Utah – Page 13

Mountain Meadows Massacre

August 23, 2008 by rickety 29 Comments

Directions to Mountain Meadows Monument

Read about our visit to the site of the Mountain Meadows Massacre

While visiting the Utah Shakespearean Festival, Jill and I left the drama and tragedies behind for a morning to visit a site of much greater drama and tragedy. We have never visited the site of the Mountain Meadows Massacre though we have passed by on I-15 numerous times. From the Cedar City I-15 exit it is approximately 50 miles to the monument. There is very little traffic on highway 56 as we ride to Newcastle. There are no signs here to guide the way and we don’t see one until we are one mile away from the monument. We head down Newcastle’s main street and connect with highway 18 to Enterprise. We follow 18 to reach the monument. This place is in the middle of nowhere but well worth a visit.

Mountain Meadows Association Monument

There are two monuments. We visit the Mountain Meadows Association Monument first. There were not many visitors, in fact just Jill and I. A short 220 yard walk gets us to the top of Dan Sill Hill where the monument overlooks locations of interest. On the walk up the hill are two information markers. Rather than have you read plain text I will show the photographs for you to read from. They have been vandalized a little such that “The local indians joined in the slaughter” has been partly scratched out on one marker and an offensive word has been etched on another. “Some mothers do ‘ave ’em,” as my grandmother used to say.

Mountain Meadows Massacre Information

Information about the burial sites.

Carleton Grave Uncovered

Carleton grave plaque marking the burial vault

In the plaque above, at the end of the second paragraph, do you see where it says “…the remains recovered from that grave were re-interred in a burial vault inside the new wall.” I found a small plaque over at the second monument erected by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is easy to miss because you have to look over the left side of the wall as you come through the gate. However, there is more to see before we go to the second monument. On the top of the hill there is a fine memorial that has been constructed which lists the names of those killed and some explanatory markers.

Names Etched in Stone

Jill ponders events at the Mountain Meadows Massacre Memorial Site

In the photograph below, click on the five sections to see enlarged photographs of the names.

Mountain Meadows Views

There are two viewing aids. The one of the left is aimed at the grave site where the LDS Church built a monument. You cannot see much because a hedge is obscuring the view. The one on the right shows the massacre site. We did not go there, it appeared that one of the routes to it was a private road. There is an informational plaque in the center. Click on the plaque and the viewing aids to enlarge.

There is a map showing all the sites relative to your position at the monument. Also another informational marker. This completes the visit to the first monument.

The Old Spanish Trail and the California Road

Area site map

Grave Site Memorial

We drove to the Mountain Meadows Massacre Grave Site Memorial. I will simply show you the photographs without any commentary from me. At the end I will add a few thoughts.

Jill with the Grave Site Memorial in the background

Rick and Jill at the Memorial

Grave Site Memorial Dedication Plaque

Grave Site Memorials List

The original rock memorial

Final Thoughts

It was worth the drive to be able to see the actual memorials, take some photographs, and ponder the events that happened here a long time ago. As an adult convert to the Church I have read a little about the massacre and have made some observations over the years. A few who are disaffected with the Church would dearly love to pin the blame on Brigham Young. Clearly the Mormon settlers were looking for direction from him but word came too late. So why the eagerness to implicate Brigham Young? Because that would imply that the current prophet could give a similar order and it would be obeyed. But Brigham Young did not give the order. It was local leadership that made that decision. Even if the current prophet did give such an order it would not be obeyed. Today there are far too many members who are independent of thought and earn their livelihood from employers with no connection to the Church. In closing, remember that the Gospel of Jesus Christ heals all wounds. May peace be with us all, both the living and the dead.
Rickety signature.

A Banner Story Continued

July 28, 2008 by rickety Leave a Comment

As mentioned in my previous Banner Story post, some have expressed interest in knowing the story behind the banners I display on my rickety blog. All the photographs were taking either by my wife or myself, on vacation mostly. Here are the last 18. Click on the banners below and you will see the photographs from which they were derived.

My son Paul and my wife Jill on the Angels Landing Trail in Zion National Park, Utah. This trail is popular and well maintained and starts unspectacularly just north of Zion Lodge halfway along the scenic drive. It initially follows the road through shady, tree-covered land then crosses the Virgin River on a footbridge. Shown here are Paul and Jill ascending Walter’s Wiggles.

