20, 21

 After one strange year, we are now ending another strange year. In some ways, 2021 was better than 2020. Thanks to vaccines, things went back to normal...ish. But political extremism (including antivax sentiment) in many ways made 2021 even worse. And the extreme drought didn't certainly help things. 

For my own life, it was definitely more interesting than 2020 was. It kind of feels like there were three distinct periods of the year for me: spring semester, when I was still in school online; summer, when I came back into the public and resumed work at This Is the Place; and fall semester, when I attended in-person classes at the University of Utah for the first time.

So, let's dive into the individual months!

January. Because of COVID, my family didn't do our tradition of going out to eat on New Year's Day, so we did a family Zoom instead. Like every other (rational) person, I was dismayed by the January 6 insurrection. But what was especially distressing was that people I knew tried to blame it on Antifa, spreading lies and misinformation, and then they got mad at me when I pushed back against the falsehoods. It's like people think they are allowed to share whatever they want without thinking about it, but then no one is allowed to challenge them. I certainly lost a great deal of respect for people in January. I helped judge a science fair on Zoom, and we had a lamp in the living room commit suicide. In the middle of the month, I started my second semester of grad school at the University of Utah, taking history of Utah, environmental history, and US history since 1877. But all of it was online. I began attending a new dentist, and their staff seems to be better than my last one, so they diagnosed me with periodontal disease. I was also working on my goal to run on every public street in North Salt Lake.

Jimmy is such a sweet kitty.

February. It wasn't a very eventful day. We had a snowy Valentine's Day, some of the very little snow we had that winter. I finished running on every street in NSL.

March. While I was busy working on school things, I also began to be busy with other things. I began doing some freelance editing for a former boss. Additionally, I went to training meetings at This Is the Place, including driving the train, even though I wasn't going to start for a couple of months. 

This Is the Place opened their new Pioneer Center.

For St. Patrick's Day, I cooked lots of food and rented several movies, since I had a brief lull in schoolwork. We took Jimmy to the vet and he was diagnosed with arthritis.

April. For April Fool's Day, we took a pickle pie to my grandparents, since my grandpa loves pie and hates pickles, and he ended up liking it. For Easter/general conference, we met my first-cousin-once-removed's fiancée. I got my first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 shot. My parents bought a truck to pull their trailer, thereby deposing my car as the fanciest one in the family. We also took Jimmy to the vet again, and he was diagnosed with diabetes. 

After an apricotless year in 2020, I was pleased by the abundant blossoms this year...even though I was ultimately disappointed.

May. May was a transitional month. I wrapped up my final papers for school. I got my second dose of the vaccine. The very next day, I resumed working at This Is the Place, driving the train. I was very sore because of the shot. Trail running is stunning during May. 

This is my favorite picture of 2021. I use it as my lock screen on my phone, and sometimes I marvel that it is real.

My niece graduated from high school.

June. Trail running continued, and I did a thirteen-mile one in North Canyon. My brother and nephews came to visit, and we spent some time camping in Fremont Indian State Park, exploring Bryce Canyon and Cedar Breaks. My family spent a few hours at Jordanelle Reservoir so I could use my inflatable paddleboard for the first time. 

At the end of the month, we also camped at Moosehorn Lake in the Uintas, which is usually covered in snow at that time of year. 

July. We were happy that North Salt Lake's July 3 fireworks resumed. For the Fourth of July, I made apple pies, and I randomly placed the remaining dough on top of the pie. I was amused and amazed to discover it looked exactly like a turkey.

We had a strange day at This Is the Place when fish swam up the gold-panning stream. My parents took my nephews back to California. I was looking forward to a bumper crop of apricots, but the drought killed the tree before the fruit ripened. For Pioneer Day and the days leading up to it, This Is the Place had special events, which meant I "got" to drive different trains with significant problems: the Blackhawk kept overheating and spilling fluid, and the Jupiter didn't stay in park when the engine was off. On July 22, I spent the day visiting the American West Heritage Center near Logan, which was OK, but then I visited Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, which I loved. For Pioneer Day, I had to drive the busy trains at work, but that night we watched Bountiful's fireworks from my sister's driveway. I went on one North Canyon run when I encountered two rattlesnakes.

