Close to Home and Yet So Foreign

A weekend adventure ...

This past long weekend, our plan was to know our surroundings a little bit more. And we did get to accomplish that. A little bit … too much, maybe?! But first thing’s first.

For a long weekend, and for two travelers, my husband and I had very loose plans this weekend. We kinda wanted to go to The Grand Canyon. And we kinda flirted with going to Las Vegas, too. But we ended up just staying home and taking short day trips here and there, learning more about Utah’s history, its capital and discovering more nature trails that make this state so unique.

We started Friday night, with an Indian dinner (nothing says “America” as Indian food, does it?!) and a walk through the Downtown of the city of Provo. It was entirely too hot to be completely comfortable in the midst of booths, strollers, skateboarders and absent minded parents, so, after a quick look over the “Fun Fourth” booths, we headed towards the more quiet streets where some galleries were open for the monthly “Gallery Stroll”.

On Saturday, we went to Salt Lake to … be tourists. He is more familiar with this area than I am (having lived here for over a year before my arrival, and having researched this area for many years before that), so the “touristy” demand came from me. I just wanted us to go to Salt Lake and visit some landmarks that I could send home with the label “SL,UT” - as a t-shirt showed it in a store window – infer your own acronym from there, if you may.

So, tourists we were. We parked first at Pioneer Park, where The Salt Lake City Farmers’ Market was in full swing (pictures start here) . We walked about the park, listened to the live music (pretty good, actually), browsed the arts booths and tents (metal sculptures, photography, woodworking, beading and the likes), bought some fresh goat cheese and some sopressata, sampled everything from honey butter to wild boar salami and of course people watched. A nice high of 77 with a mixture of sun and shade made for a refreshing start of the day.

We then drove to The Gateway Mall , located adjacent to the historic Union Pacific Train Depot. The historic train station is a beautifully kept turn of the century building, with gorgeous murals and painted windows telling visual stories of the settling of the Mormon pioneers (1847) and of the accomplishment of the first trans continental rail road (1869), as well as displaying various scenes of the Western landscape (pictures start here).

True to our tourist demands, we had lunch at The Mall, and were surprised to find a delicious chain restaurant that offered Hawaiian fare – Rumbi. The pulled pork is the best I have had in a long while.

After lunch, we drove up a very steep hill indeed (never been to San Francisco, but … it seemed like driving through it instead!) up to The Capitol of the State of Utah. Reading more about the building after we saw it, I can tell you now that we saw the South - South - East side of the structure, with its front lawn, stairs, view of the city, and we also saw the monument dedicated to the Mormon Battalion, to the right of The Capitol.

The place looked like most Capitols you have seen, stately, majestic, sort of intimidating, I’d say, but this particular building and its grounds surprised me as extremely quiet for such a huge construction, and arguably an important tourist attraction on a holiday weekend. Pictures start here.

In search for more Mormon history, on we went to Temple Square . I can probably write a whole day about this area so revered by LDS folks and such a staple of Utah, and of Mormon culture. But I will let you research it at your own convenience, and see it through my and Aa’s lens, here .

What also amazed me was how quiet and scarce the crowds were, again, for a holiday weekend. The architecture of all the buildings comprising The Square is beautiful, and the gardens breathtaking. As you may know, we are not allowed to visit The Temple, as non-Mormons, but the visitors’ center does a good job of explaining the fundamentals of the faith, and they also offer videos of some of the inside details. Definitely include this sight in your future trips to SLC.

On Sunday, it was return to nature day! Aa. had planned for us to drive The Diamond Fork Canyon for a while now – a campground and scenic route only minutes from our house – and we finally got to it on July Fourth! The ride through the Canyon is as many Utah rides are – beautiful, surprising, colorful, serene, very diverse in landscape and mostly wild. These folks know how to keep things wild, and I love that! The isolation, quietude and freshness say “hello” at every turn. We didn’t see much wildlife this time (pictures here), but we did see a lot more varied grasses and flowers than elsewhere before. Also, lots of camping opportunities, whether in organized, beautifully kept campgrounds, or just along the Diamond Fork river, on the side of the road, with big signs welcoming us: “Camping allowed. No fees required”.

A surprising thing on this particular drive was the fact that at some a vile smell floods the car. After turning yet another corner, you see white streams coming down from the mountains – there are sulfur (hot) springs in this Canyon. They surely are pretty, but they smell just like rotten eggs – breathtaking, but not in the desired way, for sure!

Later on, upon reading about these parts, we discovered that the Hot Pots of Diamond Canyon are a popular destination not only for people who seek tranquility and a return to nature, but also for … nudist hikers.

Our shock is only bigger than those of folks who have never been to Utah and can’t comprehend the degree of … conservatism (for lack of a better word) this state is capable of displaying in most day-to-day life situations – like buying coffee being frowned upon, or trashing empty bottles of beer after a cook out, or driving for 10+ miles from anywhere for a bottle of wine. No, not liquor – wine!

So, yeah, to hear about the “illegal but tolerated” behavior of bathing nude in a national forest was a bit daunting indeed. Not only that, but I stumbled upon another surprising fact: there is a “forum” out there for LDS skinny dippers (seriously - just google it!). OK, so maybe I have been sheltered, and I am the only one surprised by these seemingly contradictory findings, so I will refrain from comment. I guess a true Garden of Eden this state is! The things you learn as a tourist in your back yard are sometimes worth ten trips around the world.

I will just conclude that Diamond Fork Canyon is a gorgeous ride and park (as you can tell from the pictures), it’s mostly clean, very well maintained, the roads are nicely paved, and all the campgrounds look spacious, safe, wood stocked and most of them are shaded or have picnic gazebos, fire pits and grills. Just beautiful country, as you have come to expect from Utah so far.

On Monday, we came down to our less escapist lives, and we just shopped around our town and the towns around us – Orem and Provo, in particular. It was a hot day, and being mostly in the air conditioned stores just browsing and brainstorming about what else we might need to make our house a home was just what we needed to round up a full weekend.

