Westward Ho

Between Salina and  Delta I spotted an aesthetic old farmhouse.  The little relic was busting with character.  It’s likely from the middle of the nineteenth century since that’s when Brigham Young directed his Latter Day Saints to settle this broad valley in central Utah. From 1849 it was a dicey Indian fighting proposition for the Mormon pioneers until they mustered a robust militia in 1871 and finally rid Sevier County of marauding Utes, Paiutes, Navajos and Apaches.

Behind me in Salina were irrigated fields and broad avenues that spoke to the resourcefulness of the Mormons and to the prosperity that usually accompanied their diligence. Did you know it was the Mormons who brought irrigation to the desert southwest? It's a contribution that’s hard to overstate.

But now as I drew nearer to the Great Basin the country changed to arid scrubland that stretches to the Sierras and hosts America’s Loneliest Highway. That's my route, of course. Lonely and dry, it's how I roll.