August. Another transitional month. I joined my parents at Moosehorn again on my day off. We had some crazy rainstorms, including storms that didn't clear out wildfire smoke. One smoky day, I went to Becky Edwards's home to support her in her efforts to unseat Mike Lee. I went to an orientation for new students, since I didn't get to go to my own in person in 2020. I got some new fall treats to review. I began attending classes in person, commuting to the university by bus. I took history of science and technology, oral history, and a research seminar about gender. This meant that I only worked at This Is the Place on Fridays. At the end of the month, my parents were busy painting and getting new floors. I helped with the painting a little bit. 

September. Our floor was finished. I joined my parents at Wasatch Mountain State Park. I celebrated my birthday at the end of the month, when the leaves on the trails were amazing! 

I got a few gifts, but I was most excited for my ice cream maker.

October. I started the month very busily, and I had to be Alice the "dragon" at work. We took Jimmy to the vet again because it is hard for him to walk, but there wasn't much we can do. For Halloween, we carved and lit the pumpkins we grew in our own garden. We had trick-or-treaters on Saturday but not Sunday, even though I put out my jack-o'-lanterns and Halloween music on both nights. 

November. A dry November meant I was able to do lots of trail running still. 

My science and technology class toured a nuclear reactor. I had a busy month finishing a research paper and doing a presentation on the history of paleontology. As I was heading home from my presentation that day, a crazy guy tried to break onto the bus. We resumed our Thanksgiving family gathering, and I made six things for it: ice cream, apple cider, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, and fruit salad. 

December. I continued trail running early in the month before the snow, including another thirteen-mile run.

As the semester wrapped up, I began working evenings for Candlelight Christmas at This Is the Place. I had an interview with the Church History Department, and they offered me a position, which will start in January, so I had to shave my beard. My brother arrived with his family for a week for Christmas, though they left in the evening of Christmas Day. Sadly, on Christmas Eve, I dug a grave for Jimmy while the ground is still soft, since the time has come to put him down. 

It was an eventful year! And I am looking forward to 2022. I will be starting a new job, loving a new cat, and graduating from grad school. But my first few months of the year will be busy as I finish my portfolio and work full time. I will be so excited for free evenings once I graduate.

Also, 2012 was a key year in my life. I feel like I really became who I am now in 2012. So it will be a bit strange that 2022 will be my ten-year anniversary of that pivotal year.

So far I have a couple of resolutions for 2022. I hope to get rid of something every day. That can be something big, like old furniture, but it mostly will be small things, like pens that don't write and holey socks. For many years, I collected holiday shows on DVD, and I watched all of them every year. I quit doing that in 2016, partly because I was sick of seeing them over and over. This year, I hope to watch one holiday show every day of each holiday season. There are so many options now, with my DVD collection, broadcast TV, streaming services, and YouTube. So that might not be a wise or edifying resolution, but it should be fun!

Christmas Break (almost)

 Phew, I am done with classes!

I am not quite done with assignments. I still have to revise my research paper and its accompanying files, but I'm done going to campus.

Monday was my last class of my research seminar.

On Tuesday, I had class, and then my professor for the research seminar brought her new kittens to her office. You mean I can just go play with kittens? Um, yes please! I went to see the kittens, and I was just my usual awkward self. I was kneeling on the ground to be closer to the kitties while other students were in the office chatting. Kittens are the most adorable, wonderful little creatures in the universe. These kittens were only four or five weeks old. When I got there, they were play-fighting with each other. 😻

This kitten seemed a little more scared.

When I got home, I had to do one last trail run for the season. I only had time to do Mueller Park. I don't do that one very much anymore, since it's busier, less pretty, and easier than North Canyon, but it's still nice to go once in a while. And sometimes people decorate it for Christmas.

