Pioneer Day

For people who don't know, the 24th of July is almost as big as the 4th of July in Utah. It's Pioneer Day, the day Utahns celebrate pioneers arriving in the Salt Lake Valley. Pretty cool if you ask me, just don't get me started about people wearing cowboy hats to the parade. (Utahns, or specifically Salt Lakers, are NOT cowboys, and neither were the dominantly British pioneers.)

To celebrate, the family ate skidavers for breakfast (Swiss ancestors' word for crepes). Then Dad weeded while I started tearing down the fort. It's this shaky old structure that should have been torn down before the floor started falling through. All the slats around the sides were loose enough that I just knocked them off with a hammer (I was thinking, "Too bad I'm not stressed right now, this would really help.") Most the floorboards, however, were still firmly screwed in. My wrist got tired of turning the screw driver, and the electric screw driver died after about six boards, so Heidi and I hauled the wood to the front yard and there the project stands.

















Around five, Heidi, Dad, and I went up to Silver Lake, where it was 16 degrees cooler than in the 93-degree valley. Phew. It was beautiful. I was Dad's crutch around the board walk and of course Heidi and I had to climb to the top of the rock that has natural stairs.