The only thing absent from our weekend were the fireworks. Sunday is too small a day for two holidays in Utah County, and Church always wins: all the displays were Saturday (on the 3^rd), so we missed them. Given the heat of the springs and the somewhat explosive news surrounding them, I declared myself happy with the kind of “fireworks” we did run into.

Hope everyone had a fun and safe holiday. I don’t have a job yet, but I am ready for the next long weekend! I am … holding my breath for what else Utah has in store for us. Who knows where the next … sulfur spring might pop up, if you know what I mean.

Cainele care latra numai la pisici

For the English version, please click here.

De ce o facem?! De ce vrem sa avem animale de casa? Stim ca ne atasam sufleteste de ele. Stim ca ele se vor duce inaintea noastra si ca vom suferi cand le vom pierde. Si cu toate acestea le dorim. In mod constient. Cu ochii deschisi le cautam ani de zile si ne deschidem usile si inimile catre ele, atunci cand ne caute ele pe noi. De ce?!

Cred ca o facem din aceleasi motive pentru care vrem sa avem copii, desi stim ca nu ii vom putea proteja intreaga lor viata – e o lege inexplicabila a naturii. Simtim nevoia sa ne conectam sufleteste. Sa dam si sa primim dragoste, neconditionata. E superflua explicatia acestui fapt natural. O facem pentru a ne onora umanitatea!

Tatal meu si-a dorit dintotdeauna un caine. Mereu a vrut sa aiba un caine ciobanesc german. Dar cand eram noi copii, a iubit mereu cainii altora, pentru ca mama nu voia animale in apartementul in care am crescut. Cand a costruit in sfarsit o casa, primul lucru pe care l-a dorit in curte a fost un catel. Astfel, catelul va putea sta afara, fara sa murdareasca in casa si sa o supere pe mama.

Si asa a facut – tata a adoptat in sfarsit un catel. In august sunt 10 ani de cand a adoptat un caine ciobanesc german de la un prieten de al lui caruia ii fatase cateaua. L-a numit Bobby. Sau mai précis “Bobby Capucino”, datorita culorii maronii. Tata voia sa aiba un caine care arata fioros, pentru ca strainii sa se teama de el, si sa nu se apropie de casa. Bobby arata fioros, dar era departe de a fi fioros.

Bobby a fost cel mai tacut si supus catel din cati am vazut eu vreodata. Iubea oamenii, prieteni si straini, deopotriva. Si desi tata il voise la inceput pentru a latra tare la persoanele straine, asa cum o fac de obicei cainii ciobanesti germani, Bobby nu latra niciodata la nimeni, decat la pisici. Niciodata nu latra la oameni. Manca din mana oricui, se sprijinea de piciorul oricarui om statea la masa, spunea “buna ziua” la oricine intra in curte, si ii conducea frumos la bucatarie, sau oriunde erau cei de ai casei.

Era mereu in preajma tatei, desi tata fusese rau cu el in anumite ocazii, cand i-a calcat gradina de legume, sau cand a disparut de acasa si nu l-a gasit decat dupa ore intregi, speriindu-l pe tata care credea ca il calcase vreo masina.

Bobby a fost mereu dezlegat. Niciodata nu a fost legat cu lantul, asa cum o fac multi oameni in Romania. Si dupa ce si-a invatat teritoriul, Bobby era extrem de ascultator si cuminte, si nu mergea unde nu avea voie.

Vremuri mai sanatoase si mai fericite: Bobby in fata bucatariei si a portii

Ca orice animal de casa, Bobby a devenit parte din familia noastra. In primul weekend pe care l-a petrecut la noi in casa, a fost nunta sorei mele. A fost cu noi cand a murit maia; era mereu langa noi cand veneam in vizita, si mancam pe terasa; a fost langa mama si tata cand a murit Dolly, pisica noastra; era mereu langa tata cand facea gratar; a fost acolo cand l-am dus pe Patrick in Romania pentru prima data. Era mereu tacut si daca nu il vedeai, nu stiai ca exista caine la casa parintilor mei. Sau daca nu era cate o pisica vagaboanda prin curte si atunci ii auzeai scheunatul. Ca nu era chiar ca un latrat. Era mai mult ca un suspin sau oftat!

Nu prea se pricepea la tinut pisicile afara din curte. Suspinul lui frustrat cand le vedea insemna mai mult ca le atentiona ca desi primesc mancare acolo, curtea ii apartine lui.

Bobby a fost fara discutie cel mai destept caine din cati am vazut vreodata. Grija cu care se misca pe langa copiii mici, obedienta tacita fata de adulti, discretia cu care statea sub masa fara a cere flagrant de mancare, il aratau ca pe un caine destept. Si, fara discutie, a fost un caine plin de dragoste, pentru toti cei care l-au intalnit. Dragoste si umilinta.

Cred ca tacerea lui i-au cauzat si moartea, poate, pe de o parte. Parintii mei nu si-au dat seama cat este de bolnav pana a fost prea tarziu, pentru ca nu se plangea de a-I fi rau.

Bobby a murit astazi. Avea doar 10 ani. Si spun “doar” pentru ca ar fi trebuit sa traiasca mult mai mult! A murit la fel de silentios cum a trait. Asa cum a zis si mama, a fost ca si copilul lor; chiar daca l-am mai certat, l-am iubit, asa cum iubesti si certi un copil.

Deci, la dupa doar 10 ani, noi, si mai ales tata care si l-a dorit timp de peste 40 de ani, nu suntem pregatiti sa ii spunem “la revedere”. Dar adevarul este, cand oare suntem pregatiti sa spunem la revedere unui “copil”, unei parti de familie, unui animal de casa?!

Sper ca daca exista vreun “rai ai cateilor”, Bobby alearga acum liber si fara durere prin el, rastindu-se doar din cand in cand la pisicile care ii ies in cale. O sa imi fie dor de tine, Dle. Capucino. Esti de neinlocuit!

Mai putin "servitor si stapan" si mai mult "prieten si prieten" - tata, cu Bobby

The Dog Who Barked Only ... at Cats

Why do we do it?! Why do we ever consider to have pets? We know we will get attached like they are family. We know they will die before us and we know it will hurt when they go. And yet we choose to have them. Consciously. With eyes wide open, we seek them, or we open our doors and our hearts to them when they seek us. Why?!

