Legend has it that those were the words Brigham Young uttered when he caught his first glimpse of the Salt Lake Valley. I can certify that while it may not be the only place, it is indeed a very beautiful place.
Back in May, while I was doing my interim pastor gig in Newcastle, WY, I got an email from a woman named Rachel. She told me that when she had dreamed of her wedding, I had always been the pastor who officiated. She was getting married in September, she said, and wondered if it would be possible for me to do her wedding. I wasn't entirely sure who she was. The only person with that name had been a little-bitty girl when I left Ogden in 1991. So I asked her to refresh my memory of who she was and she emailed back that I might remember her as the cute little five-year-old blonde who snatched a little boy off my lap at the beginning of the children's sermon one Sunday morning. My lap was her place to sit. My memory had been correct.
So yesterday morning, I left home (I was out of the house by 8AM again, Jim!), stopped at McDonalds for my Egg McMuffin and coffee and was on the road north before 9:00. I rode through Fort Collins and got on US-287 toward Laramie. It was a beautiful morning, but slightly on the cool side. I came close to stopping to put on my electric jacket but decided I could make it till my gas stop in Laramie.
I made it to Laramie, filled up with gas, took a brief biological break, refilled my coffee cup and rolled out onto I-80. If you've ridden across I-80 in Wyoming, you know that the state wasted money putting up signs that say "Strong Winds Possible." They wasted money because strong winds are inevitable! Except yesterday, they were missing! I would guess that the wind speed didn't get above 10 mph all the way from Laramie to Wamsutter. Plus, there was remarkably little traffic. Usually, 80 has long lines of tractor-trailers creeping up the hills with slightly faster trucks trying their darndest to get around the slightly slower trucks. There were still more trucks than cars for most of the way yesterday, but there were long stretches of empty interstate.
I gassed up again in Rock Springs and headed on towards Utah. The winds had picked up to a relatively-gentle 20-25mph around Wamsutter, but dropped back down to 10-15 by Little America, so for the whole 475-mile trip, they were only strong for about 100 miles. Compared to the ride to Big Sky, MT, via Jackson, WY, and Driggs, ID, that I'd made in August, it was a dead-calm day. On that trip, the winds along 80 had been 40-50mph and had dropped to maybe 35mph by the time I got to Pinedale, WY.
I talked to a guy at the gas station in Laramie and mentioned that it seemed amazingly calm for Wyoming. He agreed and told me that when he'd moved to Wyoming 45 years before, he'd bought a little spiral notebook a couple of years later with the intention of recording the dates when the wind didn't blow. He told me he'd thrown the notebook away about 10 years ago because it was still blank.
As I passed Evanston, WY, a couple of miles from the state line, I remembered how impressed I had been the first time I drove up Echo Canyon. It was one of the most impressive things we saw as we moved from California to Casper back in 1979. Echo Canyon is still equally impressive with huge red-rock cliffs lining the road. After I got to the intersection with I-84, which heads toward Ogden and then on to Oregon, I also remember the way we felt when we drove to Ogden on our move there in 1987 -- the cliffs in the canyon just west of Henefer, the valley around Morgan, and the awesome peaks of the Wasatch Range before you go into Weber Canyon and down into the valley between Ogden and Layton. Hill AFB, sits on the plateau south of the Weber River and F-16s provide the soundtrack for living anywhere with 10-15 miles north or south of the base. I've missed these "Sounds of Freedom" and I'm busy getting caught up on them this afternoon.
Last night, we had dinner with Rachel's folks and I was privileged to catch up with them and their family. Turned out that they had both had to have wedding rings cut off their hands due to injuries. They had just gotten replacements this summer and had waited until I could be there to bless these rings before they put them on. Blessing rings for a couple who have been married for 43 years was an honor.
Tonight we have a rehearsal dinner and rehearsal, tomorrow I'm going to try to find my brother's widow who lives in Salt Lake but has been estranged since his death, and then Saturday, it's the wedding.
Sunday morning I'm going to church where I was pastor for four years back in the 80s and then ride for home. I'm hoping it'll be clear in southern Wyoming/northern Colorado on Sunday evening. There's a total eclipse of the "Blood" moon that starts a little after 7PM and is total for about an hour around 9:00.
I'll miss seeing part of the Broncos/Lions game, but it's being recorded and you don't get to see too many total eclipses.
My picture taking didn't go too well yesterday but I'll put these two up anyway. The first one is Elk Mountain. It's south of I-80 and west of the Medicine Bow Range. During the late '30s, several of the early trans-continental airline flights came to sudden ends on the sides of Elk Mountain. IIRC, there were two DC-2s and a DC-3 that crashed there in the days before radio navigation reached a level of maturity.
