Clouds, a spinning sphere, bikes, more clouds...

Kanarraville clouds                                                                          August 2013

 The Family sun day away together, over the "hill" to the west... a hike up into the Kanarra falls/slot canyon... four kids and four adults, funny how all young people still in school i "see" as kids,  made the hike. i sat on a hillside above the parking lot under a tree, reading, viewing and listening to the unfamiliar surroundings of place, trying to get a feel of the place, which we normally just fly past on the freeway going to and from St. George. Small towns/cities abound in southern Utah, with lots still here and many gone... those that still have life can be found to have a mix of the old and new, all abounding with stories, secrets and questions. i find it hard to travel, or better said pass through and out of  places without taking time to discover who and what the place is about. We have one grand child who always referred to leaving her/our home town as going to "other worlds"...  what world is this she would ask?? How true that really is in many ways... the level of knowing and understanding a place, that must be part of why it feels so good to return Home.

The volunteer manning the solar scope at the visitor center this week commented... "i have to keep adjusting this telescope because the sun keeps moving." Now lets think about this one for a minute...
who or what is moving here?... i believe it's us, the earth along with us on it, thats actually doing the moving here. We are not the center... but are on the outside edge of this spinning sphere we call earth. If not for an eternal plan that includes this spinning along with something we call gravity... we would, if we existed at all with all our stuff, be floating out through space, and a different place that would be!
This observation came at the end of a very busy week of metaphors and aha moments...
some of the week felt like hanging on to a rope... then clapping...
the prophet Joseph in liberty jail... "O God, where art thou?..."
The Lord sees us in eternity... we only see us in the now.
The blessing of the Lord is knowledge... the unspeakable gift.

WWJDrive?  in our day and age?                                 

KOM line red canyon...                                        8/7/2013

• still walk...
• ride public transit...
• car pool...
• ride with Peter...
• tour bus
• an old ford station wagon...
• '69 chevy van...
• hitchhike...
• ride a bike...

Day of moving fish water about the yard...
bank, drug store, home , heavens opened...
stop fish water, mix, cool, bake muffins... 

Tour of Utah was the big deal effecting the first part of the week here in southern Utah. Watch the the stage 1 peloton move quickly by on 89 past 12 on it's way to 14 then on to Cedar City. i never rode a bike like that without a crash... with only a half dozen people watching there with me, outside of town seven miles, no cars or traffic on the road... all i could hear was the sound of a hundred plus chains moving over sprockets and skinny tires running along the road surface... the purrr of the peloton, here and then gone in less then ten seconds... something the cheering crowds in SLC did not hear later in the week! The next day the peloton passed through red canyon on Hwy.12, passed the visitor center through the twin tunnels snaking up the canyon past the first KOM at the top of the canyon and sprinting across the plateau toward the finish a hundred plus miles away... i surely never did, or will, ride a bike like that!!

Stage 2 peloton, red canyon                                                                                                                                             08/07/2013

That was my twenty seconds of watching the race live as it passed me twice...  the rest of the week i followed the remaining four stages watching the live stream on the computer from work and home, much more better way to watch a five hundred mile plus bike race. And there was surely a new vocabulary/terminology to be learned by listening to the live commentators!! For example these twenty somethings attack a climb straight up and over... they don't "paperboy it" like i did in my youth!! It's all a race of straight line riding as much as possible, shortest fastest line from A to B... straight... energy to peddle. Back to the real world of the visitor center once the bikes and  their support vehicles got past us, and the road reopened behind them. They say life is like riding a bike you never forget... but not like these guys do! The flip side of that saying... once you learn/accept the Gospel... don't forget it... period.

It's thursday and the week seems like it should be done...
meander about town on way to work, post office, dentist, fs office...
vc front desk dance till shift change, home early, ice cream & movie...

Summer in panguitch about over, road const starts in town...
schools start in a week, vc on cruse till the september rush...
yearly numbers way up, fs office, time sheet, home...

Blue bird skies... bright banks shining in the canyon... morning light...
despicable me 2... cartoon movie is despicably not funny... period
gwashington pieces still coming forward... fifteen bucks so far... great fun.

During a bursting season and after what feels like a very busy week, i get to thinking about what it's all about... This week got a bit deep at times, thinking wise, thought is some of my favorite food. I try to read my scriptures every morning to set the tone for the day, it helps me deal with me and all the different people i come in contact with each day, it grounds me and provides truth for me to come from. I also carry a Book  of Mormon with me in my brief case as a extra boost, along with whatever current book i may be reading over the course of time allowing. I have discovered that creativity is blue-collar WORK...
daily routine and ritual are critical to ideas, they come from all of my life experiences, some good some not so good. A journal/sketch book is a must have, it becomes a store house of ideas to clear the mind now for new to come and to recharge and remember at another time in the future. Writing as in this page for example is a process of venting to also clear the mind and get back to a clear page. Knowledge is a gift of God, i can not always explain it but try to use and apply it wisely every day.

Temptations are like fishing lures... they look great but avoid them... run
electronic scriptures are "funny"... world dependent... batteries are required...
i like them in hand... not in the "cloud"... truth should have heft...

Sunday meetings: concentrated packages of knowledge we must digest...
food for thought... sunday school: call to action... tools to work with...
priesthood...  backslapping brotherhood... to share with people in need.

GREAT sunday evening sunset sky show... good start to a new week...
thanks for sticking around and reading this far... 
take this fodder and chew for awhile if you like... life is an adventure test.

Panguitch sunset...                                                                                                                                                                 8/11/2013

Panguitch skies are more better then Kanarravill skies... but this is home
read a book with pen in hand... mark it up... scriptures are a book...
tip:" fix things you know how to fix"   idea: "associate mastery with optimism."


Cheers on your sojourns...