Climbers are seen here at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Colorado.The unique and spectacular landscape was formed slowly by the action of water and rock scouring down through hard Proterozoic crystalline rock. No other canyon in North America combines the narrow opening, sheer walls, and startling depths offered by the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

Fort Bridger was established by Jim Bridger and Louis Vasquez in 1843 as an emigrant supply stop along the Oregon Trail. It was obtained by the Mormons in the early 1850s, and then became a military outpost in 1858. In 1933, the property was dedicated as a Wyoming Historical Landmark and Museum. By the wagon are four of my five my children Paul, Jake, Daniel, and Sarah.

Not very far from my home can be seen migratory wildlife at the Kaysville Ponds. It contains bass, bluegill, catfish, and rainbow trout which is stocked throughout the summer.

Jill finds her way into this view of Mount Nebo, Utah. From Nephi to Payson, this route has breathtaking views of the Wasatch Range and 11,877-foot Mt. Nebo, its tallest mountain. Sights include Devil’s Kitchen, Walker Flat and Mt. Nebo Wilderness.

Mount Rushmore National Memorial viewed through an approach tunnel. Mount Rushmore is named after a New York City Attorney. Charles E. Rushmore was sent out to this area in 1884 to check legal titles on properties. On his way back to Pine Camp he asked Bill Challis the name of this mountain. Bill replied, “Never had a name but from now on we’ll call it Rushmore.”

Cooling off in a swimming pool in Nephi, Utah are Sarah (daughter), Derek (son-in-law), Kent (brother-in-law), Connie (niece), Byron (nephew), Shauna (niece), Jill (wife), Susan (sister-in-law), and Rick (me). Nephi is a city located in Juab County, Utah. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 4,733. It was settled by Mormon pioneers in 1851, and is the principal city in Juab Valley, an agricultural area. Nephi was named after one or more of the people of the same name mentioned in the Book of Mormon.

My son Steven married his sweetheart Adelaide in the Salt lake Temple. They are seen by the pool posing for wedding photographs. The Salt Lake Temple was the first temple built in the Salt Lake Valley and was the only temple dedicated by President Wilford Woodruff. The Salt Lake Temple is the largest temple (most square footage) of the Church. Original plans for the temple called for two angel Moroni statues—one on the east central spire and one on the west. The Salt Lake Temple took 40 years to build with its highly ornate interior being completed in just a year. The walls of the Salt Lake Temple are nine feet thick at the base and six feet thick at the top. The temple was dedicated three years before Utah became a state in 1896.

Pictured is a navy ship as we took a cruise around San Diego harbor. We also toured the aircraft carrier USS Midway.

San Diego is California’s second largest city with 70 miles of beaches and a gentle Mediterranean climate. This sunset is taken from one of those beaches. San Diego county’s 4,200 square miles is bordered by Mexico, the Pacific Ocean, the Anza-Borrego Desert and the Laguna Mountains.

The next six banners come from photographs taken at Yellowstone National Park. Established in 1872, Yellowstone National Park is America’s first national park. Located in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, it is home to a large variety of wildlife including grizzly bears, wolves, bison, and elk. Preserved within Yellowstone National Park are Old Faithful and a collection of the world’s most extraordinary geysers and hot springs, and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

Evidence of Ancestral Puebloans, known as the Anasazi, date from 2,000 years ago; Paiutes from about 800 years ago to present. Mormon settlers arrived in the 1860s. Massive canyon walls ascend toward a brilliant blue sky. To experience Zion National Park, you need to walk among the towering cliffs, or challenge your courage in a small narrow canyon. These unique sandstone cliffs range in color from cream, to pink, to red.

As close as one can get without actually entering my house is this banner showing the flowers along my backyard fence. It is relaxing to sit on the patio with a cool drink and a ham sandwich with a good book and occasionally glance at the hummingbirds around the flowers.

A Banner Story

July 26, 2008 by rickety Leave a Comment

Some have expressed interest in knowing the story behind the banners I display on my rickety blog. All the photographs were taking either by my wife or myself, on vacation mostly. Here are the first 18, I will post the remainder at a later date. Click on the banners below and you will see the photographs from which they were derived.

Here you can see the shuttles that brought us to the start of the trail to Angels Landing in Zion National Park, Utah. The trail ascends 1,500 feet over a distance of 2.5 miles to the summit, which is ringed on three sides by the Virgin River far below.

This is a fantastic view on the way to the summit of Angels Landing in Zion National Park, Utah The figure to the right is my son Steven. The remaining trail runs along a narrow rock fin with dizzying drop-offs on both sides. This narrow ridge has deep chasms on each of its flanks and hikers pull themselves up by chains.