I am guessing for a similar reason that some of us choose to have kids, although we know we won’t be able to protect them forever – just from some kind of unexplained law of nature. We feel the need to connect. To give love, and to receive it. Unconditionally and totally. Explaining why is superfluous. We will do it at some point in our life, to celebrate our humanity!

Ever since I can remember, my dad wanted a dog. He was very specific about what kind of dog he wanted: it was going to be a German Shepherd. As my sister and I were growing up, we watched him love other people’s dogs, because mom never allowed pets in our condo. But once he built his house, the very same year, he was on the lookout for a dog. This way, the dog can live outside, and not bother mom.

And a dog he got. Ten years ago this August, he had a friend who had a German Shepherd female dog who had puppies. And he adopted one and named him Bobby. More precisely, Bobby Cappuccino, because of his “cappuccino” color. Dad wanted a mean looking dog, so people would stay away from his house (in Romania the notion of a guard dog is not at all extinct). A large and mean looking dog Bobby was, but a mean dog he was very far from.

He had to be the quietest and meekest dog I have ever seen. He loved friends and strangers just the same. And although dad wanted him for the known, loud and intimidating Shepherd’s bark, the only thing Bobby ever barked at were cats! Never at people. Ever. He would eat from anyone’s hand, and lean onto anyone’s leg at the dining room table. He would greet everyone, friends, strangers, the mailman, anyone at the gate, and show them into the kitchen or where dad was.

He was dad’s shadow, all these years, although dad has been known to be mean to him when he trampled his veggie garden and when he wandered off into the streets for hours causing dad to panic that he might have gotten killed by a car.

Healthier and happier times: Bobby outside the kitchen and in front of the gate - he never quite grew into his paws and large head.

He was always free to roam. In Romania chaining a dog is routine, but dad never ever chained Bobby. He trusted him, and Bobby behaved always, after he learned everyone’s needs.

Like any pet, he became very much part of the family. During his first weekend in our yard, my sister got married. He was there when my grandmother died, when we visited my parents and had all our meals on the patio, he was there when Dolly, our cat, died; there when we grilled out, there when we brought Patrick for his first visit to see my parents. He was always quiet, and unless you saw his large frame, you never ever knew there was a dog living there. Unless stray cats would happen in the yard, and you’d hear his whining. Not as much as a bark, but a frustrated whine. He was not very successful at keeping cats at bay, though: dad has had throughout the years many-a-stray cats in the yard to feed. His whine was just a warning to them, perhaps, that yes, they may get food in that house, but the yard still belongs to him.

He was without a question the smartest dog I have ever known. His diligence to move around babies and small children without hurting, his nonintrusive closeness to humans, his discreetness and never begging for food made him smart to me. And definitely, without a question, he was the most loving dog I have ever seen. He was nothing but a big pile of love for everyone. And meekness!

I think his silence almost killed him: my parents didn’t realize he was as sick as he was, because he never complained. His congested heart was found too late.

He died today. He was only 10. And I say ONLY because dogs should live longer than that! Much, much longer! He went as quietly as he lived. As mom said “he was just like a child of ours; we loved him, although we sometimes scolded him, just like you do a child”.

So, at only 10, we – and definitely dad who waited for him for 40 some years – were not ready to lose him! Truth is: when are you ever ready to lose a “child”, a part of your family, a pet?

Hopefully, if there is such a thing as a doggie heaven, Bobby is peacefully roaming it free and painlessly, only whining at the random cat up there … I’ll miss you, Mr. Cappuccino. You could never be replaced!!

Dad and Bobby. Not as much "master and servant" as "pal and pal"

Idiocracy … Now ?!

There was a story told in my philosophy class, of an ancient man, who, while he was young, found a big, golden ring on the street. He picked it up, sold it, and lived well for a little while. Starting the day he found the ring, he always, for as long as he lived, walked with his gaze to the ground, looking for more gold. He became hunchbacked, and lived to be very old, but when he died, he realized: because he never looked at the world, he had missed all the beauty of it. The sun in the sky, the birds, the spring blooms, and yellow leaves in the fall, the beautiful woman who passed him by and could have been his wife, the stray puppy who could have been his good friend.

He never did find another ring. He died poor, lonely, and never knew the beauty of life.

I keep thinking about this man watching the world around me “evolve” (read: regress) into this techy age. More and more people keep their head buried into their Iphones, Ipod touches, blackberries, hand held devices … what have you. A computer device used to be a privilege, a gift, a treat at the end of the day, where you caught up with the world. Now, it’s the extra pair of eyes and ears that are attached to humans. It’s a given. It’s expected. It’s a taken for granted.

And in the process, I watch humanity dehumanizing. They become just as much the machines they are hand holding! It doesn’t matter whether they cross a parking lot, they drive a car, they watch a movie, they “talk” to a group of friends, the world is tuned out, because they need to keep up with the latest Facebook update about someone’s breast milk tasting funny today!

The most crass example of such de-humanizing, I think, came to me while going to Salt Lake City for a show, this past weekend. We were there to spend 90 minutes with the chef and author Anthony Bourdain in a half stand up – half “Artist’s Studio” type of evening . It was a good show. Not a great show, but a good one.

We had tickets in the third tier, which meant … way up high. Those were cheaper, but they also allowed me to see the whole concert hall. Looking down, at the main floor, while the show was going on and the lights were dimmed, you saw a field of bright, lit screens everywhere on the main floor. Every tenth person or so, just looking at their cell phone screen. Texting. Surfing. Emailing. Who knows?!

And this is while the guest was actually talking on the stage. It was not a boring show. Bourdain has a very vivacious, colorful, extremely visual way of speaking. He’s a great story teller and he had lots of stories to tell! You had to tune in to keep up with each story. And people were completely, and deliberately ignoring his speech. I was floored! Pun unintended!