On Wednesday, I attended my final oral history class. When I got home, I decided to cook and puree the pumpkins we grew but didn't carve. They're not pie pumpkins, but hopefully I can still use them. I just don't have the time and calories to bake all the pumpkin things.

Then Thursday, I traveled through the very welcome snow to my final class. We discussed the book Merchants of Doubt and broke into small groups to do so. Last month I mentioned an older man who asked about dinosaur DNA from Jupiter during my presentation, and he was in my group. He was dominating the conversation with irrelevant topics. If you're going to dominate a conversation, please keep it on topic!

That was my final class of the semester. But it's also possible it was my final class ever. You see, on Thursday morning I had an interview for an internship. I think it would be premature to tell you what the internship is here on this blog. But I thought it went well, and I think I am well qualified. I would love the internship. If I got it, I would just do it for credit, and I wouldn't be in any classes. If not, I am taking another research seminar, but it would be my only class next semester so I can devote more time to my portfolio.

Then Friday, I resumed work at This Is the Place. But I am working for their evening Candlelight Christmas. The park is all lit up, and I work in the print shop, talking about Christmas cards. I will work there every night until Christmas Eve, except for Sundays and tomorrow. It's my first time working Christmas, and it's been busier than I expected. Last night we were swamped. On Friday, I got a visit from my BYU editing professor, who then also was a missionary in the Church History Library the last few months I worked there. So it was fun to talk to her again.

Besides all that, I have spent the week eating tons of sugar and buying tons of Christmas and New Year music. I keep trying to justify why I buy music instead of just streaming, and I do have reasons for that. But I realized that I really just prefer to buy it, and that alone is a good enough reason.

The storm after the calm

 When I titled last week's post "the calm before the storm," I didn't know that there would be literal storms this week!

Wednesday was my day off, and I took the opportunity to go to the Church History Library to look at some sources for my Pioneer Day article. Hopefully those are the last sources I need for my article, and I can submit it soon! I have wanted to look at these sources for a long time, but, you know, COVID. I was so happy to do so.

One of my classes this semester is both a graduate class and an undergraduate class. Our professor invited us grad students to his house to discuss the class, so I headed there Wednesday afternoon. He had already met everyone else, so I felt out of place for a few reasons. I'm super socially awkward. Impostor syndrome is very real, and I feel dumber than all my classmates. The professor seemed very hipster (or whatever the 2020s equivalent is), serving fancy hors d'oeuvres of dates stuffed with brie. They were all drinking alcoholic beverages, and there was a friendly, well-behaved dog walking around. Brie, dogs, and alcohol are all things that I very much dislike. But it was OK.

(Now that most of us sane people want to follow the CDC's guidelines about masks, vaccines, and social distancing, I want to remind people of the CDC's guidelines on alcohol: "The Dietary Guidelines does not recommend that individuals who do not drink alcohol start drinking for any reason. . . .  Alcohol has been found to increase risk for cancer, and for some types of cancer, the risk increases even at low levels of alcohol consumption (less than 1 drink in a day)." And also: "Although past studies have indicated that moderate alcohol consumption has protective health benefits (e.g., reducing risk of heart disease), recent studies show this may not be true. While some studies have found improved health outcomes among moderate drinkers, it’s impossible to conclude whether these improved outcomes are due to moderate alcohol consumption or other differences in behaviors or genetics between people who drink moderately and people who don’t."

I really hope that someday, alcohol will be stigmatized in the same way tobacco is. The sooner the better. And I really think alcohol is more detrimental to the general public, even if tobacco is worse for individuals.)

That evening I made grape bread, one of my favorite late-summer treats. 

When I went out to pick the grapes, it was certainly strange to smell smoke so strongly when it was rainy. What a weird August!

