June adventures

Work and play have kept me very busy lately. It has been nice to have three day weekends to recuperate from my 10-12 hour shifts. I haven't done much relaxing though as I have found plenty of fun things to do with family and friends. Yesterday I went to the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house, Kennecott mine and Butterfield Canyon. I'd always wanted to see the largest open pit mine and it was even more spectacular than I could imagine. I was mesmerized just standing there looking at the grand scale of it all. I'm standing next to a tire of the haulers in the next picture which gives you an idea of how big these vehicles are. They can haul up to 320 tons of rock! We saw a regular sized truck drive next to one of these and it looked so puny!

We also moseyed on to Butterfield canyon which is on the south end of the Oquirrh Mountains. It is so beautiful yet so dangerous. The road was paved but extremely narrow with a steep cliff on one side. There were tons of sharp rocks strewn across the road in many places. One time I passed a hick in his beat up Ford pickup that swore at me because it was on a tight curve and I didn't want to slide down into the ravine. Once we got up to the saddle we parked and went for a stroll on a pathway to a nearby canyon. From there you can see Tooele on the other side of the mountain. The weather held out for us (we had run into a hail micro burst on the way up) and was absolutely perfect for hiking. There was a strong breeze that rustled through the trees and the sun shone on the aspens just right to make it so perfect and peaceful.

We tracked a couple of deer and found some young bucks hidden down below the trail. Though you can't seem them, they are in this lame attempt at a picture which is zoomed all the way in.

Amongst the few birds, we saw a beautiful Tanager which was fun because we'd also seen one on a mural in the temple. Unfortunately birds are too quick for me to get a picture so I found this one on the Internet to show you what it looks like. Very colorful and pretty.

I wanted to stay longer to just sit and listen to the wind rustle through the trees but alas all good things must come to an end and we had to head back out.
This summer has been so much fun and I can't wait for my next adventure. The most compelling thing of all is that there are so many places and things to discover here where I live in which I had no idea even existed. I love having a friend to open up the world to me with discoveries which have developed a whole new curiosity in me.