SLC Pictures

As we drove home from the museum yesterday, I managed to snap a few cool pictures in downtown Salt Lake. I was happily surprised at how well they turned out!

The temple with a few of the changing leaves on the trees of Temple Square

Looking up at the front of the Church Administration Building

One of several remaining horse-blocks in front of houses along South Temple

The horse-blocks intrigued me. It's just one of the things that make me love Salt Lake. There is "small town" history that you can find everywhere in the city, from the original architecture of old buildings downtown to parks and memorials that date back to the pioneer days. It feels like there's is a story with just about every home or every street you could walk down. I might be naive when it comes to all this - not having lived in too many areas of the world. I'm sure Cammie has many more stories to tell having lived in Italy, but I feel tied to the history here. It's a part of me. I experienced it for the first time significantly when I came on the road trip helping my friend Jodi move here. Her new home was a half block east of Temple Square. I had left California planning on being away for a week, but while in Utah, I kept having the crazy thought of not going home. One night I had the opportunity to walk to Temple Square alone. It was the middle of January and pretty cold. I remember standing around the west side of the temple, looking up at it with nobody around. It felt like a quiet, private moment. It felt more familiar than it should have for the first time I'd really spent any time on the grounds. I thought about the feelings my mother had expressed to me about how she felt during the time she'd spent in the shadow of the Wasatch Mountains and of my Great Great Grandmother who saw this valley as Zion and I'm sure stood in the same spots I was, many years before. It felt like a home where I'd never lived. Over the next few days, I had a few more experiences and doors opened to me that made it possible for me to stay in Salt Lake (much to the shock of friends and family). It's unbelievable to think about how quickly time passes. In a journal entry from August 2002, I wrote while sitting on Temple Square, "The trees around the east side are still rather small, but it will be kind of enclosed and shaded when they grow up. I wonder if that is how it will be one day when I bring my children here to visit." Well, I was there the other day, and the trees aren't quite as big as I thought they'd be once I was a mother. Life has sprung on me rather quickly it seems, but it's still strange to think that 6 years have past since I had that thought. Anyway, enough of this - I enjoy getting caught up in nostalgic moments, can you tell?