Field Trip Fun

Yesterday was the best day of work ever because Camden, Riley, Sid, Eliza, Lindy, Sarah, Joel, Mom, and Dad all came to Camp Floyd for a field trip and picnic! The girls loved wearing their ranger badges (Eliza was even decked out in her ranger attire) and doing their Junior Pony Express Rider activity books. They thought the movie was a little boring, but the grown-ups found it quite informative. They also liked trying on some Civil War hats and hearing about all of the soldiers that used to live there. They thought the petrified potatoes in the museum were pretty gross, but liked seeing the diamond ring that was found during one of the archaeological digs.

We then went on a tour of Stagecoach Inn. Everyone's favorite part was the men's washroom with the bathtub and potty chair. We then had a fun picnic out under the 150 year old trees and enjoyed the beautiful weather. Thank you for the fun visit everyone!

Cove Fort Days and the Mad Serbian Dictator

On Friday, Mom and I had a very fun trip home from St. George! We were both in the mood for a drive-in hamburger, so we stopped at Mel's in Beaver. They had just the type of yummy hamburger we were looking for. We then, of course, went to the cheese factory to get some cheese curd and ice cream. They had my new favorite ice cream flavor there: birthday cake! Then we headed to Cove Fort for Cove Fort Days. It was such a fun event! The missionaries had a lot of fun things going on. We went on a tour of the fort, then we posed with the two funny oxen (those are real oxen in the picture and, yes, they are big), and had a fun time looking around the "Pioneer Camp." Seeing the Stagecoach Office at the fort was especially meaningful to me--since I'm really in to stagecoaches these days. They even had a real stagecoach there at the fort and were giving people rides in it! It was quite an enjoyable event. I hope that they do it every year. Thank you for the fun vacation, Mom!!!

While we were in St. George, a few more things went down with the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency in Springfield. The agency had to lay off virtually all of its seasonal employees due to Gov. Blagojevich's 3 million budget cut, and they are having to close a number of sites--including LINCOLN'S TOMB!!--for a few days a week. That is bad news, especially with the Lincoln Bicentennial coming up in 2009. Unfortunately, laying off all of the seasonal workers will only save the agency $150,000, so they still need to figure out how they are going to cut out another 2.5 million dollars from their operating expenses. Basically it's nothing but bad news for Illinois history people. I don't know what this will mean for the future of the IHPA--since they run all of the major historic sites (except Abe Lincoln's house which is an NPS site), including the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Governor Blagojevich's budget cuts are preposterous! Especially since he is currently under investigation for a missing 2 billion dollars that he claims has been used for "miscellaneous" government expenses. Three million isn't a lot of money to Blagojevich, but it is to the IHPA. People in Springfield are starting to refer to Blagojevich as the "Mad Serbian Dictator," which is actually an accurate description. His dad was from Serbia, and he is indeed mad (as in insane) and a dictator. He obviously doesn't care about the history of Illinois, and he's going to do everything he can to take the state down with him as he heads straight to prison. As I've said before, Illinois is infamous for having corrupt governors.

Pangaean Adventures

The best thing about having my work hours cut back (even though I still need to work a certain amount of time each week to meet my internship requirements) is that I now have more free time!! More free time = more vacations :-) So, this week Mom and I decided to go on a vacation to southern Utah. We left for Zion National Park on Tuesday and made some fun stops in Beaver and Cedar City. We then went to Springdale and ate dinner at our favorite Zion restaurant: Oscar's. Our favorite non-breakfast meal at Oscar's consists of sweet potato fries and a cheese quesadilla.

We then walked up to the Springdale cemetery to pay homage to all of the people we'd been spending so much time researching over the past few months. Before I wrote the Zion book, I had no idea who most of the Springdale people were, but now I feel like they're my good friends. We found the graves of all the main characters in my book: Donal Jolley, the first chief ranger at Zion; William and Carnelia Crawford; William Louis Crawford; Johann Jakob and Elisa Spiess Ruesch; and many others. The Springdale cemetery certainly is in a pretty place! Mom and I skulked around town for a little while and then spent the night at Zion Park Motel.

On Wednesday morning Mom and I had breakfast at Oscar's :-) The $2.99 two egg breakfast there is the best (and most tasty) deal in town. We then went up the canyon and hopped on the shuttle. The shuttle runs from March to November and is meant to reduce traffic in the park. Unfortunately the shuttle buses don't go very fast and they don't have A/C, so they're quite hot. The first shuttle bus that Mom and I got on yesterday was a doozy! The shuttle driver started out by saying, "Since we have people from many countries on the bus today, I will make my presentation very brief and simple so that even if you don't speak English very well you will be able to understand what I am saying." That sounded pretty good, but then he said, "Let's start back at the beginning when there was only one continent called Pangaea . . . " That's when we knew we were in trouble. The shuttle driver launched into a big long lecture about the geological history of the canyon. Mom and I had no idea what he was saying--I can't imagine what the people on the bus from France and Germany were thinking! Before we knew it, he was saying things like, "The fifth geological process is called exfoliation." Exfoliation? He then started to name every species of bird in the park, and he very adamantly claimed that we were not looking at mountains--we were looking at petrified sand dunes. I'm pretty sure that we were looking at mountains--big, tall mountain peaks. Anyway, by the time we reached the lodge, Mom and I had had about enough of the geology lesson, so we got off and hung out there for a little while. Then we hopped on a different shuttle--one with a nice, quiet, non-annoying driver--and rode the rest of the way up the canyon. We got off there and went on our favorite hike: the trail along the river to the Narrows. It was, as always, beautiful! We then rode back down the canyon and hung out at the visitor center for a little while. We then went into town, had a grilled cheese sandwich at Pioneer Lodge, and then took off for St. George. We arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's house just in time to have some of Uncle Dennis' yummy spaghetti. We had a fun evening there together.

