Enjoyed my drive through the desert and my last glimpse of palm trees and Joshua Trees in and near St. George....and the drive north wasn't bad either. I took note of all the white steeples. Some a block apart...several next to each other..wow....and then got to my hotel in American Fork just in time for snow....thanks for fuckall Utah!! lol

Snow bothers you ? I thought you are from the great white north.

We still have a little in Masschussetts, but you better hurry before it melts!

They're like two different worlds, southern Utah and Salt Lake Valley.

Good you were able to get to your stop before the blitz.

Those churches dotting the landscape are scattered throughout St George. When I found a subdivision that didn't have any, that was where I made an offer on a house while visiting there last year lol.

It was against the house subdivision rules. My next door neighbors would've been LDS, but snowbirds only.

Safe travel back up to the Great White North. ;-)

Now I learned what a Joshua tree is. :)

"The name Joshua tree was given by a group of Mormon settlers crossing the Mojave Desert in the mid-19th century. The tree's unique shape reminded them of a Biblical story in which Joshua reaches his hands up to the sky in prayer.[6][7][8] Ranchers and miners who were contemporary with the Mormon immigrants used the trunks and branches as fencing and for fuel for ore-processing steam engines. It is also called izote de desierto (Spanish, "desert dagger").[9] It was first formally described in the botanical literature as Yucca brevifolia by George Engelmann in 1871 as part of the Geological Exploration of the 100th meridian or Wheeler Survey.[10]"

Some can live upwards of a 1,000 years or more.

Now that you've been to the American Southwest, are you considering possibly relocating there? It must be damn cold still back up in the Great White North country.

Or ... you can snowbird each winter. Thousands do.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/19/2018 08:32AM by Amyjo.

I noticed that while driving around Sandy and South Jordan. Families could often walk to the local ward which might be only 2-3 blocks away. I'd never seen anything like it.

Take care driving home, LR.

In more Orthodox Jewish communities it is expected that families walk to services. They plan their synagogues around that principle. In turn, they plan where they live in proximity to their synagogues.

If living only 2-3 blocks from a church, it would be foolish to drive.

The Mormon churches dotting the landscape throughout Utah I don't quite know what to make of it, given the shrinking number of people who regularly attend. It would seem to me the active church attendees are shrinking in numbers. Those churches serve no actual purpose IMO but to be real estate holdings for the corporation.

Otherwise the wards and stakes would be consolidating rather than expanding, to maintain pre-established ward sizes.

Safe travels north Lethridge. Montana has been blizzard conditions the last two days.

over by the hospital, just below USU campus, there is a few block area where they are built back to back, 4 or 5, and not more than a block away, another one. I could walk to church pretty much anywhere I have lived in Utah. My home in Brigham, we had to walk 5 blocks. That was the furthest I had to walk, but there is a newer building that was built since I left home that is only 2 blocks away.

Yep, we got pounded yesterday especially up here. At least a foot. My ex is over grounds at the hospital and he just hates winter because he has to line up people to plow. He wasn't happy yesterday. He hates that part of his job.

Anyway, the book The Joshua Tree was a book my sister had to read in college and I read it after she did. Quite an eyeopener about polygamy.

Brace yourself Ronnie....this bitch of. Winter isn't over yet here either...be glad you missed Saturday...haven't seen this much crap since 2010 ...lots of minus thirty...wind chill like a step mothers kiss..and more snow every here or our days...I think I've shrivel led my pod...haven't seen a palm tree all winter...musta gone south ...unless your neighbors plowing your driveway you might be walking in from the road for a tractor...haha

OMG.... I love your weather reporting. You're hired.!!!!!

Ron, I've been jealous of your escape from Alberta over the past several weeks. Or has it been a full month yet?

Calgary's winter won't let up! The weather is usually nice enough for me to climb a mountain or two in a month, but not this winter. December 10th was my last climb, so I am going stir-crazy! You definitely picked the right winter to get out of here.

All of that craft beer that you've been drinking, it must have been good. I think that a great souvenir from Utah would be some Polygamy Porter! Why have just one?

Yup....been a month. Need to get home to take care of things. Had a great time.

How's the travel conditions going for you, LR?

The snow hitting the Wasatch front today was in the path you were driving.

Not a good day for commuters.

Have you made it through Utah yet, on your way back up north?

Stay safe out there.

Chillin' in Pocatello. Heading north tomorrow.

I was born there.

Nice town to be from. :-)

Lethbridge Reprobate Wrote:
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> Chillin' in Pocatello. Heading north tomorrow.

Woh you were in pocatello and didn't call one of your apostles? I am offended haha jk.

Okay folks, the Wasatch Front is open for skiing again...

And my tip jar sends its gratitude.

The snow hit pocatello like you would not believe. Went to play cards and when i came out my truck was buried.

Hope ya'll get where you're going safe and sound.

One year ago I was heading back to SLC from Pocatello and a funeral.

Stopped in at a country cemetery to see a tombstone I placed for a great grandfather that had gone 127 years without one. Wanted to see it with me own eyes (it was still recently "brand new.")

Well, the cemetery was pretty snowed in when I got there. My front wheel drive didn't handle the little dirt road too well and I became stuck in a little bank of snow. There was no reception for my cell phone there either. Thought maybe I'd be there for hours. That thought drove me to walk up the road and start knocking on doors.

Some of those homes are vacant in wintertime for all the snowbirds that head south.

So it took about 3-4 houses before I found someone who was actually home. They called their grandsons to come and bail my car out of the snowbank. Within minutes there they were, drinking their beer and driving their pickup truck. They were my earth angels that day.

Was on the road within a few minutes. It was still way out of my way on my trip back to SLC. By the time I arrived at my hotel for the night to catch my flight out the next morning, it was late. But I got there safe enough, taking detours away from the worst roads in lieu of the better driving conditions.

It meant I had to backtrack the way I came, to McCammon and back onto the I15 south. Those secondary roads with a heavy snowfall looked pretty bad through Caribou Forest. I started out going that way, but the road got narrower, the forest was closing in, and the snow was on all sides. (I was having visions of my car getting stuck there in a little bank off the side of the road, or in the roadway itself, and there was nobody within miles of there.)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2018 07:34PM by Amyjo.

Looks like clear sailing Ronnie...only -28 this morning...hope you stowed your high boots for that saunter in from the road...good thing we are a crusty lot...stand in the middle of the yard in our best gaunch and howl into the blizzard...IS THAT THE BEST YOU GOT,...paisley...you better wait out hiking for a bit...let the avalanches come down first...it's a dam poor way to come down a mountain