cc: file, Andrea, Tony Hafen, Sara and Des Penny, & Maxine Shirts
"As mentioned in the last Thoughtlet (0435.html), I had left for Utah on Friday, the 27th of August. By Sunday, the 29th of August, I had accomplished two and a half of the four key objectives of my trip:
I missed Andrea, and wish she could have been with me during this week of discovery. I think she would have liked most of the hikes and mountain climbing I did, although one time I got caught on a scree slope and wished I wasn't experiencing the moment. As mentioned last week, she had seminary to teach, and Matt did not want to be left alone. So she stayed in Houston, and I went to Utah.
I guess my week really started on Saturday morning. I started the day by deciding to go for a walk up the trail next to Coal Creek. It is really a nice trail. I wish my ankle didn't still hurt, or I would have been jogging on the trail. I'm not sure how far it is from Aunt Sara and Uncle Des's house to 2nd North and 2nd West, then to 3rd West, then down through the Rotary Club Park, then up past the water tank, then to the top of the trail, then down and across the creek, then up the canyon to Rusty's, and then back. I estimated 2 1/2 miles each way for my swallow's sheet exercise log. I do know that I thoroughly enjoyed the walk, and would love to be able to make this walk every day the rest of my life. At the top of trail I noticed a little box canyon off to the south. I later named this box canyon Red Cove, and this is what I will mostly write about this week. I felt at home on this walk. One of those times in my life when I felt like I was remembering the future, `citing my mind forward' as referenced in Alma 13:1. I came back from this walk ready to move back to Cedar City without a job and carrying too much debt.
I wrote about Aunt Shirley and Uncle Willis' 50th Wedding Anniversary and Ella Dawn Nelson's blessing in last week's Thoughtlet (0435.html). So I will skip to Monday morning, I decided to walk back up the canyon. In fact, it seemed like a good idea to walk up the canyon every morning all week, and even though my ankle still hurt, to get some of the exercise back which I have traded for a commute to One Riverway and GDC's offices. Another beautiful morning. I noticed how much cold air seemed to be coming down the canyon, and wondered how much the sinking of cold air from the mountains down the canyons affected vegetation and geology in canyons around the world. It would be interesting to set up sensors and to study the flow of air at different elevations and times of the day down the canyon. I anticipate there could be some very interesting results after a year of monitoring air temperature and wind speed and direction.
When I got towards the top of the trail, where the stream from Red Cove crosses the trail and drops into Coal Creek, I turned to the right and followed the stream as far as I could to the right. There is one specific location which has a beautiful view looking down on Red Cove, which I took a digital photo of both on the way up the canyon and on the way back down the canyon. I will only attach the small photos to this e-mail, and if you want to look at the larger photos go to the web site. This first view of Red Cove, which is the first attachment, is at www.walden3d.com/thoughtlets/2004/images/0436a_Down.JPG. The red rocks, the cedar trees, the morning light, the fresh air, the smell, the quiet sounds, the beauty of the moment combined in an overpowering way. I just stood there and took it in, drinking up strength to carry on.
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One of the interesting geological things about this Monday morning hike was the large landslide, just past where I took this first photo. The Jurassic Navajo sandstone beds, which were originally desert aeolian sand dunes like in today's Sahara Desert, and were originally laid down in horizontal layers had been tilted up towards Cedar City 70-80 degrees. Water running down the Red Cove Creek had undercut one of the layers in this area, and the whole layer slid downhill, with the layer breaking into six inch to two foot slabs of layered sandstone. This type of a rock slide is called a scree slope. These rock fragment slopes occur on both the west and east sides of Red Cove. On the west side, the landslide is the best example. On the east side, the scree slopes are more numerous. Here they come from breaking off of the rocks at the top of the mountain that were lifted up when the Rock Mountains were formed. Red Cove is a geologist's paradise.