The next day I had requested off as well, and it turned out that This Is the Place closed anyway because of the weather. I had "new" student orientation at the University of Utah. I'm not officially a new student, but they invited us second-year students, since we only had a virtual orientation last year. On both Wednesday and Thursday, it was weird to meet my classmates in person. I recognized their faces, but I didn't know what they looked like from below the shoulders, such as their height. I enjoyed talking to one of my professors for the semester, even though I'm shy and awkward.

During orientation, we introduced ourselves and had to share something that other people might not know about us. So I said, "I'm a reviewer for a junk-food blog, so I spend a lot of time going to random grocery stores to find things to review." After the orientation was over, I planned to go to several stores, since there have been four things I've been searching for, but I was delighted to find two of those four things at Dan's. So I reviewed/am reviewing both of them. (I'm still looking for Candy Corn Red Vines and this year's version of turkey dinner candy corn.)

I've been listening to a creepy song lately, so the song and the skeleton on the Skittles package led me to have some horrifying dreams/nightmares this week. 

First, I dreamed that I had seen lots of corpses and skeletons in a mausoleum, then took them to Carrie Underwood's house. (I just learned that Carrie Underwood is anti-mask, so she deserves to have corpses in her house.)

Then the next night, I dreamed I was in a Washington DC grocery store where there was a man with large guns. I was calling the police, then left the store but came back, and he shot us! That woke me up.

But soon after I fell asleep again, I dreamed that I awoke from a coma with one of my legs missing, replaced with a fake leg. I'm not sure whether that was from the shooting or from a drunk driver.

Fortunately, my real life is not so terrifying. The rest of the week, I attended a family party, went to the wedding reception of my first cousin once removed, and made tomato zucchini cobbler.

Yesterday was my last day working on Saturday at This Is the Place. I have worked every single Saturday since I started back in May! Phew! But I can only afford to keep working there on slow days. My classes start this week. Even though it's my second year in grad school, so much of it will feel new since I will be on campus. I just hope I can keep up with everything, since I didn't have to worry about commuting last year!

The calm before the storm

 I had to work six days this week. Several weeks ago, they told us that a company had rented out the park for a corporate event, so they asked for volunteers to work in the evening. I said I could help out.

It turned out that it was scheduled for my day off. At first, I resented that I had to work every day. But then I realized, is that really worse than having one day where I would be at work the entire day?

I decided to use the day off (before working in the evening) to go get my ID card (UCard) from the University of Utah. I drove to the public parking lot at This Is the Place, then rode my bike to campus, just like I did two years ago when I took the GRE. I do get confused with where to go. But I eventually made it to the main area of campus so I could get my card, and I also found the classrooms where I will be attending. I also took the time to go into the campus store. It was kind of surreal to be surrounded by all the red merchandise while the speakers were playing songs that were popular in 2013, when I was at BYU. There was one shirt I liked, but it was eighty dollars, so I didn't like it that much. 

I returned to work that evening, and it was fun to be there at sunset. It was a lovely August evening, though I did get a few mosquito bites. The park has a different feel at twilight.

 The next day, I was working at gold panning, and some teenage boys arrived on the train. Two of them were hanging off the back of the train, which is very much against the rules. As they came down, I recognized one of the boys that had been hanging off, so I told him he was no longer allowed to ride the train. (That's park policy. Though I wasn't driving that day, I still wanted to enforce the rules.) When the train came back later, the boys were all getting on again. The one boy I had already reproved was supposedly going to walk behind the train, but I said to the boys, "There were two of you hanging off the back of the train. I don't know who it was, but either that person needs to get off, or you all need to get off." None of them confessed, so they all got off. And I have to say, it felt good to be mean! Not that I was actually mean, per se, just enforcing the rules. 

In Springhill Geologic Park, I found two red leaves on the ground this week! And so it begins.

I also emailed the head of NSL's parks to tell him about the trail vandalism that is occurring there.

I placed those three branches there to discourage people from using the fake trail. It infuriates me that people make their own!