My brother Mike on the trail to Angels Landing, Zion National Park, Utah. We hiked for 40 minutes to reach the 1-mile mark and enter the cool shade of Refrigerator Canyon—a deep canyon with steep walls where the temperature is always cool. After exiting Refrigerator Canyon, we were upon the switchbacks known as Walter’s Wiggles—a series of twenty-one compact switchbacks that zigzag their way up to Scout Lookout.

Antelope Island in Davis County, Utah, is just a few miles away from my home. Antelope Island is the perfect place to view the Great Salt Lake and experience the vast solitude of the Great Basin. The largest of the Great Salt Lake’s ten islands, visitors can reach the park by boat or via a causeway reopened in 1992 after being submerged for a decade by record-high lake levels.

Bear Lake straddles the border between Utah and Idaho. This was taken from the balcony of my brother-in-law’s cabin. Bear Lake is a large scenic lake often called “Caribbean of the Rockies” for its intense turquoise blue water.

Kennecott Utah Copper is the largest copper mine in the world. When I visit I am always surprised at the size of this open pit and the machinery in operation. Standing at the overlook within the Bingham Canyon Mine, you can watch 240 and 320 ton capacity haulage trucks deliver copper ore to the in-pit crusher, where the material is reduced to the size of soccer balls before being loaded onto a five-mile conveyor that carries the ore to the Copperton Concentrator.

The next three photographs were taken somewhere around Bryce Canyon National Park. Famous for its unique geology of red rock spires and horseshoe-shaped amphitheaters, Bryce offers the visitor a “Far View” from the eastern edge of the Paunsaugunt Plateau in southern Utah.

With a rim elevation between 8,000 to 9,100 feet, summer days are pleasant (80’s) and nights are cool (40’s). Spring and Fall weather is highly variable with days of snow or days with strong sun and 70 degrees. Cold winter days are offset by high altitude sun and dry climate.

Because Bryce transcends 2000 feet of elevation, the park exists in three distinct climatic zones: spruce/fir forest, Ponderosa Pine forest, and Pinyon Pine/juniper forest. This diversity of habitat provides for high biodiversity. At Bryce, you can enjoy over 100 species of birds, dozens of mammals, and more than a thousand plant species.

I believe this is Lake Tahoe in California though I cannot be sure. Lake Tahoe is the second deepest lake in the United States, with a maximum depth of 1,645 feet. Tahoe is also the 16th deepest lake in the world, and the fifth deepest in average depth. It is about 22 miles long and 12 miles wide and has 72 miles of shoreline and a surface area of 191 square miles.

This is the same view of the lake, but a separate photograph, with a closeup of the boat that is merely a dot near the center of the banner above. Boating, the primary activity in Tahoe in the summer, is known worldwide. There are lake front restaurants all over the lake, most equipped with docks and buoys. There are all sorts of boating events, such as sailboat racing, firework shows over the lake, guided cruises, and more.

In a corner of the southern Colorado Rocky Mountains is the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad. Built in 1880 and little changed since.

My brother Mike admiring Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve, Idaho. Craters is a vast ocean of lava flows with scattered islands of cinder cones and sagebrush. In 1969 Apollo 14 astronauts Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, Joe Engle and Eugene Cernan visited Craters of the Moon. They explored the lava landscape in order to learn the basics of volcanic geology in preparation for future trips to the moon.

Devils Tower rises 1267 feet above the Belle Fourche River. President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed Devils Tower the first national monument in 1906. Our family camped at a KOA near Devils Tower and in the evening we watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind on a big screen outdoors. It was a little eerie having Devils Tower looming to my left as the movie progressed.

Not much of a story behind this banner, just a train we saw on our way to Canada. Union Pacific Railroad, is the largest railroad in North America, covering 23 states across two-thirds of the United States.

My favorite destination in Florida is the Kennedy Space Center in Orlando. All Expendable Launch Vehicles use the same basic technology to get into space: two or more rocket-powered stages, which are discarded when their engine burns are complete.

Jill and I stayed at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton-Lakes National Park in Alberta after traveling the Going-to-the-Sun Road. This is the view from the hotel. The highlight of Waterton’s sparkling chain of lakes is the international Upper Waterton Lake, the deepest lake in the Canadian Rockies. In 1932, the park was joined with Montana’s Glacier National Park to form the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park — a world first.