The second image (0436b_Property_16x16_grid_SM.jpg) shows an air photo of Red Cove, with a 16x16 grid overlaid on the approximate property boundaries. It turns out that there are about 40 acres, which is 1/4 of a quarter section. The small attached image is decimated, and so all of the 16x16 grid does not show up. Again, the larger scale image is available from the on-line thoughtlet (.../0436.html). The grid was estimated at 100 feet x 100 feet from the topographic map, the third attached photo, and if you take the square root of 43,560 square feet per acre, you get ~208 feet per side, and if you take the square root of 40 acres you get 6.32 acres per side, and then take 6.32 x 208 you get 1,320 feet per side, which, when divided by 16. is 82.5 feet. So the grids are between 80 and 100 feet. If we are able to progress with the project, the first thing to do is to accurately survey Red Cove, and tie the survey to the detailed air photo so there is a basis for on-going study and planning. It is hard to appreciate the beauty of Red Cove and my first hike up this box canyon from the air photo and the maps I'm sending. Oh well!
What I did Monday morning was to follow the stream bed until it became to steep to go any further, then to go back to a branch and go up the other branch until it was too steep to go any further. I explored the main drainage are in some detail, and took pictures which allowed me to later make nice panoramic pictures of the various views.
The hike was a lot of fun (I figure I walked about 7 miles on Monday morning), and I was really excited about the possibility of Red Cove as a place to prototype the new kind of city Ray Gardner and I have been talking about for the last 30 years. I was dirty and sweaty and hadn't shaved and about 9:00 I walked into Ray's office to find out his schedule and to ask about Red Cove. We set up to meet on Wednesday morning at 8:00, and Ray suggested I go to the Iron County Offices by the Fiddler Canyon Theater to check out who owned the land. We got in Ray's truck and drove up to look at the property. On the way up we saw a tarantula walking across 2nd south. I didn't realize how common they are in Cedar City.
After Ray and I got back I walked to Aunt Sara's, got cleaned up, and started to work on putting the photos I had taken into a power point presentation. It was a long day. I worked with my left hand until the sun started to shine on it, changed to the right hand, and changed back to the left hand as the sun moved from east to west and the shadow on Bridget's desk moved from west to east. I did borrow Aunt Sara's red pickup to go to the county offices, to take digital photos of the ownership maps and the screen showing who owns what property, and had a pretty good idea of who owned the Red Cove property. On the west and the northwest is owned by the city, the northeast is owned by a conservancy group, the east is privately owned, and the south is owned by the BLM (Bureau of Land Management, or the Feds). I was pretty high knowing the main portion of Red Cove was owned by a private individual. In fact, I drove to the owners house, but neither he nor his wife were home. A neighbor told me where he worked and how to get there. I decided to wait until I had more information.
Thoughts about how to proceed with a project in Red Cove were at the front of my mind as I walked over to The Randall Theater Monday evening to see `Forever Plaid.' What a wonderful play. The play seemed to be written about `The Keynotes,' and our plaid shirts, which I bought for everyone in Salt Lake when I went to see the skin doctor, and that we wore for the one photo taken of us as a group, and which is still around somewhere. It was actually about a group of vocalists that sang the songs just before the songs we sang. They were going to their first big concert when they were hit by a bus taking kids to a Beatle's concert and killed. The play is about them having a chance to come back to Earth and to do the concert they missed because of the wreck. It is full of stuff from when we first formed `The Keynotes.' It did me good to be there, and to put into perspective the fact that even though I worry about choices some of you are making, none of you have been hit by a bus and sent to the next life.
Tuesday morning I was up early and walking up Cedar Canyon as fast as I could without hurting my ankle. When I got there I climbed up the mountain on the west where I had a good view of Cedar City and also of Red Cove and waited to get a digital photo of the sun coming over the top of the mountain. It surprised me how long it took for the sun to get where it was shining in the valley. While I was on this mountain I found some wild blueberries and ate them. They were really good. Then I climbed up the mountain on the other side, where there was also a nice view of Cedar City. I tried to call Andrea, but I could not get a good consistent signal. So we only talked for a couple of minutes while I was on the mountain, and I expect she was pretty confused about why I was not getting a very good cell phone signal.
