Most of Valentine’s Day was slow, but late in the afternoon we all piled into the truck and set out for the Swell with the intention of seeing some rock art and photographing the sunset. The petroglyphs are on a boulder at the southeast base of Little Cedar Mountain, and though I had only seen them in photos, the appeared to be easy to find. I know of two short roads that lead to that area, but when we got there we were greeted by pure white, unbroken snow on both roads. I got out of the truck at the best looking road and checked out the snow depth, and it appeared to be a little over a foot deep. The road went up a moderate incline, so I wasn’t worried about getting stuck in the snow since gravity would be on my side if I had to back out. I locked in the hubs and gave it a go, but only made it about 300′ before the truck ground to a stop. It took about a minute of rocking back and forth before I was able to free the truck from the snow and reverse back to the main road.
We drove to the Wedge Overlook after that and had some time to kill before sunset. I went a little overboard and ended up taking about 80 photos of the setting sun and the glowing sky. While I stood on the edge of a cliff with my tripod and camera, Traci and the boys stayed near the truck and played in the snow. When the sunset had died down, I started the truck and held my hands in front of the heat vents for several minutes before I was warm enough to drive home. We were there a lot later than I expected to be, and when we got home we had dinner about an hour later than usual.
Today, we had Michael’s birthday party at Pioneer Park. We rarely are able to do something really fun for his birthday (we’re limited to bowling or the indoor swimming pool this time of year), but there was finally enough snow this year to go sledding at the park. We served hot chocolate and, as a departure from the usual cupcakes, cinnamon and orange rolls. The kids had a lot of fun, though understandably some of the adults didn’t enjoy hanging out in the cold. I, however, enjoyed it much better than having a party at home.
With as good at this weekend was, I can’t help but wonder how much better it could have been. Relatively late Friday evening, I got an e-mail from a friend who invited me to hike through Moonshine Wash the next day, but I had to turn him down because I didn’t have enough notice to change the plans I already had. Then on Saturday I got an invite from somebody I’ve never met in person to go horseback riding to Devil’s Hole on Sunday, but I declined because I would be watching the kids while Traci was at church. This morning I got an e-mail from Summit42 asking if I wanted to trespass on some mining property near Sunnyside and photograph some old abandoned buildings, but again I had to pass because of Michael’s party. I hope those opportunities present themselves again sometime in the future when I don’t already have something going on.
Sunday’s Sunset Photo Gallery
Michael’s Birthday Photo Gallery