Vistas of Globe Mallow

Here are the promised pictures of the meadows of globe mallow on the Arizona Strip. 

Somehow it was more vivid in person. Maybe something gets lost in the upload to this blog. 

There were a lot of meadows like this, particularly the higher up we went into the mountains.

Here is a deer sizing us up.

Here is another meadow, globe mallow as far as the eye can see.

This picture's deep colors show how the place really looked, and how vivid the orange was against the blackened trees. 

I thought the orange was particularly striking against the standing trees that were dead and blackened from fire.  

In fact, if you just looked at the trees and didn't know they were conifers, you might think it was just winter and they'd lost their leaves. 

But then you see the sea of orange flowers, and in this case also white flowers and green grasses, and you would know it is spring and you then know that the trees are dead.

There were a couple of miles of this surreal view.

Here's to nature's beauty!

Arizona Strip in bloom

Last week, we went for a drive on the Arizona Strip.  It was really in bloom.  I took photos of the flowers until my camera battery died!  I wanted to share some of my flower pictures with you. 

I wish I knew the names of these flowers. 

B and the kids were good sports about stopping so often so I could photograph yet another flower!

This bush was prettier in person.  Its subtle blooms don't translate as well in a photograph.

I think this is a wild rose.

We had a nice picnic at the Black Rock fire lookout station.

This is a bit "twiggy" but there are still flowers on it!

There were areas like this where there were just "carpets" of flowers!

This is a Sego Lily.

This plant reminded me of lavender.

I think this is globe mallow and I will post more photos of that at another time.  There were big "plots" of globe mallow all over.

It takes some convincing to get our teens into the truck with the folks.  As long as B says we're going, then we're going. 

I think these are penstemon.

Maybe these are globe mallow again.

We are going to try doing these day excursions through out the summer.

There are still a lot of places to see all around us.

During the summers of fourth and fifth grades (or just fourth?), the principal loaded us on a school bus and showed us the ghost towns and historical places in the area.

They were called Summer Science Trips.  I loved them.  

I don't think teachers think that kind of thing is important anymore--to know the area where you live.  I doubt my kids have been to even 10% of the places in the area--well, they've been where I've taken them but I'm talking about visiting places on school field trips.

I think this is globe mallow again but in the higher elevations, it was very lush.

So, that is the plan.  Pack up the kids about once a week and go see things.

We'll see if that works out.  We'll see if we can keep that momentum throughout the summer.  A lot hinges on B being around to go.

There are a lot of places to see.  We're going back to the Arizona Stip tomorrow.  This time we're headed to Mt. Trumball and environs.

This is another wild rose.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.  Happy trails to us and to you, too.

Oquirrh Temple Trip

We just arrived home from our YM/YW trip (up and back in one day) to see the Oquirrh Temple open house. (These are my kids in front of the temple.) There were 28 of us--four vehicles full of kids. I'm thankful it went off OK because I was in charge of the activity.

I think this may be my fourth temple open house (St. George remodel open house about 1974, West Jordan, Las Vegas and Oquirrh temples). I thought the decor was very beautiful. It was not what I was expecting and different from what I've seen in some other temples. For instance, today my first counselor had pointed to a chair in one of the rooms and whispered to me, "Funky chair!" There were natural wood doors, door frames and other molding. There was marble on most of the floors. There seemed to be more framed art than I recall from other temples. The chandeliers were amazing! I loved the frosted glass with little diamond clear spots in it. It was smaller than I anticipated. I thought the temple floor plan was very well thought out for traffic flow.

I was completely taken with the planned community surrounding the temple--Daybreak. Several months ago, I'd read about that community in one of my magazines that I subscribed to (before it went out of business) but I hadn't known it was right around the Oquirrh Temple. I could have taken the day to just look around that community. I loved it. I'm a nut for architecture and design. Other than the fact that the lots are city lots (B would prefer some acreage), we'd have to shovel snow and live with snow, and the kids don't want to move anywhere, I was ready to move (you remember that I'm always wanting to move somewhere and this is today's "somewhere").  Here are a few of the houses L managed to photograph as we left town.