Why do people bother to pay $70 tickets to a show, if all they do is tune it out to “watch” Facebook, The World Cup, or whatever else?! Why have people have become so darned self absorbed and rude to completely ignore the huge notices hung in the concert halls that kindly ask them to turn off their freaking cell?! Why are they so selfish as to not care about the beeper going off every ten seconds, as they get another IM update, bothering everyone around them?

My parents always told me: if you bother to pay for a show, that means you found it interesting enough to make it worth your buck! If so, respect the people traveling from long distances, who are standing in front of you working and trying to entertain you during the time you’re there! You don’t have to stay, if you hate it. But be polite and leave! Don’t blatantly ignore the people who are doing their jobs and don’t blatantly bully your seat neighbor!

It was a sad, sad scene for my eyes. We see people being replaced by machines all day long. We have 24 hour ATMs and coke machines, 24 hour gas stations with no one there. You can even mail a package at the post office without ever seeing a human being. Even buy your ProActiv supply at the mall, from a vending machine!

But, do we have to become machines?! Do we single-handedly have to cause ourselves to get A.D.D. and Alzheimer’s when we’re 40?! Do we have to consciously tune out the world in order to chase trifles?! Because no one is going to invent the next cure for cancer while surfing the Iphone, I can guarantee you that much! It’s trifles! No substance. At all!

I guarantee you that whatever all those people were after on their phones during the show would still have been there long hours after the show was over! If something was that life-and-death (really, really doubtful, considering the amount of people “cell-ing”), then you should not have been there – you should have been where life or death needed you!

But the show in front of your eyes, the one you paid $70 for a front row for … will be gone in 90 minutes! Never to be seen again! Unless one of those bozos in the audience bootlegged it and put it on youtube – in today’s world, that would be highly possible! But say they didn’t: you want to waste a lifetime (maybe) opportunity on 10 seconds of stupid “pleasure”?! Honestly?! Has the world come down to this lowest, below the ground level of easy entertainment?! Do I still call myself “human” like the rest of them?! Really?!

Images from Idiocracy, the Mike Judge movie, flashed through my head. We’ll be a world of nothing but gadgets and no brain usage. Facile entertainment and tuning out. No, I won’t cancel my Facebook account. Nor sell my cell phone. But I will try to keep a smidgen of humanity and common sense in me, and use them when it’s appropriate, while trying to remember what my parents taught me before I ever went to school: when someone is talking to/ at you, pay attention!

Plus, I don’t want to be that old person when I die, lonely and completely empty, devoid of what the world had to offer me! When my followers will ask me on my death bed what I have seen in life, I don’t want a loopy-loop Facebook scrolling screen to go in front of my eyes, while I mumble “not much”.

... And Now, with Pictures

Last week, I was talking about the love and the hatred, and the hardships of trying to get our yard cleaned up from all the construction debris and human carelessness. This week, my great husband was kind enough to break his own back and pick up all the junk I had stored at various ends of the yard. He then loaded it in the “Hemi”, aka our (to me, very large) Dodge truck. Now, we’re both in pain!

Here you can see a picture he took of all the rock I pulled out of the yard (the trash went in a different can), along with the mower that died trying to cut through it.

One good thing out of this though (along with hopefully having a clean yard) is that should I ever get dragged in community service to dig ditches in Utah, I’ve got the digging through this rocky soil down pat!

The evidence ...

Yard Laws

Too bad that I didn’t move to Utah back in the Wild West days! Because if I had done that, I would have taken my gun, and made one or two laws of the land of my own! One of them would definitely be: no builder should ever turn a house to a buyer without cleaning the junk in the yard first.

And I am not saying plant some trees, or some grass, or landscape before they sell it, I am just simply saying: CLEAN UP after yourself! My late English teacher back home used to ask himself why in the world do human beings feel the need , when they go out into the world, to leave their human “scarnavia” (impossible to translate correctly, something like “foulness” but much, much, much stronger!) behind themselves, like they would want to mark their territory or something.

That’s what I have been asking myself for the past two days while removing hard materials from our yard.

As I have said before, our yard is sort of challenging. The little grass that’s growing is overwhelmed by weeds. I like them, though, just the same – at least they’re green! There are many bald spots in the grass and a huge one right outside the back door. The little bit of greenery is also littered with rocks. Lots of little and big boulders and pebbles, like the house was set in a former river bed or something. We already, only after three mowings, lost a (brand new) mower to this yard, because the blade kept hitting the rocks (and other hard stuff), and the engine burned out from overworking, since the whole area is very uneven, too.

And when we waste money like that is when I lose it. So, that’s when I went out there with a hoe, a shovel, rakes, a mini rake, a mini scoop-like shovel, my bare hands, my gloved hands, my strong will and mushy muscles, determined to un-earth whatever hard materials are out there, and try to leave the soil unlittered and soft. Or as soft as the desert Utah soil can be.

For weeks I have heard Aa. telling me about the junk in the yard, and the impossibility of unburying it, because the soil is so hard and stuff is just stuck in it, but I never knew how bad it was out there. Till the mower broke and I actually got close to the ground to see what bothers it!

I picked up stuff you cannot even imagine. Sure, there were rocks! There were stones, too, and some of them even pretty. But most of the overflowing wheelbarrow I have parked out back is full of much more human yielding materials than just those “natural” ones.

You can practically tell, in our yard, where the contractor dumped the gravel pile, and the flat stone pile, and where the wood was cut for the cabinets, perhaps. You can tell where they mixed the concrete, from the huge slabs of concrete mixture buried in the yellow soil, and where they had their lunch, from all the flattened coke and water bottles and cans. You can tell where they had their smoke break. Along with concrete, gravel, plastic, half pipes, cigarette butts, you can find pieces of paper (made me wonder if those were someone’s toilet paper before they had a Porta John handy?! – sorry for the image), pieces of cloth, mesh, duct tape, lots of nails, electrical wire and rubber.

I cannot feel my knees from bending them for a day and a half, picking up all this litter. I hope, with a clean, breathing yard, and a smooth surface, and with “fluffed up” bald spots, my grass seed will take root and soon this yard will at least have green in it.

And let me tell you: after all this work to just have grass out there, I will never take a yard with nothing but grass in it for granted! Never!