Today Mom and I had a wonderful time going to the St. George Temple. It was such a neat experience! The temple is a beautiful building, and it holds special meaning for our family because some of our ancestors helped build it. Before going to the temple, Mom and I had lunch at the Bear Paw restaurant and discovered a new favorite: veggie quiche. It was delicious! What a fun afternoon! We then went to visit Auntie Donna. We're planning to head home tomorrow and will stop at Cove Fort days on the way. This has been a great vacation!

I got a little behind on a few things earlier this week. Last Friday I was able to go to the Provo Temple with Mom and Dad as part of the Taylor family reunion. I love the Provo Temple! And last Sunday I had to work at Camp Floyd, so after they went to church, Mom, Sarah, Joel, and Eliza came to visit me. Little Eliza was sporting her ranger apparel. She is the cutest ranger ever!

As you can see, she picked right up on the tour-giving technique.

Bridal Veil Fires

Bridal Veil Falls is on fire! Well, the falls themselves aren't on fire, but a fire is burning all around them. The old restaurant that was up there at the top of the tram caught on fire and burned last night. Today as I was driving home from work, I noticed that the fire was starting to come around to the west side of the mountain, and there was a lot of smoke in the air, so it is obviously quite a large fire. But, we had a pretty hefty rainstorm blow through this evening, so hopefully that helped the firefighters a bit.

I spent all day today out at Camp Floyd. We had a Boy Scout group for the first half of the day, and then quite a few visitors in the afternoon, so it stayed pretty busy. I even met my first ghost hunters today! I did not know that this particular group was made up of ghost hunters, but when I went to lock up the inn this evening, they came running over and told me that they had their tape recorders going inside. So, they had to go through and gather up all of their ghost hunting paraphernalia before we could close it up :-) It wasn't quite like the Sci-Fi Channel's "Ghost Hunters," considering that it was the middle of the day instead of the middle of the night, and today's ghost hunters only had their recorders running for about 15 minutes instead of several hours. But the people I met today were quite enthused and certain they would capture something.

Unfortunately it seems that history is at the bottom of everybody's priority lists--at least the lists of those who decide where state money goes. Today I found out that Camp Floyd's seasonal employment funding kind of got axed, so now Mark and I are going to need to work out a different schedule for me. He can't afford to pay me for all of the hours I need to meet the requirement for my EIU internship, so we'll have to come up with a new plan.

But Utah is not the only state to have low funding when it comes to state historic sites. I think that Illinois would top that list. Governor Blagojevich cut 3 million dollars out of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency budget the other day. That's really smart (sarcastic remark!), considering that the Lincoln bicentennial is coming up next year--which could be a huge money maker for the state--unless you don't have any money with which to support the state historic sites. My theory is that Blagojevich is just trying to pull money in from various places to patch up the holes he's left in the state budget--holes which resulted from his efforts to line his own pockets with cash. He's what you might call a dirty Chicago politician--hmmm, that sounds like another politician I've heard of . . . Obama? I'm afraid that Blagojevich (who will be going to prison when he's done being governor) and Obama originate from the same batch of muddy Chicago water. We'll see how much more damage Blagojevich can do before his time as governor is up. It looks like he's going to try to take the state historic sites down with him, unfortunately.

The National Park Service has decent funding thanks to President Bush's efforts--so there is still hope for the national historic sites--but I'm afraid that, depending on who wins the upcoming election, the national parks could be in for it as well.

"This is the Place"

Hooray for Pioneer Day! This is my favorite holiday. It is wonderful to have a day set aside specifically for remembering the sacrifices of the pioneers. When Brigham Young arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in July 1847, it must have been a welcome relief to know that after 17 months of traveling, they had finally reached the place where they would settle. Most of the Saints were still back at Winter Quarters when Brigham Young declared "This is the Place," but I'm sure they were glad to have a specific destination in mind as they traveled the remaining miles to what would later become Utah. I can't imagine the faith that it would have taken to leave Nauvoo in the winter--especially not really knowing where you were going or how long it would be before you could settle again. In the Taylor family, Pioneer Day has special meaning for us because our ancestor, Norman Taylor, drove the second wagon into the valley--right behind Brigham Young. Norman was only 18 at the time, but he was an expert when it came to wagons, so Brigham Young wanted to have him close by. They might have thought that Utah looked pretty desolate at first, but Brigham Young always had a way of seeing things as they could become--not just as they were. His foresight and the hard work of the pioneers established a wonderful place: Utah! I love Utah so very much, and I am grateful that this is the place I can call home.

Today the Arcadia Publishing people sent me the proofs for the postcard series that will accompany my book. They look pretty cool! This is what the cover of the postcard packet will look like. It will be fun when all of the book stuff comes out in November. And, on Pioneer Day, I am glad that I can work towards making a contribution to the written history of Utah.

We had such a fun day today! The day began with an abbreviated family tennis tournament (because it was too hot to be outside for long), then we had fun playing in the sprinklers and inflatable swimming pools in the backyard. The girls all love playing in the water. Then we had a yummy picnic lunch and nice Pioneer Day naps. This evening we did sparklers outside, which Eliza was very intrigued with, and now some of us are off to see the new Batman movie, "Dark Knight." What a fun day! Happy Pioneer Day everyone!