On missing Utah

Because I am not a fan of snow, winter sports, winter driving, or being cold, I most definitely did not miss living in Utah this winter or spring.  However, as the official end of summer has now come and gone, I find myself missing Utah.  Who would have ever thought I would that?

Part of my longing is due to lifestyle changes (like work and school), for sure, but another part of it certainly comes from the weather being too hot down here to do much of anything outdoors.  Our responsibilities at church on Sundays have also kept us from having some adventures we might have undertaken otherwise.

This summer I missed camping and hiking and picnics at the park or in a canyon.  I missed farmer's markets (most I've come across here happen on Sundays or are so far away as to make a weekly visit impractical).  I missed solitude and space that comes with camping and hiking.  There are just so many people down here.  I don't really notice it and am not bothered by it until I think about being without it for a little while.  Sounds nice.  I missed 2 holidays in July.  I also missed my rodeos.  Have I posted before about how much I love rodeo?  I'll have to check.  When I realized last week that I hadn't been to a rodeo all summer, I did a little researching and found out that there are two coming up in our area in the next few months.  So I'll still be able to get my rodeo fix.

Summer here hasn't been all bad, don't get me wrong.  We've done and seen some wonderful things.  I've just been missing my usual Utah summer fun.

Visiting the LA County Fair brought about a lot of this thinking.  It was great!  It also had some pretty interesting differences from the Cache County and Utah State Fairs we visited last year.  The baby wrote about it on it's blog, if you want to read about that experience.