I also hope that our new (again!) mower will not have any of this junk to hit anymore and it will at least last us a season. The soil is still uneven, but hopefully, with new growth, the mower will not try to cut rock and rubber, but actual grass. Now, I pray for rain, as the junk is gone and the seed is waiting to sprout. I hope.

If you ever wonder where those bottles that take a million years (or something) to decompose were dumped, come to my yard and find them. And I betcha, the yard of any new construction out there, for that matter … Just unbelievable how careless (and ignorant) humans can be!

And since there is no law to punish a builder for leaving a yard so junky, and since there is so much physical work involved in cleaning after a builder, I think the time one takes to make a yard clean and at least livable should build right up into the equity of the house! So, our house, when ready to be sold, should read like this in the MLS: “house built in 2007. Junk removed from yard in 2010”. That would make the yard three years younger than the house! And I think it should matter.

The Beauty of Our Back Yard. Sort of.

You may remember, from way back , I have always wanted a back yard to my house. I love the simple pleasures of just going out there, sleepy eyes and pj’s, coffee mug in hand, to read a book, magazine, or browse the net on a lazy Sunday morning. There is nothing like recharging with no frills, just like that.

One of the many snow covered peaks around Mount Timpanogos, in American Fork Canyon

Well, our new back yard happens to be a little … Spartan, for lack of a better word. Actually, I can come up with “worse” words to describe it, but … I don’t want to project worse karma on the poor thing. I need to be grateful that it’s there and pray that one day, we can make it into the heaven I want for the lazy days above mentioned.

There is almost no grass (really, just lots of weeds) in our back yard, and we live close to a semi-busy street (some times of the day and week are better than others). We have no patio, and the small chairs and table that are on the stair landing are barely fitting – not very conducive to “lounging”. There is no fence, really, so you’d be in everyone’s business and everyone’s business would be into your life if you were sitting out there. There are no trees. Not even one. It’s a space. Not much a “home” feeling there. It’s our job to make it into one. One day. And we will. I am sure. One day.

It's hard to imagine with such altitude today that Utah was once at the bottom of an ocean - but finding sea shells like this on the trails of American Fork Canyon reminds us of that.

But sometimes I am thinking: will we truly put the effort into making it into the heaven I was talking about with all the natural beauty we have around town? We have a little bit of everything around here, minus the ocean. But we do have huge lakes with beaches if we must have standing water. We took a couple of rides around our small town of Spanish Fork’s vicinity this weekend and the breathtaking scenery recharged our batteries more than three lawn furniture sets and fifteen grills could have had!

In the span of barely two days, we took in the mountains, and cold streams, and all the beauty they come with: beautiful flowers, freshly popped buds of aspen leaves, chipmunks, deer, countless butterflies, even humming birds that were too restless to be pictured, winding trails and roads, blue skies, and lots of waterfalls, fresh with the (still) melting snow.

I have never seen columbines before, but they are precious: very frail and yet sturdy enough to grow almost out of rock - grace under hardship for sure.


View from our picnic trail off Alpine Loop: who needs flat stone patio at home, when in less than an hour we can have lunch here?! (just half kidding, really)

On Sunday, we drove the Alpine Loop that winds about American Fork Canyon to Sundance.
Mount Timpanogos stands tall, snow covered year round, at 11,750 ft in the middle of the loop. After a day of driving, hiking, picnicking along beautiful mountain views, and lots of picture taking, we stopped in Sundance for dinner.

Alpine Loop is studded with tens of waterfalls; but the "must see" place is Cascade Springs: a spot in the middle of the loop where several streams converge in a beautiful marsh, full of wildlife and moss - nature's own Japanese garden


This guy seemed not very concerned at all about the cars on the Alpine Loop - he was just enjoying his lunch, feet away from the asphalt.


I loved, loved, loved the aspen woods! The leaves were just popped on most of them. I cannot wait for the fall, when they will turn screaming yellow - a sight that made Utah and Colorado famously gorgeous in pictures.

The next day, we went to explore the Whiting Campground in Mapleton, which is a small town next door to Spanish Fork. Only minutes from our house, we found a serene and extremely not populated and quiet camping ground, beautifully managed, clean, with a noisy stream running through it, amazing overflows, trails and wild life! We even picked a spot for our next camping trip! We can camp out there even without a notice one evening. It’s so close and so well done!

Mini-lake overflowing into a nice stream, and over the bridge/ road - in Whiting Campground, Mapleton, UT

Some of the hundreds of butterflies in various colors, along the stream
flowing through Whiting Campground

I will let the pictures speak for themselves. I still cannot believe, every day, with every time I open my eyes around me, that I live here! “Lucky” and “blessed” don’t begin to even describe it! And once you see the pictures for yourselves, you will (hopefully) understand why our literal back yard must wait for now. The trails are endless.

Simple beauty: aspen tree in the sun - American Fork Canyon/ Alpine Loop, UT
Please click on the picture to see the entire trip in photos.

Some Things Are Different

Of course I was not thinking that living in Utah is the same thing as living in The South. If for no other reason, the humidity alone will make my hair all sorts of different! But so far, although some things are asking for adjustment, I don’t feel like I live on “Planet Utah”, as an acquaintance of mine suggested. She said: “I’ve worked with people from there. They are so different, they’re like living on another planet. I swear they should require a passport to go visit that place”. Not so much, in my opinion.

Sure, some things are not the same. Like you have to get your car checked out for emission levels before you can register it. And there are no personal property taxes, either, I have heard, but need to look more into it. I just got my bill for the NC car tax, and need to pay that, but then, a couple of days later, the car will be registered in UT, so … pretty inconvenient!

We all knew that the weather will be much, much different, but I never expected the wind to be quite so strong! Must be the position of our house, in the valley, and right before the open desert starts, or something, but when it’s windy out there, it sounds like a tornado! My cats are not used to it yet. And we get this noisy wind pretty regularly, almost daily! It is so strong, it was blowing the screens on our bedroom windows so noisily, we had them removed.

