Utah Skies – Knolls, Utah 1
Utah Skies – Knolls, Utah 2
For perhaps five years, each time my wife and I took our son and daughter out to enjoy a meal at High Level’s Boston Pizza with friends or on our own we would gaze upon what has become a familiar painting on the wall above the cash register and waiting area – Jack Vettriano’s Bonneville; the painting celebrates the work, the interest and the observation of what it is to break and set different land speed records in various vehicles. Beyond this, there was that movie … Anthony Hopkins, as actor, played the role of Burt Munro in a 2005 movie, ‘The World’s Fastest Indian’ (Indian, here, referring to the Indian motorcycle). Burt Munro was a mechanic/inventor/racer from New Zealand who raced motorcycles. He set a world record at Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats. My wife encouraged me to go. She and our daughter would remain at the hotel and lounge at the pool cooling themselves in Utah’s summer heat (close to 100 F most days). They would remain cool, rest and read their newly purchased Barnes and Noble treasures. I would investigate Utah’s salt flats.
From Midvale, I steered our rented 2012 Toyota Rav 4 toward Salt Lake City and then follow directions from our Tom Tom GPS to Utah’s salt flats, then to the Bonneville speedway and to Wendover, Utah and the B-29 Bomber Base where the crew of Enola Gay were trained in World War II. By day’s end, I would have photographed the salt flats, Bonneville and Wendover; I would have had a flat tire and need to double back to Wendover to have the tire repaired; and, I would almost run out of gasoline on the return drive home. Doubling back would allow me to investigate more fully the B-29 Bomber Base and discover a goldmine of remarkably maintained American-built cars from the sixties and seventies – both at Wendover, Utah.
Here, one of the final rewards of the day was the evening cloud-work after the sun had crossed the horizon.
Shout Out – a big thank you to Maciek Sokulski (‘Shuttertime with Sid and Mac’ podcast) for articulating good best practices for working with Adobe Lightroom.
Quote to Consider/Inspire – “This freezing of time – the insolent, poignant stasis of each photograph – has produced new and more inclusive canons of beauty.” – Susan Sontag, ‘On Photography’
Listening to – Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Highway Patrolman.’
In My Back Pocket - Photography 
Wooow!
Hey there, Rajiv:
Thanks for having a look-in; the cloud work was extraordinary – the photo likely comprises three to five miles from camera to horizon.
Take care … 😉
Oh, my the memories. I lived in Wendover in the 70s when it was only three casinos on the NV side and housing on the UT side. I used to drive past the Salt Flats a lot going into Salt Lake City. It was a common site to see abandoned vehicles way out on the flats gradually sinking because there was no way to retrieve them. And I remember that old abandoned air field. People would fly in from SLC to visit the casinos. My, my! 🙂
Hey there, Linda:
Totally neat to read that Wendover and you share history and that you have connection to the sites of my recent travels; that must have been something to see vehicles sinking in the salt, something harder for a vehicle owner to deal with, no doubt. Had there been time, I would have toured the Wendover airfield and its hangars.
Thanks for dropping by … please feel free check-in once in a while. 😉
Always the blues in these skies.
Jim
Hey there, Jim:
A curious turn of phrase, here; perhaps bang-on in terms of catching up with soul/identity/perspective after a busy and big school year. On the other hand, the immensity of the sky and the land beneath caught my eye and seemed treasure. The cloud work undulations remind me of fingers of older, aging hands holding something. I am liking the blue within the clouds’ center and along the sides (something I’d enjoy more of with a Mac’s Retina Display, I think). You’ve had me associate toward Edward DeBono and blue-sky thinking (the creative, beyond the box kind of thinking).
Good, good! How are things? Where are you hiking? 😉
Truly gorgeous shots of the sky!
Hey there, Robyn:
The immensity of the sky’s cloud work is something else in Utah.
Thank you for your kind words. Take care … 🙂