I also used some of our own homegrown produce. Our neighbors' apricot tree hangs into our backyard, so I made apricot chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. I added too many chocolate chips, so they overpowered the apricot.

Then I made zucchini pancakes, adding spices and almonds. I really like them, but they taste almost identical to the carrot pancakes I make in the spring.

Sadly, our own apricot tree appears to be completely dead. But we'll have to wait until the spring to know for sure. We were all eager for 2020 to be over, but 2021 isn't much better.

In case you couldn't tell, it wasn't an overly eventful week for me. But changes will be coming fast!

August happenings

This Is the Place was busy this week! Tuesday I was helping out with the mini train, and it was the busiest I have had it when I have worked there. The ride takes about two minutes, and by the time I would be done with one ride, there would be more people waiting. Like, where did you come from?! I like to spend some time reading and weeding there, but I did little reading and no weeding. Then yesterday I was in the print shop, and it was unusually busy again. I was really frustrated with a dad who was pulling pieces of type out of a typeset page we have on display, even though there was a sign saying "Don't Touch! Thanks!" He was trying to put it back in after he realized the sign, but then he kept making it worse. I said, "I can put it back," and he said, "I can too!" His teenage kids kept telling him to stop, and then he rushed out embarrassed. So I moved it out of the public's reach, kind of while his family was still there, my passive-aggressive way of making him feel bad. He came back and said, "Sorry I messed that up," but I didn't say anything, because I certainly couldn't say, "It's OK," because it wasn't OK. I hope he feels bad and remembers this experience so he doesn't do anything like it again. 

I was off Wednesday, so on Tuesday night I joined my parents up at Moosehorn Campground in the Uintas, which has long been an August tradition. The next day I wanted to visit a place called Christmas Meadows, which was relatively nearby, because it seemed like I should visit a place with Christmas in the name. My dad and I walked up a trail a little more than a mile. It was pretty but not super interesting.

Christmas Meadows wasn't as good as Moosehorn because Moosehorn has a lake. I took my paddleboard and used it, only my second time doing so on it. But I only went on it kneeling and sitting, because I'm not yet comfortable standing, and this lake is too cold for swimming.

Then I headed home for the rest of the week.

I picked the last of our plums. We don't have nearly as many as we did last year, which is sad. Then I made some of them into a plum mint upside-down cake. The recipe calls for rosemary, which I usually do, but this time I opted for the fresh mint growing in our yard. (Last year, I was watching Holiday Baking Championship, and in one episode the contestants had to make an upside-down cake with different fruits and herbs. The winner happened to be plum rosemary, which I have been making since 2016! And I think the first time I made it was during the Olympics as well.) It was really good this time, probably because I followed the directions of mixing wets and dries separately.

Last year we had no apricots, and this year I was looking forward to having tons of them. There are lots hanging on the tree—but thanks to the heat and the drought, the tree is parched, and the apricots never ripened, and now they are shriveling up, so close to being ripe but ultimately useless. I think that's worse than not having them at all!

On Friday, my mom and I decided to be political by meeting Becky Edwards, a former state legislator who is challenging Mike Lee as senator. My mom knew her previously because she liked to meet with teachers. I met her four years ago at an Easter performance at a Catholic church, and then she remembered me the next evening when I happened to run past her. We drove to the meeting spot in Centerville, but they had moved it to her home in North Salt Lake because of the smoke. So back we came. I felt a little awkward in her home. My high school English teachers were there, but they didn't remember me. We got Becky Edwards signs, and I got a t-shirt. We need to elect Republicans like Becky Edwards, rather than Mike Lee, in order to heal our country, both metaphorically and literally. Make Republicans Great Again! We need more Becky Edwardses, Mitt Romneys, and Spencer Coxes, with fewer Mike Lees and Burgess Owenses. I was pretty much in the middle before Trump, but Trump did terrible things to his party, so now I have to lean left. Then the last year and a half has made me lose almost all respect for the Republican Party. They are so concerned about their right to do terrible things, like be jerks about masks and not solve gun violence, "because Constitution," and yet they get mad at Mike Pence for following the Constitution. I hope they get some common sense again. (I am having a very hard time feeling sympathy for adults who get COVID after they chose not to get vaccinated.) Sorry, I will stop my tirade.

