday). 

The kids—especially Franklin—wanted me to meet their cat, Pudding, who they got last year. He talked about him all trip, and when we got home, he was obsessing about every little thing he did and going off about how "he's real!" He is a very energetic, playful cat. Franklin was playing with him, and he jumped in the air, then kicked off of Franklin, like Mario doing a wall jump.

Pudding's fur reminds me of The Dress

He loves this special cat toothpaste

They pointed out how different Pudding is from Reggie.

Pudding	Reggie
Short hair	Long hair
Playful	Affectionate
Investigates noises	Hides from noises
Friendly and social	Takes time to warm up
Small	Enormous
Adorable	Adorable

While I was on my brief visit, we also visited Albany Bulb, which is a former landfill by the bay. There is a lot of hipster art there.

Preston (18) and Franklin

The kids found a set of mannequin legs tied to a child's tricycle. They untied the legs, then they tried to ride the trike. But they were a little too big, so it was funny to watch them play with it. 

But my short trip came to an end, so my brother drove me to the airport. Just like Pudding and Reggie, he and I are very different:

David	Mark
Works in science	Works in humanities
Loves movies and video games	Loves trails
Straight	Gay
Doesn't celebrate holidays	Obsesses over holidays
Needs little sleep	Needs a lot of sleep
Talkative	Not talkative
Adorable	Adorable

In my geology classes, I learned about the Basin and Range province, where the continent is spreading out, which means there are mountain ranges and valleys between them. I was able to clearly see those features on the plane ride home. 

I felt a little bad having such a short trip. But if I had to schedule time off, then I might not have gone at all. So I'm glad I went.