Falls, buffalo on the walls and big sky

dateline Provo

Sunshine streams into the east facing workroom of Lara and Christian’s home here. There is a long library table and family members do computer work and other projects here: Lara’s poetry applications, one child’s bead stringing, someone’s Apple laptop. Provo is situated right next to the mountains and you can see them from this window, only one other housing ridge between us. We are uphill from BYU where Christian is at work teaching music. Lara has taken all the children to school and is on spring break from her teaching duties at UofU. The house, Lara says 3000 square feet, is big on communal space but short on private space, hence the large workroom (former dining room). It is so beautiful here. We just arrived last night, spent time talking late into the night.

Lara and Alice went grocery shopping, visiting on the way, Lara's Aunt Bonnie's flower and gift shop, Flower Basket Boutique. It's in a beautiful house originally built in 1902. Then we went to Chao's to buy Asian veggies and groceries for Alice to cook Korean inspired food. We picked up organic eggses from Clifford Family farm [left] (multi colored as are the hens) and then went to a large warehouse grocery [below] with storage mentality amped up with the rise in food prices. Lara said the LDS church is closing down a number of its fields to grow surplus, presumably looking to get out of the business of social network safety net as quickly as the US federal government. However, anxious individuals can gather their own year's supply at this grocery where we bought enough supplies for tonight and tomorrow.

For dinner, Alice cooks brown rice pancake with mung bean sprouts and green oninon; pork in grape juice with garlic; portabello mushrooms; tofu with ginger, green onions and tamari and spinach with sesame dressing. Lara made apple crisp, and we had dinner with the family, including Eva (Lara and Christian's eldest daughter now awaiting college admissions results) who arrived after work and Bonnie who arrived after belly dancing class. Lara's brother David and his daughters joined us for dessert after their day on the slopes at Sundance.

Driving through eastern Washington and Idaho, we’ve noticed the emphasis on power generation, whether wind turbines or electricity generating dams on the rivers: these engines dominate the landscape even more than grain storage for livestock. It’s exciting to see the turbines, but there was not much wind while we were passing through.

We stopped in Twin Falls and saw the canyon of the Snake River.
Lake Bonneville, the bigger ancestor of Salt Lake, flooded this area about 15,000 years ago. Twin Falls, so named because of the pair of cataracts that once poured over these rocks was formed by that flood.
Shoshone (show-shown) Falls is the more beautiful part of the access.
In 1935 Idaho Power began construction on the original dams and power plant at the Twin Falls. A second dam, the arch dam is 780 feel long. It was built in 1975 along with the non-overflow dam and powerhouse.
Had a terrific lunch at the Buffalo Cafe (see Alice's comment on Google maps). The landscape offered vistas, cattle with their calves and snow draped mountains as we sped towards Utah. Traffic was very light until we neared Ogden: then massive construction projects to widen (presumably) interstate 15 and 84 confluence.