I realized last night that it'd been a week or so since I posted. The summer seems to have accelerated to a point that I cannot keep track of time or the time needed to keep track of it, so I haven't spent the time to type and ftp and keep the site up to any sort of date.
For a very few, the Twenty-Fourth of July (and on many years such as this, many days on either side)is a day of reverence for the pioneers of the LDS faith who tramped across thousands of miles of prairie, desert and mountain to escape the persecution of the US, fleeing to the freedom and isolation of far-off desert oasis still in the possession of Mexico, named by them the land of 'Deseret.'
For most these days, the holiday is a mere extension of the festivities of Independence Day, another opportunity to put up red, white and blue banners, set off fireworks, and generally eat and spend too much.
We enjoyed a full day of the celebrations as we usually do, up in Bountiful with our extended family on the Burningham side. Many of our traditions have been upset by the passing on of Grandpa Burningham and the subsequent sale of his home last year.
We soldiered on, gathering at Uncle George and Aunt Marla's house. It was the home of my great grandma and grandpa, where my grandpa was born and died, so the spirit of the holiday has been preserved in a fine way after all.


The kids and I headed down to Main Street to catch the parade. No cool lawn to watch from, but we had a good time nevertheless.


The Sunday of the 24th was a day at home resting from the travels and bustle of the city. The kids pretty uniformly sacked out at around dusk, leaving me without an audience for the fireworks I had purchased so patriotically for the occasion. I had more fun rocking and talking with Drie on the porch anyhow.

Ryan and I headed over to Black Canyon on the other side of the Skyline directly east of us late last week, taking some time to photograph verdant sights and chart some familiar spots on his GPS.

This is the well stem at the Black Canyon trailhead. Our mountains have quite a few of these silly things, evidence of mineral speculation during the midpoint of the twentieth century much like the current oil boom in our area.
Now the welded and information-festooned stems are little more than hunting rendezvous, camping sites and curiosities, but I'm sure that today's prospectors have their eyes on the spots still.


An aspen with the name of our good neighbor to the west carved into it.


Even the cast-off bedsprings of loggers of yesteryear have a beauty of their own.


The wildflowers are every bit as beautiful as on Reader Ridge and South Tent. This moisty area would have looked even more remarkably reminiscent of some areas in Oregon had the spruces not been ravaged by the dreaded boring beetle.


Some splendid forget-me-nots that caught my eye more than once on the trail.


Even at this late time of the summer, there were a few wild rosebuds to coax the faces of the hikers down into the growth at the side of the trail.
It was a grand day out, indeed.