Wow, where did the summer go? Did it actually ever arrive? Thinking back to about a year ago — our yard was already covered in snow that never left until April.
Scrolling through messages from friends who headed out to the Morgan Maze after reading last week’s Sunday Drive, I reminisced about the many trips I made over the past five months. Some of them were long planned, ideas I’ve had in my mind for a while. Some were totally spontaneous, developed on a late Saturday night trying to figure out a new place to go the next day.
With what seemed like glacier-building snow conditions last winter, our Sunday Drives began by following the flow of Parkites to the desert last April. We decided to forego our annual trek to Easter Jeep Safari in Moab to find a bit more solitude in the redrock, visiting the spectacular Rochester Panel to learn about our ancestral neighbors, and adventured through sandy river beds in the San Rafael Swell.
It was early to rise for a sunrise hike in Draper, crossing the Bear Canyon suspension bridge, watching the sun creep up and cast its rays across the Salt Lake Valley. The sunrise part was hard that time of year. But the payoff in being on the bridge in solitude was worth it.
It wasn’t until mid-June that we could make forays into the mountains, where the forest sheltered the snowpack on hiking trails and snowmelt made for raging creeks. It was on one of those hikes, this one up Noblett’s Creek, that my iPhone fell gently onto the banks of a swollen creek, sliding quietly into a three-foot pool of water. Yes, eventually I was able to recover it.
Sunday drives are special. They are built around a spirit of exploration with a dash or two of adventure. Our summer Jeep rides took us to new places, from the high reaches of Gold Hill in the Uintas to the Rattlesnake Trail at Five Mile Pass in Utah’s west desert. Sometimes adventure comes when you least expect it. Like the time I was driving our 2010 Jeep Rubicon back from a safe trip out to the West Desert when we blew a clutch in heavy traffic on a six-lane section of I-15. Never fear, we coasted for a mile and a half, pulled off an exit ramp and parked in a mall lot to await our tow.
We sought out vegetables from roadside stands and sipped fruit wine from a Utah winery that actually does tastings on Sunday. Yes, that was a random find, but one of our most fun trips of the summer.
I was filled with emotion visiting the Topaz Museum in Delta, wondering how our own civilization could have treated other humans so poorly during World War II.
It was a summer of reconnecting with old favorites like Spiral Jetty and discovering, by chance, new destinations of nature like the Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve. Sunday Drive often took you up to the north of Salt Lake. But there was a lot to discover there!
Most of all, though, my biggest enjoyment was hearing of your own Sunday Drives — trips where you followed my plan or were adventurous to map out your own. I hope that through these words I’ve instilled a little greater sense of adventure for your family!
I’ll be back in mid-November with Ridgelines, a weekly look at Park City the ski town. And its never too early to start planning next year’s Sunday Drives, so please reach out to me with your suggestions of places you would like to see featured in Sunday Drive.
See you next summer.