Category Archives: General

Dates and Things

General

Today is the tenth of September (not for much longer, however). The day between two poignant dates. Trevor was born on September 9, 1971 and had he lived, he would have been 35 years old yesterday rather than being forever 29. Although I had a very delightful day yesterday, he was on my mind during the entire day. I do miss him so very much. And, of course, tomorow is the fifth anniversary of the Al-Queda attack on the United States. That’s another day painfully burned into memory. But today is the in-between day. It has been a very pleasant day indeed.

I’m surrounded by females today. Most of them will be gone by tomorrow sometime. Some have already left. A bunch of folks flew into Salt Lake City on Thursday evening to go to “Time Out For Women”, a Deseret Book event held on Friday and Saturday in Logan, Utah. Nina’s sister Pam, Pam’s daughter Vanessa, and our daughter Dawnmarie came out for the event. Ashlyn (Pam’s daughter and BYU-I coed) and Nina met them on Friday and went with them to the event. They all came here late last night. Dawnmarie had to leave this morning at 7:30 a.m. to fly back home. Vanessa and Ashlyn will leave tomorrow morning some time. Pam will stay the rest of the week and we’ll have a good time with her. They seemed to have had a great time at the event and perhaps Nina will say something about it on her blog sometime. I enjoyed the very brief visit with Dawnmariel. She’s arrived safely back home.

Yesterday I drove down to Salt Lake and met up with my brother Perry and his wife Chris. Our main purpose was to go to the Recreational Vehicle Show at the convention center. As long as we were there, however, we could also do some other shopping (Ashlyn and Vanessa just brought me in some freshly baked brownies!!). We first went to Cabela’s to look at some camping and outdoor gear. We all spent more money than planned, but of course came away with some great treasures that will get a lot of use as we go camping. From there we went to Camping World to continue shopping. I needed a replacement shroud for the rooftop airconditioner on our motorhome. I also picked up a cover and a few other needed items. After lunch at Wingers we then headed for the RV show. It was mid-afternoon when we got there. I thought we’d be there a couple of hours at the most. Three and a half hours later, I needed to leave to head back north. There were some lovely vehicles there! Lots of dreaming … but none of those will be in our future any time soon. It’s always fun to be with Perry and Chris. We’re talking about a trip to Glacier Nat’l Park next year. That will definitely be fun.

So, the day is done, I’m finished, and life is good.

The Thursday Night Ride

General

Every Thursday evening, as long as the weather holds, folks meet down at the Corner Market on their motorcycles at 6 p.m. and head off somewhere for a few hours of riding. I haven’t been able to go the past couple of weeks, so tonight was the night. Now the school has started, the weather has cooled down, and the days are much shorter, the number of bikes has decreased markedly. Tonight we had four bikes, but that doesn’t matter much as I was ready to go anywhere. We took the old highway east towards Soda Springs and down through some canyons I haven’t ever been through. Two hours and fifteen minutes later I was back home, feeling good. I really enjoy these Thursday night rides. I’m also kind of surprised at how many people in our neighborhood have motorcycles! Every Thursday night someone new (to me) shows up to go on the ride. My little car has been in the shop for the past week getting a sensor replace for the air conditioning, so I’ve been riding the motorcycle everywhere I’ve needed to go. That has also been fun. We should have decent weather for another month or more, so there should be several more Thursday night rides.

Grandson Michael has started up his blog. He’s put in two posts and I’ve enjoyed reading what he has had to say. Nina told me today that Stephanie also would like to have her own blog as well, so I’ll probably build that for her tomorrow night. The more the better. Life is good!

Upgrading My Weblog

General, Technical

The new version of WordPress has been available for some time. I don’t like to install first releases of anything, so I’ve been waiting for a couple of bugfix releases of the new version. That has happened. The new version is now at 2.0.4, so I’ve upgraded my weblog to this version. I’ll try it out for a week or so before trying to upgrade anyone else.

What’s motivating this upgrade is that my grandson Michael has asked for a blog. I’ve decided to set him up this weekend and put him on the new version of the blog. That should keep his mother busy figuring out what is different in this new version over her current version of the weblog. So, Michael, sometime tomorrow your new weblog will be available. I’m looking forward to reading it!

A Serious Lack Of Gold!

General

The assay report is back. While there is gold in the sugar quartz, there isn’t much! Definitely not enough to make it worth trying to get any of it out of the ground. While that’s disappointing, I’m sure the folks that have bought property below where we were prospecting will not miss having a mining operation going on at the top of the hill!

I dis some things around the house and we went up to Idaho Falls this afternoon to do some shopping and eating. I’ve posted some pictures from the day on the picture album. Tomorrow I’ll be going to church on the north side of town as my niece Jennifer’s baby is being blessed. Nina will not be able to be there because of her obligations at the prison, so I’ll be going solo. Mom and dad are driving over from Soda Springs and a lot of other family will be there also. It should be a nice day!

A Short Vacation

General

My brother Perry had a few days in a row off, so I took some vacation days as well. He brought his new trailer up and Nina and I drove over in our motor home and met at Hoback Junction, Wyoming, just about twelve miles south of Jackson Hole on the Snake River. We arrived mid-day on Monday, August 21st and left mid-morning on Thursday, August 24th. We had a very nice time. Perry and Chris are a lot of fun to be with. We can talk about anything and everything (and usually do). Perry is eight years younger than I am. He was barely ten years old when I left home to join the Air Force. Consequently, we don’t have any of that childhood baggage that sometimes comes between siblings (we have some examples in our families). He’s very easy going and great to be around. We’re talking about doing some kind of a trip together next summer. He’s recovering nicely from the chemotherapy and they are quite motivated to live life as full as possible for as long as possible. We’d like to be part of that as well. I took a few pictures and have put them in the pictures! album.

