Winter Ramble

Years ago, when I participated in WordPress’ Post-A-Day, I would occasionally wake with no inspiration for the day’s post.   On those days, I would post what I came to call a Ramble, a post that starts with no place to go and often stays that way.   Here we are on the sixth day of January 2023, a year in which one of my (unwritten) resolutions is to post more often.   In 2023, I have posted exactly once.   If I go back and look at my list of posts for 2022, I find that I posted fifty-five times last year, which means I posted on average, every 6.6 days … so six days into the 2023, I find myself on the verge of breaking my resolution to post more.  Therefore, dear readers, you get a Ramble.

Sweet Home Utah Part 2

When we decided to move from Orange County California to South Jordan Utah, we expected a culture change.  In 50 years, we’d become used to the mostly wonderful climate, the plethora of entertainment venues and eateries, the gorgeous beaches and regional parks.  We’d also adapted to the somewhat frenetic lifestyle, freeways so crowded we planned our life around rush hours and the sometimes overwhelming materialism of the wealthy.  What we got was an introduction to living in a beautiful new house during a pandemic, a pandemic during which my wife Muri dealt with breast cancer.  Without face-to-face contact with anyone but our daughter’s family and one couple next door.  We shopped in masks and ordered restaurant food from curbside pickup.   My wife’s cancer treatment was grueling but effective and we didn’t catch COVID (until two months ago).  We emerged from 2020 ready to learn what it was like to live unrestricted in Utah.  Here’s what we found.

Sweet Home Utah – Pt. 1

Yeah, I know … Lynard Skynard says its Alabama but I want to talk about Utah.   In 75 years on this planet, I never imagined I would live in Utah.   But here we are, living in the lovely community of Daybreak, Utah, and I guess it’s home.  If you been following along with my whining over the last several posts, you know that we moved here to be near our grandkids three years ago but their parents are taking them to a new life in Texas.  But Utah will likely remain our home … we don’t have another move in us.  So I thought I ought to say a few words about living in Utah. First off, let me say it is a beautiful state.  We can see the Wasatch Mountains from our front windows and whether they are topped with snow in the winter or illuminated by the setting sun in summer, they are almost enough to make me forget how much I love the oceans.  There are national parks and preserves all around us,  And Daybreak is a modern community with varied housing of many colors and frequent community events, like concerts in Downtown Daybreak.  We love our brand new house in the over 55 community of Springhouse Village and we own it outright because our California house had so much equity.

Hannukah in Utah

According to chabad.org, more than twenty-one centuries ago, the Holy Land was ruled by the Seleucids (Syrian-Greeks), who sought to forcefully convert the people of Israel to Greek customs and religion.   Against all odds, a small band of faithful Jews defeated one of the mightiest armies on earth, drove the Greeks from the land, reclaimed the holy temple in Jerusalem and rededicated it to God.   When they sought to light the Temple’s menorah, they found only a single cruse of olive oil that had escaped contamination by the Greeks; miraculously, the one-day supply burned for eight days, until new oil could be prepared under conditions of ritual purity.   Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, commemorates this miracle.   Although Hanukkah is probably the best known Jewish holiday because of its proximity to Christmas, it is actually a lesser holiday on the Jewish religious calendar.   Still, many non-Jews (and retailers hoping to harvest some profits from Jews during the season) think of it as the Jewish Christmas.  This article from Yahoo! Lifestyle explains why it’s not.

Cold

It has been an unseasonably warm October here in Utah, at least according to my daughter who has lived here for five years. I had been looking forward to Autumn and in spite of the warmer weather, the trees were doing their part. turning yellow and gold and red. But I wanted some cool autumn weather. Watch what you ask for. Sunday evening it was in the low fifties at bedtime but we woke to sub-thirty temperatures … and SNOW. And it has remained in the twenties and thirties since then.  Welcome to Utah.

Hello? Utah?

Yesterday, after several difficult weeks (possibly to be explained in a later post), my wife Muri and I took a day trip to beautiful Provo Canyon, about an hour from our home in South Jordan. We found a parking place right across the Provo River from Bridal Veil Falls. With sight of the water cascading down the mountain side and the sounds of the rushing water, it was a perfect spot to enjoy our lunch.

Across the river, at the base of the falls, several hundred people, mostly families with young children were sitting on the rocks or climbing the lower falls. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the warm spring day. No one was wearing a mask and no one was social distancing. Perhaps no one had looked at the Utah COVID-19 website for the last few days and seen that Utah has moved into second place in the US as to the rate of spread of the coronavirus … or that since May 29, the number of new cases per day has roughly doubled.   Or that this coincides with a 131% increase in the use of outdoor recreation areas, apparently without masks or social distancing.

(Moving to) Utah

I didn’t wake up one morning and say, Hey, let’s move to Utah. In fact, when our daughter and her family moved from Arizona to Utah … leaving us to sell a second home we’d bought there to spend more time with the grandkids … I said, We’re not following them again. And for 5 years we didn’t. But two weeks ago, we loaded up our two cars and left our California house (which, by the way was still in escrow) and set out for St. George, Utah, our overnight stop. Passing through Las Vegas, someone rear ended me then fled the scene, but my car was able to continue. And now we are staying in our daughter’s house in Herriman until our new house there is ready. So properly speaking, we haven’t (Moved to) Utah (particularly since our belongings are stored in a warehouse in California awaiting our move-in date). Hence the title of this post.