Goblin Valley State Park, Emery County, Utah was officially designated a state park on August 24, 1964. Secluded Goblin Valley was first discovered by cowboys searching for cattle. Then, in the late 1920’s, Arthur Chaffin, owner/operator of the Hite Ferry on the Colorado River, and two companions were searching for an alternate route between Green River and Cainsville. They came to a vantage point about a mile west of Goblin Valley and were awed by what they saw — five buttes and a valley of strange-shaped rock formations surrounded by a wall of eroded cliffs.

Utah 1st Congressional District Survey

July 16, 2008 by rickety Leave a Comment

On 14th July I received three pieces of political mail – a flier from Rob Bishop promoting his Americans For American Energy Act; a request for dues to the Republican National Committee; and a Congressional District Survey. To give you some idea of my politics I consider myself an Independent though I vote Republican about 80% of the time. I don’t have any one issue but do favor fiscal responsibility and do not favor abortion or gay marriage. I spent my first 28 years of life in rickety old England so I have some perspective on socialism and government programs. Anyway, I will comment on the survey today and perhaps write about the energy act another day. Each survey question, except for the last, can be answered Yes, No, or Undecided. I will list the question, then respond afterwards by rewording the question and adding commentary.

The Survey

1. Do you feel voters in Utah’s 1st District support making all of the Bush tax cuts permanent?

Rephrase: Do you support making all or some of the Bush tax cuts permanent?
Comment: Although I have only been affected by it once, I believe the Alternative Minimum Tax should be abolished. Eventually action will have to be taken because the AMT is not indexed to inflation. Priority should be given to reducing the deficit even if some taxes have to raised.

2. Do you support the House Democrats’ “slow-bleed” strategy to “choke-off” funding for our troops in Iraq, leading to their withdrawal and a perception of American defeat?

Rephrase: Do you support withdrawing troops from Iraq?
Comment: Obviously very few would answer yes to the survey question, even though they may be in favor of withdrawal.

3. Should Republicans continue fighting for full implementation of a ballistic missile defense system?

Rephrase: Leave as-is.
Comment: I don’t know much about this. It sounds like a program expansion which could be expensive.

[Read more…]

Missionary Jake – Part 4 of 10

July 15, 2008 by rickety Leave a Comment

This is part four of a ten part series chronicling Jake’s Mission. It is told mostly in his own words using excerpts from his letters and photographs sent home.

March 2007

My new companion has the same last name: Elder Hernandez. He looks like a bishop because he has glasses and is a little fat. He is a great teacher and missionary and I am learning a lot from him.

I am still in Tultepec. The municipal of Tultepec is known for fireworks. All of this week there are going to be a ton of fireworks. They make huge bulls (kinda like the huge mammoth that we made for the Kaysville parade) and they fill them with fireworks. On Thursday they are going to parade them around and then set them off. It is a bit dangerous so we might have to go to our house a bit early.

To answer questions. Yes, they do have piñatas. They even have a song that you have to sing while the person is swinging. We had one once and broke it up for a party. The weather still changes a lot, but it is never too hot. Sleeping at night is easy. No need to worry about that. My mattress is better than the one I had at home. I’ve spoken in church. They usually ask us to speak on missionary work. I sum up the important parts of the restoration and bear my testimony on them. I wish I had taken that same speech class that Daniel has.
How is the math going for everyone? I tried helping out someone here, but I had forgotten how to explain how to get the answer—I always had done it in my head. All of the people have a really hard time singing. Mom, Dad sings pretty well. You only have to sit through one meeting here to know it. Not sure if you have sent the package, but I am in need of more shoes. If Paul can head out to that same store and pick up some more Doc Martins that would be great.

The work is growing fast here, we hope to baptize enough people in the next couple of weeks in order to divide the ward. We have a couple of families that have strong priesthood. There are four elders in this ward, so there are a lot of people in the Gospel Essentials class each week. The elders here like to hear stories of Utah where almost everyone is a member and the streets are paved with gold. Health is great, clothes are working just fine, and I could use a haircut. There is a sister in the ward that gives haircuts to the missionaries if they wash the dishes. I think I’ll take her up on the offer next week.

Things are going great here in the mission. I recently read a talk by Elder Bednar about studying the scriptures. It makes my head hurt trying to use all three methods and find all of the connections, patterns, and themes in the scriptures. It is something different so it takes some practice to make it effective, but he says each method “can help satisfy our spiritual thirst.”

I’ll be watching conference in Spanish. The experience of a member in a different language is really fascinating. It is amazing how effectively the church manages so many members in all parts of the world!