Happy Birthday, Jared!

General

Twenty-eight years. Not nearly long enough, of course, but certainly a good start. I asked him what he was doing to celebrate and he said that he was just laying back and relaxing. Sounds like a nice day. Congratulations Jared and Happy Birthday!

Prospecting!

Ancient History, General

Dad Prospecting

Dad has wanted to go back up to the old Calcite Mine in Treasureton, Idaho for several years. He has a theory about the calcite that he wanted to investigate further and he also knew where there was an outcropping of sugar quartz. Usually where there is sugar quartz, there is gold. So after several weeks of talking about it, dad and I took the Tracker and headed up into the mountains west of Treasureton, Idaho.

All the years that I was growing up in Soda Springs, Idaho, my dad’s father (my grandfather Smith) lived in a small trailer in Treasureton, Idaho and ran a calcite mining and crushing operation. Calcite rock when crushed up into fine gravel is excellent chicken feed because of the high calcium content. The bags of calcite from the Treasure Canyon Calcite Company had as their catch phrase “Builds strong bones and shells”. Grandmother, on the other hand, lived about twenty miles south in Preston, Idaho. Grandfather would come into Preston to shop and whenever there was a family function. Otherwise, he lived at the calcite operation.

For a while my dad was also associated with this business, owning about a third of the company. There was a plan to run the calcite through a kiln making quick lime which would then be sold to the phosphorus plants in the area to clean the off-gasses from their process. The plan didn’t come to fruition as family politics intervened and eventually all the partners in the business sold their shares to dad’s kid brother. Uncle Ross later moved the business about ten miles north into Cleveland, Idaho, opened a new limestone mine and abandoned the old calcite mine completely.

Treasureton and Cleveland only exist in a few people’s heads anymore. There is a Treasureton Reservoir, but that’s about all. The old LDS ward house where I attended church during the summers from ages 12 through 14 when I was working on a farm in Treasureton was sold many years ago and is now a private home. All the other small buildings in Treasureton are gone. Even more interesting to me is that most of the farms in the area are no longer working farms. The two farms below the calcite mine are now owned by a man in Preston who has all the farmland enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program and lets the government pay him to not farm. That’s a program I simply don’t understand! Cleveland has suffered the same fate, although most of the farms in that area are still working farms. The old store is gone, the hot springs are lost from view. The Cleveland Ward building burned to the ground about forty years ago and has since been bulldozed over. The farm that grandfather Smith owned in Cleveland and where my dad grew up was sold to a cousin many years ago. The farmhouse burned down when I was about four years old — one of the few memories I have of that time. The school that stood across the street from the farm and church building has been demolished and no traces are evident. I’m sure that the people who built a home in that area have little idea of what was there fifty-six years ago.

Today was the day we had picked to drive up to the old mine and over the top of the hill to where dad remembered the sugar quartz to be. Yesterday he picked up the key to the gates from the present landowner in Preston so we could get through the three gates — one at the road, the second at the end of the first farm and the beginning of the second farm, and the third at the end of the second farm and the beginning of government (Bureau of Land Management — BLM) land. We took my Tracker because it had a little more ground clearance and four-wheel drive. The road once we got on to the BLM land was overgrown and in some cases difficult to find. A couple of times we had to get out and go looking for where the road went. But, we made it past the place where dad nearly lost the truck (and almost his life) when the truck, loaded with eight tons of rock, slipped out of gear and the engine died. We drove past the place where the old worn-out trucks and equipment from the mine had been abandoned and then arrived at the mine. It’s quite overgrown but still very evident as a mine. We drove up over the top of the mine and down the dirt track leading to the Bear River. Dad recognized the outcropping of sugar quartz and we took several samples of rock. We turned back around and went to the top of the hill where I took several more pictures. Then we drove back down the mountain, out the gates, and back to Soda Springs. Our day of prospecting was complete. Dad will send some samples of the sugar quartz in for assay work. We’ll see what the report says. I had a good day and would like to go back up there again Real Soon. I’ve put some pictures from the day in the pictures! album.

Eighty-Second Birthday

General

Saturday Perry and Chris joined Nina and me in Soda Springs to celebrate mother’s eighty-second birthday. We had a cleaning assignment at the church building which we elected to do earlier on Saturday. We arrived at the building at 7:45 and finally got home about 11:30 a.m. — tired and worn out. We vacuumed the hallways, classrooms, and chapel. It is a big building and we were mighty happy to be done. Another family in the ward finished up the cleaning assignment later that afternoon. As it was, we didn’t get to Soda Springs until about 1:30 in the afternoon.


We had a delightful visit with mom and dad and with Perry and Chris. Perry grilled steaks and corn on the cob for dinner. Nina made up some peach cobbler (rather than birthday cake), and we all had a good time.

Now that Perry’s chemo treatment is completed, he’s grown his hair back! It looks much the same as before, with the same receding hairline. We’ll be going camping with them in a couple of weeks in Hoback Junction, Wyoming (just south of Jackson Hole). Another nice summer break from work. Life is good.