SLC natives are the only one that have a shot at figuring out this mystery photo:
I dragged Helen to an outdoor concert at Red Butte Gardens:
Abbey and Colin joined us, along with some picnic foods:
The concert was a creative new UT group, “The Piano Guys”:
It was taped for a PBS show to be shown this fall. They were on Leno’s Tonight show last night:
http://thepianoguys.com/watch-thepianoguys-perform-on-the-tonight-show-video/
It was a fun concert. They did a ‘flash mob’ thing, with a youth orchestra secretly scattered throughout the audience that popped up to join them in a modern version of a Bach song. The violin section was in front of us:
We had a great visit with brother Mal. We finally got Helen out to walk the nearby City Creek trail that had become legendary because of the number of times that she almost got out to it, but didn’t until now:
Malcolm and I drove down to Zion Park in southern UT and joined friend Jim for a couple of days of fun. Here we are out for an afternoon hike up Angels Falls, the top of that big cliff behind us:
The first part of the trail is very popular and easy (paved!). The last part of the hike tends to turn most people around:
There are chains you can grab for assurance":
Which we usually did, as it was narrow and the drop is 1400 feet on both sides! 6 people have died here from falls in recent years:
That is a road and parking lot at the bottom:
The real crazy guys are the guys who climb up the face instead of the ridge, like this guy:
You can see him better with the camera zoom:
The views from the top were amazing
The next day we hired a guide for some canyoneering, where you climb/hike/rappel into and down beautiful slot canyons:
Our longest rappel was 150 feet!
About 1/2 way down you get to an overhang, so get to become free as a bird, except with a ropes instead of wings, and likely a lot more nervous:
We did lots of shorter rappels, mostly 20->50 feet:
It had rained recently, so sometimes we descended into water of unknown depths. We sent Malcolm down first, with the excuse that he was the tallest:
Turned out to be nothing above the waist, but our cameras were a little concerned:
Most of the route was dry, but I wouldn’t want to be here with thunderclouds overhead:
The water was pretty slimy and aromatic. Our guide says it is like nature’s sewer system, dead things get flushed down it (the previous week his foot found a slimy dead deer):
The scenery was amazing.
Sometimes it was so tall and narrow it was like you were in a cave:
It was mostly sandstone from sand dunes that roamed this area 200->300 million years ago. Being soft, water has its way with the sandstone, eroding deep canyons:
Back in Salt Lake, I discovered humans also like to erode sandstone in creative ways. This was the original city hall, mostly built with sandstone:
The side of the building has interesting carvings. This guy looks angry, I suspect because he has had to stare at the same spot for 100+ years:
The mystery photo is from a Salt Lake science museum, The Leonardo. That exhibit is called the Hylozoic Veil. It has temperature, humidity, co2 sensors, and viles of mysterious biological fluid that detect when humans are near and it reacts with lights and muscle wire. 500k parts scattered over 3 stories:
http://www.philipbeesleyarchitect.com/sculptures/1016_The_Leonardo/index.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_P9rfb8n0s
One more photo. A couple of weeks ago we woke up to a bunch of orthogonal North/South and East/West jet contrails. Helen’s theory was that it was Secret Service, canvasing the skies in preparation for a Mitt Romney visit. I don’t think she was totally awake yet:
Bruce