[Read more…]

Why a Congestion Tax should be Blocked

July 14, 2008 by rickety 4 Comments

July 10th saw Road Congestion Pricing Possible printed in the Davis County Clipper. The Utah Taxpayers Association is calling for congestion pricing on Utah’s freeways. It is supposed to work by electronically monitoring freeway traffic and charging more when freeways are congested. There are a number of problems with such a system:

Drivers already pay greater amounts of gasoline tax the more miles they drive. The price of gas is a very good automated system for curtailing driving.
The claim that 50% of driving at rush hour is discretionary seems inflated. Most drivers are well aware of when rush hour is. We don’t arise in the morning and say, “Hmm, peak congestion is at 5 pm, I do believe I will wait till then to drive to Salt Lake to buy some stamps.”
If freeways have a rush hour charge, some traffic will divert on to secondary roads, adding to congestion there.
Congestion pricing favors those more able to pay. Congestion is everyone’s problem and needs an intelligent solution that I will of course detail shortly.
Workers who commute would have to pay the most. They have no choice but to travel in rickety cars at the worst of times. The congestion tax does not know who is taking a non-discretionary trip.

Intelligent solutions that encourage participation is the order of the day. Not a new tax thinly disguised as pricing. Here are just a few, nothing new, they have been around for a number of years:

Employers can establish satellite offices to shorten the commute and to tout as an added benefit to prospective employees.
Telecommuting is an obvious solution that is more viable today with the spread of broadband.
The state of Utah recently implemented a 4-day work week. That will shift employee commute times to earlier and later in the day and eliminate it on Fridays.
If you must have a congestion tax then levy it on employers who are mandating that workers commute. Employers have been slow to change because the employee bears the full cost of the commute in time and money.

Perhaps the Utah Taxpayers Association should lobby Congress to change the name freeway to taxway to better represent the way the UTA (the Association, not the Authority) sees these vital traffic arteries.

My Faith

July 10, 2008 by rickety 2 Comments

If you have been reading through Paul’s missionary posts last month you may have noticed a reference to my conversion story. Paul asked me several times to write it and I eventually did. Here it is:

The story, to be told correctly, needs some family background. My father was born in Independence, Missouri and was baptized a member of the church at eight years old but was not active as an adult. My father joined the USAF and was stationed at Burtonwood, England during the Korea War. My mother was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, England, and had three sons by my father before they were divorced. At age four I was raised in England with my mother and new stepfather. I knew nothing about my LDS heritage as I grew up and never came into contact with any members of the church.

My mother was Catholic and my stepfather never mentioned religion but was a hard worker and was a good influence. If I asked him to do something that he thought I could do for myself he would say, “Use your own initiative”. We never went to church as a family but when I was very young I recall my mother telling me that there was “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost”. She said I can pray to God the Father and ask for what I needed. I could understand asking for what I wanted, a young child knows how to do that. She then said that you have to have faith. I didn’t understand that, what’s faith? Fast forward to age twelve and I am having a difficult time at school such that I felt I could not talk to anybody. I lay quietly in bed, tears in my eyes, no-one to turn to. I remembered my mother’s words from years ago and so I prayed as best I could to “God the Father”. In my mind’s eye I pictured Him as a grandfather, a real person. I started the prayer something like this: “God, I don’t know if you exist but please help me…”. It was a somewhat rickety faith but I did have my prayer answered.

I was attending a Catholic school at the time though I wasn’t a member of any church. When I was taught about the Trinity I had difficulty with the concept, it did not seem to align with my experience of praying to Father.

At age twenty I wanted to meet my father as I had not seen him since I was four. I didn’t know where in America he was living. I was visiting my home town of Macclesfield, where I noticed a church with a strange name—“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”. It wasn’t an English church that I knew of so I thought perhaps it was American. I went in and talked to a woman who was cleaning the floor. I told her I was looking for my American father and she took my name and address and told me that someone would contact me. Soon after, I received a letter from the Bishop of the Macclesfield Ward telling me that perhaps I should write to the Genealogical Society in Salt Lake City. My mother remembered that my grandmother lived in Utah and that she went by the name of Martha Harrison, after her second husband. I wrote the letter, mentioning my father’s mother’s name.

