In the photograph above Connie illustrates what the canyon looks like by the pictographs. Not that it helps much I admit. There is a Forest Service marker at one point that warns you not to touch the rock art. We looked at the rock, and even took pictures, but we could not see any art in it at all. Mark went further up the canyon, climbed around some rocks, and found the pictographs.

Mike told us that it is best to come up in the Spring when the pictographs are freshly painted.

Related posts:

1. Parrish Canyon Fremont Pictographs
2. City Creek Canyon Trail
3. The View From The Living Room

At the trailhead: Mark, Connie, Kent, Melissa, Jill, Rick(ety), Mike, and Paul. Susan is on camera duty.

On Labor Day at 8 am nine adventurous souls set off to find the Parrish Canyon Fremont pictographs. The pictographs are not very far up the canyon. It was a little cold and Mark loaned Jill his coat. I am told it is a thirty minute hike but I didn’t time it. According to the minutes of the Centerville City Trails Committee meeting held Thursday, April 10, 2008, the pictographs had been damaged:

Mark Day reported he hiked to the Fremont pictographs in Parrish Canyon, and he said they have been vandalized. He said some of the pictographs have been scratched, and others have been rubbed out. (Trails Committee Meeting Minutes)

So we set off to see if we could take some pictograph photographs. I will show you first the path we took to the pictographs and then in the next post the pictographs themselves.

We set off on the trail. We got lost. Asked directions. Continued.

When you get to the bridge, cross it and turn right.

Take a picture of the waterfall and continue.

Follow the creek just like Connie and Susan are doing here.

At this point in a normal blog you would see the pictographs. But there are too many photographs already so the pictographs are in the next post.

Paul and Mike continued onward and upward. I followed. I wish I hadn't.

We got back before the others and met Merrill on Red.

Red is an Arabian Paint and his real name is in Russian which I can't pronounce much less spell.

Related posts:

1. Parrish Canyon Fremont Pictograph Photographs
2. City Creek Canyon Trail
3. The View From The Living Room

Related posts:

1. Farmington Frontrunner
2. Bryson Visits Hogle Zoo
3. Chair Race

On my way east on I-80 last week, between Cheyenne and Laramie, I came across the Wyoming Abraham Lincoln Monument. It originally stood at Sherman Summit, 8,878 feet above sea level, the highest point along the old coast-to-coast Lincoln Highway. When I-80 was completed in 1969, the head was moved to its current location, about 195 feet lower but seen by many more travelers.

The monument was created in 1959 by Wyoming State Parks Commission and the sculptor Robert I. Russin, a University of Wyoming art professor, to honor the sesquicentennial of Lincoln’s birth. The bronze bust of Lincoln’s head is 13.5 feet tall. Russin required ten tons of clay and eleven months of work to create the head.

The original casting was done in Mexico City and the sculpture is comprised of thirty pieces that were bolted together. The bust, weighing two tons, sits on a thirty-five-foot tall granite pedestal. The base is hollow and when Russin died in 2007, his ashes were interred inside.

The Monument is a reminder of Lincoln’s Second Annual Message to the Senate and House of Representatives on December 1, 1862 wherein he detailed his plan for the remunerative emancipation of slaves:

It is not “Can any of us imagine better?” but “Can we all do better?” Object whatsoever is possible, still the question recurs, “Can we do better?” The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. (Abraham Lincoln, Second Annual Message, emphasis added.)

Related posts:

1. Cedar Breaks National Monument
2. San Jacinto Monument
3. Utah Shakespearean Festival: The 39 Steps

Ponds Park was alive this morning with a number of hot air balloon launches. I enjoyed taking photographs of all the activity. It wasn’t hard to get some good pictures with the subjects right over my nose. Here are several more snapshots in addition to those already posted. Click on the images to enlarge.

Related posts:

1. Hot Air Balloons Over Ponds Park
2. The Mueller Park Trail
3. Wasatch Mountain State Park

5 minutes walk from my house is Ponds Park in Kaysville. This Friday morning the park was full of hot air balloons preparing to launch. It was an excellent opportunity to dust off my camera and take a few photographs. Click on the photographs to enlarge. The originals are 4000 x 3000 pixels but have been reduced for the web.

Related posts:

1. More Hot Air Balloons Over Ponds Park
2. The Mueller Park Trail
3. Wasatch Mountain State Park

Between the Backstage Tour and Pride and Prejudice we visited Cedar Breaks National Monument. There was construction going on at the visitor center with areas roped off. I last saw Cedar Breaks over 25 years ago and it was bigger than what I remember it. We didn’t have much time there but it was worth the drive. I did get a few photographs which you can click to enlarge.

Cedar Breaks, according to Wikipedia, is a natural amphitheater canyon, stretching across 3 miles, with a depth of over 2,000 feet. The elevation of the rim of the canyon is over 10,000 feet above sea level. The eroded rock of the canyon is similar to formations at Bryce Canyon National Park, but has its own distinct look. Because of its elevation, snow often makes it inaccessible to vehicles from October through May.

