John Colton's blog

On Jul 25, we took a day trip with my parents to Antelope Island State Park. It's an interesting place, an island in the middle of the Great Salt Lake which is now connected to the mainland via a causeway. Here's the causeway looking back from the island:


There are a number of freshwater springs which emerge in the hills, even though the island is completely surrounded by salt water. Here's a model of the island at the Vistor's Center:


The island was originally used for grazing cattle but at some point last century (I forget the date), someone decided to introduce a herd of bison. The bison took well, and have been living there since; the herd is about 500 now.



There are also a number of pronghorn, of which we saw a few:


At the southern end of the island there's a historic farm, with a barn, farmhouse, etc., on display:

I had to work most of the day (for those out of state, Jul 24 is a state holiday known as "Pioneer Day"), but Pauline, Leslie, and Emily got to go to a parade that Grandpa Phil was in. With his cool antique car, he gets to go to a lot of parades. It's a Ford Model A, I forget the year. Isn't it photogenic?




In the evening we had a Berkeley Ward reunion which I did get to go to. Not any really good pictures from that, though.

We decided to celebrate the Fourth of July by going on another family hike. We parked at Aspen Grove, same place where the Stewart Falls trail leaves from, but went towards Mount Timpanogos instead of towards Stewart Falls. The actual hike to the peak of Mount Timpanogos is something like 6 miles one way, but we had been told that the first section of the hike is very picturesque with several waterfalls. We probably went 2.5 miles up the trail, and it was indeed beautiful. I liked it much more than the Stewart Falls hike.

Here we are, starting out. You can see that there was still quite a lot of snow in the mountains, even at the peak of summer.


Here’s a nice shot of Emily


...and another nice one of Pauline and Leslie.


Here’s the first waterfall we encountered.



We hiked up past the first fall, and as we came around a corner and my jaw literally dropped. I think I counted another twenty or so waterfalls.


And here’s the second one we came to.




I think this was the hillside just to the left of the second waterfall


We all thought this was a cool tree.


Leslie, Emily and I left Pauline near the second waterfall and hiked up farther, for about another hour. We came across many streams like this flowing across the path.



You can tell we’ve gained some elevation compared to the previous shot looking up the mountain.


Here’s a shot looking down the mountain.


I don’t take too many pictures of me, so here you go. Probably taken by Emily


Now we are hiking back down, looking down on Pauline at the second water fall (she’s the one with the reddish shirt).

Time to get caught up on some of our summer adventures. In June we made a trek to Mink Creek, Idaho for an Olson Family reunion. Those would be Pauline’s materal grandparents, who were dairy farmers in a small community outside of Preston, Idaho. Preston happens to be the town where Napoleon Dynamite was filmed, so on our way to Mink Creek we did a quick “Napoleon tour” of the downtown area.

This is where Napoleon got his hair cut before the dance.


These are authentic used suits from DI, like the one Napoleon bought. (DI = “Deseret Industries”, an LDS church-run chain of thrift stores. This one was visited in the film but the name was not shown.)


Here’s some other stuff we could have bought at DI.


Here’s the town department store. My kids could tell you exactly when Napoleon visited here in the movie.


Then, on to the old family homestead. This is a cabin where, if I recall correctly, Pauline’s great-great aunt lived over the winter to obtain homesteading rights. (Pauline, correct me if I’m wrong.)


Pauline liked this collection of rusty tools; I think this was in her grandpa’s barn.


There was a pond in back of Pauline’s grandparents’ house. Our kids went on several paddle boat rides with some of their second cousins.


Emily was proud of this feather she found while four-wheeling with her great-uncle.


It was certainly beautiful there. The hills aren’t normally this green.


We went on a walk along the spring behind Pauline’s grandparents’ house. A beaver had been having fun.


Here’s the source of the spring, where it comes out of the mountain. The cup was put there by Pauline's grandpa so that people could drink from the spring. Either that, or it's a replacement cup put there by someone else.


On our way back, it started to rain.


Later, we went on an outing with Pauline’s mom and aunt. We were surprised to find hundreds of sheep on this hillside, bleating away very loudly.