Morning all:

With two powerful after dinner coffees in my system and an early morning flight home I thought I’d take advantage of my artificial “wide awake” state and post this evening. It’s been a long day that started….. oh well, but first. Dinner was terrific in that I connected with one of Adrianne’s dear friends and she was kind enough to spend a couple of hours over dinner. Aside from catching up we “parsed” Adrianne and her adventure while enjoying some great Thai food in the shadow of the Temple in the heart of Salt Lake City.

Work brought me to the Salt Lake area for part of the week and concluded with a meeting in Twin Falls, Idaho on Friday. The option for me was spend three hours plus processing for a 30 minute flight, or drive some beautiful country for three and a half hours. It really was a no-brainer: I started driving at six this morning and it was the very best of decisions. The first sun rays’ striking the snow covered mountains in front of me was spectacular. I had a CD of arias sung by Sarah Brightman in the car. With the volume turned up I could almost hear the mountains echo back to me the wonderful sounds of O Mio Babbino Caro.

Miles flew by as I drove the snow covered high plateau, frost covered sage brush and junipers giving perspective to the distant mountains. On the road itself it was the occasional car along with the 3-trailer “land train” trucks moving along at a steady 75 mph. At one point the largest hawk I have ever seen was circling overhead. Later I discovered that what I saw was a Ferruginous Hawk and it is in fact the largest raptor in the hawk family. What a beautiful sight, what a treat. What a brilliant decision to “stop and smell the roses”.

At a highway rest area signage described that 30 to 40,000 years ago the plateau I had been driving through became a lake later named Lake Bonneville. At 20,000 square miles it was in fact the largest lake on the continent. A climate shift caused the area to become drier, and the great basin of Utah and Nevada receded as the area became mostly desert. Currently the Great Salt Lake and two others are all that remains of Lake Bonneville. And to think that all this happened without human intervention. So often we think that our puny actions control Mother Nature. Then an event such as last month’s Tsunami shows who is boss. The disappearance of Lake Bonneville presented me with another such an example.

Now, off to bed so that I make my morning flight. This week have a terrific “Fat Tuesday”.
Cheers,
Dirk