My grandmother was active LDS, my grandfather RLDS. Grandmother worked for the church at Zion’s Printing in Independence, Missouri. When Zion’s moved to Utah in 1946, she came with her work. When my letter reached the office girl at the Genealogical Society, the girl knew my grandmother and called her. My grandmother wrote to me saying that my father was in England on a 14 week TDY with the Air Force. Richard Sr. wrote to me, and I immediately traveled south to meet him, unannounced. He had married twice more and his third wife, my stepmother, greeted me at the door. I talked with my father and he explained how he had kept out of my “new” family so as to not disrupt it but now things were different. We saw each other a lot until he returned to the United States.

I corresponded with my father and my grandmother. After some months, I asked my grandmother about the church I went into in Macclesfield. She responded by mailing to me two pamphlets: “Which Church is Right?” by Mark E. Peterson and “Joseph Smith’s Testimony”. I did not attend any church but thought there was something to the Bible or else why do so many people have an interest in it? However, I did remember in my childhood when all was despair I had prayed to God the Father and my prayers were answered. I also owned a Bible I had purchased and read portions of it. I especially liked the book of Proverbs and enjoyed many of the wise sayings. I was curious about the Ten Commandments and found them in Exodus and read them several times.

These two pamphlets were my first exposure to the Church. I was not interested in them but I felt obligated to at least glance through the pages because my grandmother had taken the time to send them to me. While lying in bed in January 1974, I read through them very quickly to fulfill my obligation. I put them down and decided to sleep. However, I could not sleep and picked up “Which Church is Right?” and read it cover to cover. I also read “Joseph Smith’s Testimony” in its entirety.

I will post the conclusion of My Faith tomorrow.

Missionary Jake – Part 3 of 10

July 7, 2008 by rickety Leave a Comment

This is part three of a ten part series chronicling Jake’s Mission. It is told mostly in his own words using excerpts from his letters and photographs sent home.

January 2007

Things are good down here in Mexico. The weather is really nice—not too hot and not too cold. It rains sometimes, but never is cold enough to snow. The climate is similar to Utah but more mild. I imagine that the summers will be really hot. Usually the second thing people ask me when I say I’m from Utah is: “it snows in Utah, right?” I’m glad it doesn’t snow here though—I think there would be a wreck every 5 seconds if it snowed. The driving here is crazy. Stop signs are non-existent, or if there is a stop sign nobody pays any attention. The government puts in speed bumps every intersection to force people to slow down.

You don’t have to worry about speeding either. You can just give the police 10 or 20 dollars and they will let you off the hook. At least that is what my companion says. I’m glad I took his [Brother Peterson’s] class of Christian History because I understand a lot better who I am teaching. It helps to know exactly what is the apostasy and why we needed a restoration. In the mission all we have to do is make sure our investigators understand those two words—apostasy and restoration. Although all the churches may have some little part of the truth, none of them have the fullness of the gospel.

[Read more…]

Raise it Slow

June 26, 2008 by rickety 1 Comment

Pump jack in Deep Fork Wildlife Refuge, White Oak Area

Photo credit FreeWine

I read on the KSL website yesterday that the state of Utah may switch to some kind of compressed work week. On the KSL comment boards, a viewer wrote, “I thought state workers already worked only 4 days a week.” Draper and West Valley City have already implemented four-day work weeks. My daughter-in-law already works a four-day week as does my son.

When FrontRunner began service my wife (who works part-time) began riding the train by driving to Farmington to catch it. Her cost in June is $3 one-way. In Salt Lake City there is a company shuttle to take her and other employees to the work site. Because hiring is strong there are plans for employees to share cubicles and telecommute half the week each.

One of my co-workers last year bought a Natural Gas Vehicle, a Honda Civic. He qualified for the Utah tax credit ($3,000) but not the Federal ($4,000). It costs the equivalent of 63 cents (soon to rise to 85 cents) a gallon to fill. He showed several of us the car. There was a connection where the gas is, um, connected. He says it takes about the same amount of time to fill as a gasoline car. Most of the trunk is taken up by the Natural Gas tank but there is still some space left to stow items. Of course, there are not many filling stations on a long trip so he won’t be going very far out of town anyway. Otherwise the Civic was much like any other car on the outside. Another co-worker just ordered a Toyota Prius.

Many people are adjusting to rising gas (the petroleum kind) prices. So long as prices rise relatively slowly, or at least not in big jumps overnight (I’m talking dollar increases) then a majority of us can explore alternatives like public transport, alternative fuels, telecommuting, emigrating to Saudi Arabia, and compressed work weeks.

So if oil has to go up in price, please Raise it Slow. I don’t want to get out my rickety old bike just yet.