The second one is the entry to the canyon just west of Henefer, UT, about 45 miles from Ogden.
Back in May, while I was doing my interim pastor gig in Newcastle, WY, I got an email from a woman named Rachel. She told me that when she had dreamed of her wedding, I had always been the pastor who officiated. She was getting married in September, she said, and wondered if it would be possible for me to do her wedding. I wasn't entirely sure who she was. The only person with that name had been a little-bitty girl when I left Ogden in 1991. So I asked her to refresh my memory of who she was and she emailed back that I might remember her as the cute little five-year-old blonde who snatched a little boy off my lap at the beginning of the children's sermon one Sunday morning. My lap was her place to sit. My memory had been correct.
So yesterday morning, I left home (I was out of the house by 8AM again, Jim!), stopped at McDonalds for my Egg McMuffin and coffee and was on the road north before 9:00. I rode through Fort Collins and got on US-287 toward Laramie. It was a beautiful morning, but slightly on the cool side. I came close to stopping to put on my electric jacket but decided I could make it till my gas stop in Laramie.
I made it to Laramie, filled up with gas, took a brief biological break, refilled my coffee cup and rolled out onto I-80. If you've ridden across I-80 in Wyoming, you know that the state wasted money putting up signs that say "Strong Winds Possible." They wasted money because strong winds are inevitable! Except yesterday, they were missing! I would guess that the wind speed didn't get above 10 mph all the way from Laramie to Wamsutter. Plus, there was remarkably little traffic. Usually, 80 has long lines of tractor-trailers creeping up the hills with slightly faster trucks trying their darndest to get around the slightly slower trucks. There were still more trucks than cars for most of the way yesterday, but there were long stretches of empty interstate.
I gassed up again in Rock Springs and headed on towards Utah. The winds had picked up to a relatively-gentle 20-25mph around Wamsutter, but dropped back down to 10-15 by Little America, so for the whole 475-mile trip, they were only strong for about 100 miles. Compared to the ride to Big Sky, MT, via Jackson, WY, and Driggs, ID, that I'd made in August, it was a dead-calm day. On that trip, the winds along 80 had been 40-50mph and had dropped to maybe 35mph by the time I got to Pinedale, WY.
I talked to a guy at the gas station in Laramie and mentioned that it seemed amazingly calm for Wyoming. He agreed and told me that when he'd moved to Wyoming 45 years before, he'd bought a little spiral notebook a couple of years later with the intention of recording the dates when the wind didn't blow. He told me he'd thrown the notebook away about 10 years ago because it was still blank.
As I passed Evanston, WY, a couple of miles from the state line, I remembered how impressed I had been the first time I drove up Echo Canyon. It was one of the most impressive things we saw as we moved from California to Casper back in 1979. Echo Canyon is still equally impressive with huge red-rock cliffs lining the road. After I got to the intersection with I-84, which heads toward Ogden and then on to Oregon, I also remember the way we felt when we drove to Ogden on our move there in 1987 -- the cliffs in the canyon just west of Henefer, the valley around Morgan, and the awesome peaks of the Wasatch Range before you go into Weber Canyon and down into the valley between Ogden and Layton. Hill AFB, sits on the plateau south of the Weber River and F-16s provide the soundtrack for living anywhere with 10-15 miles north or south of the base. I've missed these "Sounds of Freedom" and I'm busy getting caught up on them this afternoon.
Last night, we had dinner with Rachel's folks and I was privileged to catch up with them and their family. Turned out that they had both had to have wedding rings cut off their hands due to injuries. They had just gotten replacements this summer and had waited until I could be there to bless these rings before they put them on. Blessing rings for a couple who have been married for 43 years was an honor.
Tonight we have a rehearsal dinner and rehearsal, tomorrow I'm going to try to find my brother's widow who lives in Salt Lake but has been estranged since his death, and then Saturday, it's the wedding.
Sunday morning I'm going to church where I was pastor for four years back in the 80s and then ride for home. I'm hoping it'll be clear in southern Wyoming/northern Colorado on Sunday evening. There's a total eclipse of the "Blood" moon that starts a little after 7PM and is total for about an hour around 9:00.
I'll miss seeing part of the Broncos/Lions game, but it's being recorded and you don't get to see too many total eclipses.
My picture taking didn't go too well yesterday but I'll put these two up anyway. The first one is Elk Mountain. It's south of I-80 and west of the Medicine Bow Range. During the late '30s, several of the early trans-continental airline flights came to sudden ends on the sides of Elk Mountain. IIRC, there were two DC-2s and a DC-3 that crashed there in the days before radio navigation reached a level of maturity.
The second one is the entry to the canyon just west of Henefer, UT, about 45 miles from Ogden.
