~o:> Day Trippin’: pt. 1

As you can see, the tiny city is literally nestled into the mountains.  Where there were once shafts in the ground (I think), here is the present get-rich industry: ski runs.  Note the cool street lamp.

And here are the funky, very ski-architectural condominiums (or, if you are on a first name basis with this kind of thing: condos) in which we nested for a couple of days.  One belongs to a member of Rachel’s extended family – who was kind enough to let us have the use of it.

View from the deck one way: a Kneaders.  A Best Buy (???). An out of business Bajios (sad, sad).  We liked the interestingly curved walk ways and the log fences.  And at night, they have flaming drums lining the commercial area, even when there’s no skiing to be apres.

Here is a sign the condo owners very kindly put up, in case humble people from the valleys might come along and not know this.  It was almost apropos, actually.

This is the view straight off the deck.  I show you this because I want you to note the gray sky (which, in this shot, does not look all that gray), and the sharp, chilly wind (which in this shot, does not feel particularly sharp or chilly).  Oh, and that house on the hill?  The one with the sign on it that says, “LOOK AT ME.”  But no, we are too far away to see if there really is a sign like that.  I wonder if they realized as they were planning that they were going to interrupt the nice line of that hill?

In case you couldn’t see it the first time.  But now you can actually see the sky, too.

Here, Rachel and Ms. K prepare the Hot Tub.  I believe these are required on every deck by city ordinance.

Ms. K was deeply determined to have a great time in the Hot Tub.  Note the sharp, chilly wind in this shot?  Ms. K didn’t care.  She spent HOURS in that thing, drowning her Breyer horses (literally, poor things), and when she got out, we had to break the icicles off her elbows and ear lobes before we could dry her off with a towel.

Aside from the modern human marks on the land, Park City has a wonderful beauty.  Fresh streams like this one wander the little valleys, and graceful fences flow along their own ways.  The sky looks light here.  But the clouds were scudding along, driven by the storms that kept rolling over us.

Bull rushes and fence.  We kept seeing red-winged black birds, the red in their wings so bright, it almost hurt the eye.

This is called run-off.  It’s what happens when the snow pack melts and the water swells these little streams, running with great force down the sides of the mountains.  A month from now, there will be little water in this stream bed.  But the wildflowers are glad of the ripping water.

Just don’t fall in it. Or try to walk across it.

We ran across a rustic Catholic church and found this welcome.

If you look very carefully at the lower right hand area of the shot, you’ll see a person in a red shirt.  He is following a really nice path that seems to wind all through this valley.  We are going to go back up there and walk the entire length of it sometime soon.  Love all the little bridges and stiles.

And then we found The Barn.

And took exactly 5, 347 pictures of it against that sky.

Note the red hydrant to the right of the barn.

Here we are straight on.  We wanted to live here.

And here is the car, waiting for me to stop shooting the pictures and get back into it, before the policeman (you can see him on the shoulder, way back there, giving somebody a ticket – one of the three we saw him hand out) could take offense and come to find out what the devil we were doing out there.

What we were doing is: I was exploring part of that walking path I was telling you about, the part that runs right down here and around the back of the barn.  We are thinking that the barn is no longer a working farm, but a sort of museum.

Just beside the bridge, you can see this lovely stream.

And here is the redwing blackbird, chasing somebody out of the bullrushes.

To be continued –