Speaking of the position of our town in the mountains and of the wind: when it’s not blowing, all the smog from cars, industry, households, even from California maybe (have to check on that) gets trapped in the valley, and we get this thick smog thing, like fog, but thicker and nastier, totally unbreathable that hides everything around that’s further than say 50 feet. It’s brutal. You can still go about your business like a normal “cloudy” day, but it looks horrible. And this is apparently “normal” around here. Just another “weather event”. Looks very unhealthy.

My back yard: before and after "the smog" came in

Another “different” thing is the stop lights at the end of ramps on the highway: if you take an exit to go on the highway, sometimes, there is a traffic light at the end of the ramp, right before you merge onto the highway, which is on (especially at rush hours), and turns red for every car that reaches the highway. Every car has to stop, and if it turns green only ONE car is allowed to merge on the highway! That’s supposed to make the traffic flow smoother. Haven’t caught one yet, but man, sounds like it does the opposite!

And speaking of traffic! Till I moved here, I thought I drove fast. All my friends thought I drove fast! Oh, God! I am the slowest poke on these highways! People are flying out here. My husband says it’s because it’s The West, and the spaces are so vast, people think they can go however fast, there is no stopping them – but I don’t know. It scares me. And I never thought I’d ever say that speed could scare me!

I was very pleased to find that the fast food store inside of WalMart is … Subway! In North Carolina (or Greensboro, at least), it’s, of course, McDonalds! Like I said before: the further you travel out West, the more health conscious people seem to get … Lovely! Although remember: Subway is great, except for the breakfast!

Of course, I will say a word or two about the whole “Mormon culture”. But not too much. Or not too much judgment here! After all, I am in their backyard, not the other way around.

It is still very eerie to me to go to a restaurant on a weekend and to be virtually the only person in a packed establishment ordering an “adult beverage”. Feels very odd! Sure, it’s legal, but you feel in complete minority! They say the beer they sell in stores here is 3% alcohol or less, and I believe there is something … different with it, because I can drink up to five and I feel nothing. Nothing other than a full bladder, sure! Just strange …

And for the life of me, I thought Greensboro was a “family oriented area”, a great place to raise a family, and always felt like it’s definitely not a good place for singles! Well, I have never, anywhere I have lived, seen kids outnumbering the adults everywhere! In any store you go, there is an average of 3 kids for every adult you see, and that’s not an exaggeration! And usually, if the adult is a woman, she’s usually pregnant! There is nowhere you can go (except the “hippie”, alternative areas of Salt Lake, sure) where you don’t see kids, or hear them, either talk loudly, or scream, or just chit chat in their crystal voices! Kids – everywhere!

The median age of Utah county residents is just barely over 23! Sure, there are two universities here, but there were at least four colleges in Guilford County, and according to the 2000 Census, the median age there was 35! 23, folks! That’s a baby! Or, thousands! Anyway, lots and lots of kids – you get the idea.

Another random observation is that almost every house has a camper. Forget that every house has a 3 car garage and at least 3 cars parked outside of the ones in the garage! Every car has a camper. This weekend, being a Holiday weekend, there was nothing else on the highway but Winnebago-s! Happy trails, is all I’d say!

Also, I cannot close before I say a word about coffee. Sure, you all know that Mormons don’t drink coffee. So, with nervousness in my step, I approached the coffee aisle at WalMart and then at the neighborhood grocery store. The size of the coffee display is probably half of what you see in NC or anywhere else out East. The Millstone coffee my parents love has only the baby 1.75OZ vacuumed packs available at WalMart (very, very small selection, about 3 flavors which don’t include my parents’ favorite) and there is no Millstone at the grocery store. I couldn’t even find the Folgers vacuumed pack I drink – only the plastic canister one. More expensive, but it’ll do! And my parents thought it’ll be trees they’ll miss in Utah! Ha! But good news for the coffee shop snobs who would like to visit: there is Starbucks!

But as always, I am looking forward for more differences! I am learning new things, even just at the checkout counter and at the grocery store and intersection level! So, I am happy. For now. I bought a couple of “Western” magazines (sort of similar to Southern Living, I’d say) to learn more about living out West. I cannot wait to discover the possibilities!

Stay tuned!

Settling In

You would never think one has so much to do without a job, or kids for that matter, but you would be wrong. I told someone last week that when they invented the saying “a woman’s job was never done” that woman was probably moving! I swear to you, I will never see the end of unpacking. I packed my house up in NC in a week. Well, I have been unpacking for a week, also, and I am nowhere near done.

My new house looks like a storage facility threw up in it! Nothing is orderly. Everything that came out of boxes is stashed up, in less trafficked corners, apparently “out of the way”. But nothing can be out of my visual way, so to me, they’re just as bothersome as if they were piled up in my bed!

I know for some folks this could sound boring – just unpacking all day long, day after day, but to me, it’s a mission! I cannot settle in before everything has a designated spot and is out of my (or our) way.

Although the whole unpacking and cleaning business has been sort of stressful (and unsettling), on the other hand, I have been really enjoying just being here – if that makes any sense at all.

It’s been a life long dream to live in the mountains. Any mountains. A very dear childhood friend of mine used to tell me that “to love mountains you have to listen to them with your heart. Not with your ears, nor look at them with your eyes. Just feel and understand them with your heart.” My heart is filled with so much joy every morning, from looking at so much beauty! And every trip, however short, to the grocery store, or a place to eat, is an occasion to be breathless just by looking at the world around me. No effort needed.

Someone at my old job used to say about the Provo area that you can literally see mountains everywhere around you, out every window in the house. It’s true! You never forget you’re in the mountains. Everything is so beautiful out there, at the horizon, anything that’s in between you and that doesn’t really bear importance at all!

This weekend Aa. and I went for a walk on the Provo River. It was sort of eerie to me, because it felt very much like spring. And I have seen spring. And summer, this year – lots of them, this year, in NC. So, this was like somehow I turned back in time and landed in spring again!

The fresh, timid green of the trees, the chill in the air, the loud birds happy to be out and about again, the bubbling mountain river, rich and muddy with melted snow, everything spoke “spring”. No butterflies yet, and very few blooms.