The canyon-rim visitor center, tiny compared to the visitor centers at nearby and better-known Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park, is open only from June through October, although park headquarters at a lower elevation in Zion is open the rest of the year. It is not as popular as some of the nearby National Parks, but several hundred thousand people do visit annually.

I like this photograph, click here for a full resolution version (3 MB). The golden-mantled ground squirrel is a type of ground squirrel that lives in all types of forests across North America. It eats seeds, nuts, berries, insects, and underground fungi. It is preyed upon by hawks, jays, weasels, foxes, bobcats, and coyotes. A typical adult ranges from 9 to 12 inches in length. The Golden-mantled ground squirrel can be identified by its chipmunk-like stripes and coloration, but unlike chipmunks, it lacks any facial stripes. It is commonly found living in the same habitat as Uinta chipmunks.

Cedar Breaks was established in 1933. A small lodge, designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood and built and operated by the Utah Parks Company once existed near the south end of the monument, but it was razed in 1972. The Cedar Breaks Lodge was the smallest of the park lodges in the Southwest. It was deemed “uneconomical to operate” by the Park Service, but protests associated with its demolition caused the Park Service to re-examine its policies concerning lodges in other parks, contributing to their preservation. The monument includes Cedar Breaks Archeological District, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

Related posts:

1. Utah Shakespearean Festival: Adams Theatre Backstage Tour
2. Wyoming Abraham Lincoln Monument
3. A Banner Story

The Festival website states:

The Adams Shakespearean Theatre, dedicated in 1977, was designed by Douglas N. Cook, Festival producing artistic director, along with Max Anderson of the Utah State Building Board, and is patterned after drawings and research of sixteenth century Tudor stages. Experts say it is one of a few theatres that probably comes close to the design of the Globe Theatre in which Shakespeare’s plays were originally produced. It is so authentic, in fact, that the British Broadcasting Company filmed part of its Shakespeare series there. It is named for Grace Adams Tanner, a major benefactor of the Festival, and her parents, Thomas D. and Luella R. Adams. It seats 819, plus 66 gallery-bench or standing-room seats.

I took a few more photographs on this last leg of the tour. Backstage there is less room and little storage space compared with the Randall Theatre. There are plans for the New Shakespeare Theatre with a goal of completing the fundraising campaign in time to celebrate the Festival’s fiftieth anniversary season in 2011.

The new theatre, including the lobby, will be enclosed in a glass “shell” with a retractable roof to bring the outdoors into the theatre. I have included a photograph of a scale model of the theatre below.

Fog producing machine

Adams Theatre trapdoor

Model of the New Shakespeare Theatre

Next: Cedar Breaks National Monument

Related posts:

1. Utah Shakespearean Festival: Randall Theatre Backstage Tour
2. Utah Shakespearean Festival: The Greenshow
3. Utah Shakespearean Festival: Much Ado about Nothing

The Festival website states:

The Randall L. Jones Theatre, dedicated in 1989, was designed by the firm of Fowler, Ferguson, Kingston, and Ruben, with theatrical design by the California firm of Landry and Bogan, as well as Cameron Harvey, Festival producing artistic director. It was built at a cost of $5.5 million, to expand the Festival’s offerings, especially in the area of world classics, and was featured in the August 1990 edition of Architecture magazine. The theatre is named after a Cedar City native known as the father of tourism in southern Utah. It seats 769.

On the Backstage Tour we got to see what it really takes to produce a major dramatic production. We learned about theatre sets, costumes, and lighting and the designers and technicians who bring it all to life. Our tour guide was one of the costume technicians and she was able to knowledgeably answer our questions.

Jill asked for permission to take a few photographs and it was granted. Click on the images to enlarge.

Randall Theatre backstage. In the far corner is the set for Great Expectations.

The set for Great Expectations, a New Musical

Randall Theatre trapdoor

Wigs ready for showtime

Next: The Adams Shakespearean Theatre Backstage Tour

Related posts:

1. Utah Shakespearean Festival: Adams Theatre Backstage Tour
2. Utah Shakespearean Festival: The Greenshow
3. Utah Shakespearean Festival: Pride and Prejudice

The Utah Shakespearean Festival website has this to say:

The perfect mood enhancer for the Festival’s productions can be found each summer evening on the beautiful green and courtyard surrounding the Adams Shakespearean Theatre. The Greenshow features the spirited song, dance, and costumes of Shakespeare’s day, and it’s free! Add storytelling, juggling, and Elizabethan sweets, and you’ll have a fun-filled frolic to prepare you for the main stage performance that follows.

This time I only saw a few minutes of The Greenshow — just long enough to snap a couple of photographs. In prior visits I have watched a whole show for they are very entertaining.

Next: The Randall L. Jones Theatre Backstage Tour

Related posts:

1. Utah Shakespearean Festival: Randall Theatre Backstage Tour
2. Utah Shakespearean Festival: Adams Theatre Backstage Tour
3. Utah Shakespearean Festival: Much Ado about Nothing