As I walked down the trail by Coal Creek, I decided I needed to talk to the owner of the property. So I walked to where he works, down by the Iron Mission Museum, walked in, introduced myself, and told him I wanted to get an option on purchasing his property. We had a good discussion. He had just purchased the business from his father, and has a $200,000 note he want's to pay off. This works out to about $5,000 per acre, and when I asked if he would sell the property for this price he said yes. We talked about him giving me an option saying the same, and he said he would. However, by the end of the week he decided there was no benefit to him in giving me such an option, and so I have nothing in writing. Oh well! By the time I walked back up to Grandma Shirts, and back down to Aunt Sara's I figure I walked about 10 miles on Tuesday. I borrowed the truck and went over to Parowan to check out specifics on the county GIS system. However, it was down, and I never got any more information from the county engineer. Oh well! I spent the rest of the afternoon working on the Barker and the Red Cove Power Point presentations for my meeting with Ray on Wednesday morning.
After dinner, I walked down to the Greenshow and met Rachel to go to a Shakespeare play in the Shakespeare Theater. She was sitting on one of the big red rocks, and Rachel you really looked beautiful. I am proud to be able to call you my daughter. I took a bunch of photos, including a picture of the Red Hill from in front of the SUU theater showing how close Red Cove is to campus. Aunt Sara and Uncle Des joined us, and we had a very nice night at the play. The play was a historical play, Henry IV Part I, with a lot of sword fighting and such. My favorite line was `As the sea is controlled by the moon,' which is something I did not realize was common knowledge at the time of Shakespeare. Thanks for going with me Rachel. I look forward to doing many more things like this with you over the coming years. It was a lot of fun to talk to you before, during intermission, and after the play.
Wednesday morning I was wiped out, and so I slept in and did not walk up the canyon. Rather I finished putting my two Power Points together, and was at Ray's office at 8:00 for our meeting. Ray is very quiet. However, he was very positive about both the Barker project and the Red Cove project. He kept my files so he could think about them, and gave me several suggestions as to next steps. We ordered an air photo (the results of which I've already attached) and he suggested I get a written appraisal of the property. So I walked up to Eldon Schmutz' to see see if he still does appraisals. They were not home.
Sara's friend Annie took Sara and I to lunch, and then we drove up the canyon to look at the property. Annie has been in Real Estate, and does not consider Red Cove to be a very good place to build a house. I did not talk too much about my thoughts and plans, since it really doesn't matter much until the property is actually purchased. One of Annie's concerns are the flash floods that hit Cedar Canyon. She drove us back into the canyon at the top (east end) of 200 south, and talked about how there are 4 foot floods that come storming down this canyon. I think this is great, as long as they are planned for. I have in my mind a series of gunnite ponds up the Red Cove canyon, each of which could capture some of this water from these storms, and the water could then be used for watering orchards and other vegetation planted in conjunction with the new city. Anyway, we will see what time unfolds.
I think it was later this day that I borrowed Aunt Sara's truck again and drove up to the cinder dumps from the old Cedar Power Plant and took some digital photos of Red Cove from across the canyon. In the evening I went to `My Fair Lady' in the Randall Theater. I was struck by the words from the song `But let a woman in your life' by Professor Higgins. I have thoroughly enjoyed marriage to Andrea, and it is still challenging when there are different approaches, as there inevitably are. The song summarizes some of these differences surprisingly well. There is also no question that I do enjoy going to musicals and plays and concerts, and this is certainly another good reason to move back to Cedar City and to be within walking distance of the theaters from Red Cove. I figured I only walked about 2 miles on Wednesday.