I was so thrilled to find out that two of my most favorite plants are doing very well in this climate: grape vines and lilacs! The lilac trees were in full bloom, and beautiful purple, and the grape vines, although I didn’t take a close up of them (the owner was right behind the fence!), had fresh leaves and they were healthily hanging on to the fence! Yes! Next year, I’ll be all over those in the nursery and they’ll come home with me!

I will have to say that although I am not a humidity hater, like my husband, it is nice to be able to be out there in 80 degrees and not feel like you’re breathing water! The air is crisp and clean. They forecast pollen every day here, but I don’t see it, and don’t taste it in my throat and mouth like I did in NC! It’s very different.

I’ve managed to stop for a little bit and shoot some views around the house, as well as on the Provo River Parkway trail. The mountains, the lakes, the fast streams and the ages old surroundings all whisper familiarly to me that I am home. It’s a nice feeling, my heart says. Click here for these shots.

Crazy Hair, Crazy Comments

I have been known to cause folks to make the weirdest comments about my hair. For some reason, my hair prompts people to come out and talk to me in not so usual ways. Some times the talk is complimentary, sometimes kind, sometimes pitying, always somewhat interesting.

I tell this to my closest friends, and I feel that they think I am showing off, trying to point attention to me, when I “brag” that random strangers pay attention to me because of my hair.

But they stop thinking that (I hope), the minute they spend more than an hour with me in public places and see for themselves what kind of “attention” my hair really attracts. It’s like a magnet for some conversations you would rather never have!

One comment that I got yesterday, though, surprised even me! Usually, the comments are about the color, the frizz, the fullness or the “too much”-ness, questions about what products I use or who do I take after, or where I get it styled (I don’t!), or why I am not coloring it to cover the gray.

Well, yesterday, I was walking hand in hand with my husband on the Provo Parkway Trail, me with camera around my neck, he, with one around his wrist. And this middle aged, very … uumm … “well preserved” lady, with colored red-purple hair, on roller blades, with some sort of a “purse” dog in her arms, just rolled on by, with this comment: “Wow! I have always thought people with curly hair like that are very smart. Back at UVU (Utah Valley University, for those who don’t know, or the “other”, or “non-Mormon” university here), there were always these guest speakers that would come in with pretty curly hair like this, and you would just know, they were very smart.”

And she continued rolling. This was not a question, nor did she wait for much of a reaction from me. Just rolled on by …

All rightie then! What do you say to that, I wondered?!

I did have one question: what do you say about middle aged women with naturally curly purse dogs that they choose to have shaved ?! What to think about those people, guest speakers or not?! Hhmm … I could not ask, but I guessed she either didn't want a "smart" dog, or her theory didn't apply to those …

From NC to UT – A Trip of a Lifetime

Conclusion and pictures


So, what will stay with me from this trip? I am sure I’ll forget soon the sequence of all the states we have driven through, or the detail of what river flows through what city. I hope not, but I know my brain! The beauty of the land will not leave me, though. That will stay with me for a while.

I have always known, since I moved here, over 12 years ago, that America is beautiful and so diverse you will never miss any kind of landscape even if it were that you would never leave the continent. Every year that I have been here, traveling more and more of its vastness showed me the truth of that statement. And this trip crowns that, I would say. We have not seen the ocean on this trip, but we saw everything else in between.

There is a beauty of every form of relief! There is a calmness and a peace of the vast plains, and a quietness of every small town. You feel every stream and every rock bubbling with stories of times past. There is a beauty of the tall mountains, where you feel dwarfed and vulnerable, an awesomeness of every snowed peak! A higher presence is felt in everything that you know you cannot control – the winds in Kansas, the relentless rock falling in Colorado! You understand that you will have to let nature take its course. And then you’ll watch how She decides to re-arrange this land.

The green of West Virginia and Kentucky will stay with me. The aridity of The Plains, the never ending farmland, and the various vegetation between Kentucky and Colorado will stay with me – everything from oak trees, ash, fields of wheat and corn, junipers, pine trees and prairie grass to tall aspens.

The “funny” roofs of The Plains will stay. They have more “round” roofs than anywhere I have ever been. The active and poor looking coal mine towns of West Virginia and the deserted, closed, also poor looking mineral mine towns of The Rockies will stay.

The absence of planes and the constant presence of trains everywhere we drove through will be a permanent reminder that train tracks are what opened up The West, and will be for a while. They feel like such an intrinsic part of the landscape. The “ghost farms” and “ghost train stations” will live in my memory as my own experienced reality of The Wild West! I have seen with my own eyes the sets of many movies I grew up with about the making of America. It’s humbling!

Even if the location will be blurry after a while, the unusual names of towns, streams and streets, such as “Paris”, “Winchester”, “Quebec Street”, “Voda”, “Balta” (the latter are Romanian common nouns), “Grizzly Creek”, “Lick River”, and “No Name” will stay, for sure.

The knowledge that the state of Colorado is not all pine tree and mountain heaven will definitely outlast this trip! The mightiness of human construction, as seen in all the bridges that cross all our huge rivers (The Ohio, the Missouri, the Mississippi, The Kansas, The Colorado and Green River) as well as in the tunnels that we drove through, piercing through hundreds of feet of mountains will not be forgotten.

Although I have no picture document of it, the reminder that there is “free land” available out West will stay with me. The desperation of hundreds of empty billboards begging advertisers to buy space all over The Plains will always be a sad reminder of the status of our economy now.

I hope in several years this will be a national trend, but for now, it’s evidently a Western one: you hear about more sustainable sources of energy, but you’re not aware of how serious people are about it out East. I have never seen these many windmills and solar panes as I have seen from Missouri to Utah! It’s really a revolution, in my book. Quite a new thing for me, I’ll have to say!

One trend that connects all the states I have been in or through is the overt religiousness of folks. I thought the “Save your soul today” signs are a staple of The Bible Belt where I have lived for the past 12 years. But nope. There is someone looking to save your soul even in The Prairie!