My Fitbit watch has had a Coach feature on it with three different workouts. It would guide me on each workout, telling me what to do and for how long. I really think it helped me physically (since I hate strength training), and it was nice that it was all done from my watch. But then this week, I discovered that they discontinued the feature! I found an app with workouts, which is OK, but I liked having it all on my watch. Google bought out Fitbit recently, and I was worried they would make it worse. This appears to be the first sign of that happening. Why should I trust Google anymore? They got rid of Google Play Music last year, replacing it with the inferior YouTube Music. They "updated" Blogger but mostly just made it worse. They started charging for Gmail and Photos. But I'm kind of happy they're getting worse, because I get a little uncomfortable when companies have a monopoly on everything.

All right, that's enough for today!

Turn of the month

 The last week of July wasn't especially noteworthy.

I was able to go on a run up North Canyon. I'm glad to be working again, but I do miss that I got to go there every day last summer and fall. It reminded me so much of last year. I even saw two rattlesnakes, which I could have gone without—that's probably what I like least about North Canyon. For the first one, I was running when I heard it rattle on the side of the trail. As it got in its defensive position, it lost its "footing" and slid off onto the trail after I had passed.

For the second one, it was in front of me, so I backed off. It remained right on the side of the trail in its defense position for quite a while, so I couldn't go past. Finally it slithered off the trail. I could still see it, but there was a barrier of plants between it and me, so I kept an eye on it as I walked past. 

They have been building a new trail on the side of the dirt road that leads to the main trail, but it doesn't seem to be progressing very fast. I'm not a fan of the new trail, because parts of it are next to the road, so all they did was make the road wider, which defeats the purpose. It wasn't a good idea, if you ask me. Well, maybe the idea was good, but so far the execution is not.

On Friday, I went back to the new portion of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail that has been under construction. It is in much better shape now. It was a fun trail, and once I got to it, it was very easy. I had an idea of when I needed to turn around, but I pretended I didn't know what time it was so I could keep going. I will need to go again when I have time to see more of it.

Today I taught my youth Sunday School class again. I find this a real struggle. I remember being the same age and not knowing how to answer the teachers' questions, and here I am on the other side. The Come, Follow Me materials are geared toward all ages, so it's hard to find what will work for teenagers. I took the ideas of the body of Christ from 1 Corinthians 12 and Doctrine and Covenants 84:109–10 for an activity. I gave everyone a few body parts, then had them draw a person that only had those body parts. I thought about taking pictures of them all, but they were nightmare fuel. 1 Corinthians 12 is one of my favorite scripture passages, and whoever wrote the Latter-day Saint chapter heading did a terrible job. Paul spends literally half of the chapter talking about the body of Christ, but the heading makes no mention of it. And yet they didn't fix this glaring omission in the 2013 edition!

Now it's August, which means it's once again time to mention that I used to hate it but now I enjoy it. I'm excited for the leaves to start to change, trees and plants to yield their fruit, and the last elements of summer to be fully enjoyed. I also start school again, and I'm nervous. Fall semester will be very different from last year. For one thing, classes will be in person, so I will need to navigate taking the bus to campus. Also, I told This Is the Place I could work there two days a week as long as I don't drive the train. (They're so short staffed that I feel bad quitting altogether.) Grad school has so much reading, and most of the places at work let me read, but not the train. This Is the Place gets pretty slow on weekdays starting in late August, so I'm hoping I can get some good studying in while I'm still making money. Some of the classes I'm taking will be a different format from what I'm used to. I just hope I can feel like I have air to breathe, because the last two semesters were also a lot of work. But I still have a few weeks to think about that. 

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.