Thursday morning I was up early and went back up the canyon. This time I decided to climb half way up the mountain on the east and walk around to explore the hanging platform above where I had hiked on Monday. When I got up fairly high I tried to call Andrea, and there was a better signal. We talked for a while. I saw Sara, her friend Annie, and Annie's golden Labrador Retriever. I yelled and they could not hear me. I did take a digital photo of them.
The scree slopes are steep, and quite dangerous. One of my thoughts was that this property would be a wonderful place for grand kids to come and visit and explore and play. I scared myself on some of the places I hiked on Thursday morning, and got wondering about the validity of the Grand kids plan. It came to my mind how Ethan and I could make a safety movie showing dangerous geology, explaining why no one was to ever go off hiking alone, and teaching what to do if there was an accident and a broken limb. Time will tell. Somewhere, sliding down one of the scree slopes, I lost my business card holder which I had purchased from Larry Law's daughter Paige when he lived here at the house (../9844.html). I think it is safe to say there will not be buildings built on the scree slopes on the east side of Red Cove. I finally made it back down off of the slope, and worked my way back up the stream channel to the east, keeping to the right each time there was a fork. The stream ends at a fairly flat area which overlooks the canyon where I walked on Monday. The view is absolutely spectacular. Sort of like Bryce Canyon or Cedar Breaks. Even with the negative parts of the hike, this climb created even more excitement in my mind about the possibility of creating a new type of city on this property.
Hoping to thank Uncle Des for letting me stay with them for a week, I had volunteered to give a talk at SUU on some of the data mining work I have been doing at GDC. He set me up to work with Mark Colberg, a geology professor, and give a talk to the Geology Club at 6:00 PM. When I got back to the house from the hike I cleaned up, and then put together my presentation for the Geology Club. Brent Felix, the video tech, came in and set up the projection system for me. There were three professors, including Uncle Des, and three or four students in attendance. I did not answer the math professors questions about neural nets very good. However, I think I reached a couple of the students and hopefully got them thinking a little differently. It was fun, and hopefully it was useful for those who attended. I left at 6:45 so go to my second Shakespeare play: `The Taming of the Shrew.' It was good, and I enjoyed it. I was missing having Andrea with me by Thursday evening. Oh well! I wrote down I walked about 6 miles on Thursday. However, on reflection, that is as far as walking out to the farm, and I doubt it was that far. Oh well!
Friday I was tired and slept in. I went over and talked to Ray again for a couple of hours. I do enjoy the time we spend together talking about these ideas. His background and experience are so different from mine, I always find so much to learn. We laid out the basic costs and plans to proceed with the project in Red Cove. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of our work. I went back out to the County Offices and the computer system in Parowan was still down, so I did not get the images I was seeking. Oh well! I also stopped to see the owner of the property. He drove me up to the property and showed me where the survey pegs were. I took photos of them. We had a good time talking about different things. He knows my Dad's uncle that does genealogy. When I told him the Dr. Middleton story about the first pipes to homes in Cedar City, he told me an addition. After the pipes were put in some of the citizens started to complain about the taste of metal in the water. Finally at a town meeting, someone said, `Well, you have a barn. Go out to your barn and get some horse manure and mix it with the water and it will taste like it used to.' The downside was that by Friday he was adding 25% to the price of the property because he has only held it for 3 years and if he sells it before 5 years there will be a 25% capital gains tax hit. Oh well!
After visiting with him I drove up to Rusty's and took some panorama photos of Red Cove. The fourth (see 0436d_South_SM.JPG) and fifth (0436e_South_Site_SM.JPG) attachments are from these photos. Note the purple outline on the fifth attachment. Based on the modeling I have done since returning to Houston (see 0436f_Model-Trees_SM.jpg), this seems like a good place to start construction. I realize it doesn't look like it from the photo, and again, it will be interesting to see if anything comes of this week's hiking, thinking, and photo taking of Red Cove.