And speaking of that. Most of you know about the “no alcohol on Sundays” rule, or at least “the no alcohol before 12 PM on Sunday rule”, as in NC – a rule that I have always had trouble understanding how it could prevent anyone from drinking, but that’s another story altogether and entirely. But how about this: in Colorado, you can buy alcohol on Sundays, but only a six pack! Not a single bottle, not a 12 pack, not a case! A six pack only. Now, you explain to me how is that meant to discourage people from drinking on Sundays?! “Sign up here for Eternity and you can have a six pack” – no, that’s not a real sign, I just made it up.

One thing that surely will forever stay with me, should anyone have had any doubts about it, is the love of the road, and the permanent propensity to get in the car and head for the open horizon! If this trip taught me one thing, it was that no matter how close the quarters, how dinky the hotel rooms, how stressful handling of the pets who hate to travel are, I will forever be in love with being on the go! I will forever love seeing what the next curve in the road has to offer, and what the lens finds to peek into next. This trip only stirred up in me the travel bug, even more than before.

I cannot wait to climb that next mountain or be amazed by the next sunset, or stormy sky. It’s such a blessing to come back home with the retina full of beautiful places and the mind full of memories.
As long as the car will have wheels and as long as I’ll have breath in my lungs and a relatively able body, the traveling will go on. No matter how far or how close I’ll have to go, I’ll soak into the wonder of every yard traveled. And that’s a promise!

One of my most favorite pictures from this trip is below – a house in the wilderness when we just entered Utah from Colorado. The light on it is just so serene and out worldly! Please click on it for the pictures from this trip. And please forgive the quality of some pictures – I can only shoot so clearly from a car moving at 80+ miles an hour.

A "ghost house" speaking of past, present and future, at the border of Colorado and Utah. Please click on the picture for the whole album.

Going West #3

May 10, 2010 – Home

Finally, we can walk barefoot on clean floors. We can walk in and turn on the lights without sanitizing first. We’re not grossed out by touching the remote. I can put the purse on the floor and not think any cooties are going to eat it up. I can take a shower without cringing. Yep! We’re finally home.

After driving like crazy the day before, so as to avoid the forecasted tornado in Kansas (it did finally hit Oklahoma), we got just barely into Colorado last night . We also learned on that trip that weather forecast is ever so relative. On the Weather Channel on the morning of our drive through Kansas, we were told “there are 50 and 60 mile winds in Kansas, which are strong enough to down trees”. But as we were making our way through the windy state, the radio dj (evidently a local) said “it’s a little breezy out there, but other than that, a beautiful day!”. Considering the soreness in my arms trying to drive through those winds, I can tell you it was a little more than breezy!

This morning (Monday), with 600 or so in front of us to cover, we headed towards the mountains. The mountains were barely peeking at the horizon line already, but once we got just past Denver we were in the middle of them.

What beautiful country! Maybe I am biased since mountains are my kind of heaven, but the scenery was breathtaking. Tall and steep, and covered in rock or snow, or pine trees – the colors and different “textures” was a delight for the eyes. We followed the Colorado River a while on I-70 West, to Grand Junction – and the canyons it forms are spectacular. I have not seen The Grand Canyon, but I can only imagine how impressive it must be since these relatively un-famous and non-descript “baby” canyons were leaving me speechless.

There were roads, and train tracks and mountain streams with waterfalls all crammed in the narrow valleys, there were wild sheep on the side of the road, and fresh, yellow spring flowers blooming all over the place. The sky was just a peephole above our heads as we drove buried at the bottom of the steep cliffs. We saw signs of “massive deer crossing”, as well as about eagles flying over the highway everywhere. We were in wild country for sure – close to the beasts and the skies.

Although today’s trip was probably the most visually beautiful (at least for us, mountain folks), it was probably the second most challenging (only to the winds of Kansas) as far as driving went. I thank Aa. for driving the whole lag, as he wanted me to be the designated photographer through this beautiful land. The road was almost exclusively up hill and very curvy. The traffic, especially the tractor trailer one, was making it that much more difficult. There were notes about falling rocks everywhere, and emergency crews working diligently to clean up the debris and stop the falls.

I got hardly any pictures of the Denver skyline, because the cats were very, very upset today, making a ton of noise, so I was trying to appease them. Our guess was that their ears were plugging up fast like ours were, but we’ll never know for sure. We stopped in Vail for lunch, and we drove on through snow flurries after that.

Snapping away, we drove past the beautiful, pine covered mountains of Colorado, and slid into the somewhat flat desert of Utah. The landscape is once again breath stopping, but of a different nature: majestic rocky formations are seen in the distance, in all sorts of shapes, shades and colors. And very little vegetation is to be seen here – other than the yellow flowers and some prairie grass. We were wondering even what are the cows eating, as we saw no human settling for miles, but many a cow herds. What are they drinking, too, was another puzzling question. It’s a very arid and rough sort of land, South-Eastern Utah is.

We were glad to finally be in the driveway. We made it fine, with cats all intact, albeit cranky, tired and ready for some real food. By the way, the new Subway breakfast they advertise is absolute crap. Pardon my French, but it was the worst thing I have eaten in a long while! And when they have to “cut” the “eggs” (some kind of round, tortilla looking “thing” they call “eggs”) in order to make you a sandwich, you’ve got to wonder what in the world you’re actually eating. It was like plastic food melted and gone bad! It was pretty gross! So, we were ready for some real food when we got home. And thank God I have a foodie husband who knows about good food, because he had home made potato and bacon soup in the freezer waiting for us, and Honey Baked ham for sandwiches!

It was in the low 50’s when we finally got to Spanish Fork – definitely not the 90 degrees we left NC with. But it’s never disappointing to have two springs in one year, is it?!

I’ll work on the pictures next, and hope you guys will enjoy those as well as these updates.
Aa. and I thank you all for keeping us in your thoughts while we traveled for so many days! We have a beautiful country, and this trip was such a lesson, in so many ways: geography, history, traveling, family and last but not least love, too! Truly one of those once in a lifetime opportunities that was imposed on us by life circumstances, but one we embraced with all the optimism we could muster.

Tired, but happy - on the front porch with the three kitties:
we made it to The West!