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Uncle Des and Aunt Sara left for Salt Lake about noon to see Justin Lee's staring performance in `Oklahoma.' Uncle Des had another group interested in the data mining talk, and so I gave the talk a second time to the Engineering Club at SUU Friday afternoon. There were about 15 students and three professors, including Blair McDonald and Bill Pratt, at this talk. They had hot dogs and chips afterwards. They also had a lot more questions and it seemed like there were some good insights caught by some of the students. All in all it went much better than the first talk, and I felt like maybe I did some good for Uncle Des.
I walked back up to the Schmutz' and talked to Mrs. Schmutz about her son doing an appraisal of the Red Cove property for me. I also went by and visited with Carmen Jones. Her daughter Jan had compiled a memoir of Wendel Jones' World War II letters home, and I had read from it at Sara's one evening. I went to ask for a copy (see 0439.html). We had a very nice visit. What a wonderful lady. After visiting with Carmen, Friday evening, I went to see the play `Morning's At Seven' at the Randall Theater. It was about a very dysfunctional family, and I left the play feeling like we are really doing pretty good as a family. I think this play kind of finished some of the personal perspective healing I hoped would come from my week in Cedar City. As I left I realized that there had not been any major things happen during the week, and my feeling about it being important to spend the week in Cedar City was certainly not backed up by any momentous event. This is certainly fine with me. I wrote down on my swallows sheet that I walked 2 miles on Friday.
Saturday morning I did not go for a walk. I finished some Power Points and panorama images I had been working on, and cut a CD for Ray Gardner. Neil Nelson came by about 9:00 and we talked through the genealogy project he has been working on. He also took me out to the airport to pick up a rental car so I could get up to Salt Lake. For those interested in looking at the genealogical work in the meantime, it (was) located at www.mph.media.net/fgs (and has since been taken off-line because of work being done by Neil for cedarcity.org). I'm sure I will write much more about his later, and so I won't say anything other than Neil is helping me recreate the 1979 work of Computer Genealogical Services only taking advantage of the Internet and html browsers. Neil came back about 1:00 and we each drove out to Pinto for the Hafen Reunion. We ended up talking about our philosophies most of the day. In the evening we gave a demonstration to Bob Moss and his brother and children. They were very positive about the work Neil has been doing. It was after dark when I got back to Cedar. I stopped at Burger King and showed Rachel the Power Point I made of Red Cove. Rachel, it was fun to show this to you. Thanks for your interest and support.
Sunday I drove out to Pinto for the Hafen Fast & Testimony Meeting. There are some in the Hafen Family not interested in keeping the reunion going. It was an interesting meeting, and there are certainly a lot of folks who do want to keep it going, including me. Two lines for a possible Prime Words stanza that came from the meeting are:
Sara, several folks asked how you are doing in Benin.
They look forward to your coming to a Hafen Reunion
after you return and giving a report on your experience.
Also, Bob Moss gave me forms for redoing Grandpa and
Grandma Hafen's sealing, because evidently it is not
recorded in the records of the church. Melanie, we
need to set a date to take care of this, after I have
had a chance to check it out through Alan Peterson,
who is our Ward Genealogical Librarian. I volunteered
to help with future Hafen Reunions. You kids might
start putting Labor Day in Cedar City on your calendars
if you have vacation time and budget to join us. I did
not stay for lunch, but drove back to Cedar, ate lunch
and headed out for Provo.
I stopped in Spanish Fork and after quite a while found the Staheli residence. They were not home, and it was Logan Staheli's 11th birthday that week. So I left him the book `Joseph Smith and Modern Astronomy' by Ingebretsen, which I had read on this trip, as an 11th birthday gift. I never did hear if he got it. Oh well! After this I drove to Paul and Kate's, and I will pick up on what happened from here in the next Thoughtlet. It was certainly a relaxing and an exciting week for me, thanks to the hiking and my discovery of Red Cove."
