Summerfest is the big Logan Festival each June. July is devoted to Opera - go figure. Anyway, Summerfest was a collection of 175 tents laid out in a big X with a portable food court and entertainment venue (a stage with a folding chair audience). The tents were filled with arts and crafts; heavier on the crafts than the arts.
This festival is held on the grounds of the Tabernacle, and the grounds are beautiful. A variety of wonderfully mature trees provide shade and it's covered some kind of weirdo grass - not bermuda, not St. Augustine - and, of course, no one here knows what it's called. Once again, I'm finding new vegetation that no one who lives here knows the name of. As the summer season progresses, I sometimes get AHA moments especially with some of the trees I pass walking to class everyday.I now know what a live cherry tree looks like - and there are actually cherries growing on it. I've also discovered a pear tree and an apple tree, all three about 100 feet from our condo.
There's a perfume corridor on my way to class. Some row of unknown trees is BLOOMING. The clumps of flowers hang down like small bells each flower the size of your little finger, and you can smell the fragrance all over the campus. Again, no one I've asked has any idea what the name of the tree is. I'm going to have to break out the tree book and see if I can deduce what it is.
Back to Summerfest.......the food was terrific - definitely a cut above fair food. I had a crepe. The potters were the best artists of the show, and we bought a piece. Drake bought me a new necklace of varisite - a mineral found in northern Utah as a souvenir of this trip. It's pale green with some white varigation in it. The very best part of the day: the weather, it was perfect.
We're been working hard to get back into physical shape. It's startling how fast you lose your muscle tone and cardio fitness. One of the attractions of Logan is the access to the gyms and pools at USU. You all know Drake AKA the Zen Discipline Master, so he demands that we work out in some form or other five days a week.
If that's not enough, we have been 'hiking'. The topography here is river valley ringed by rolling hills and real mountains. Definition of a real mountain: You can still see snow on top of it in JUNE. Hiking starts just 15 minutes out of town. We took the Wind Cave hike, and that one was real, real, real at four miles and 900 feet elevation gain. I could barely walk the next couple of days. We did discover there's a river trail hike that winds along the Logan River for miles and miles. Parts of it are right at water level, but other parts are on top of small limestone cliffs, so there is some mild challenge to this hike.
In my opinion the best part of the hike were the flowers. I actually saw a few wild flowers I'd never seen before. As always, this hike is told in pictures. You can get a feel for how lovely this valley really is.
https://picasaweb.google.com/jalyss1/2012UtahRiverTrailHike?authkey=Gv1sRgCJaitvCcwPDUJg#
Here's a Logan secret: This town has an inferiority complex. Every where I go, Loganites want me to gush over this town and tell them how fabulous it is. "Isn't this just the best place!!!!" "We love it here." By inference, so should I. Truthfully, this town is an escape from reality. I have been wondering if Drake and I have unwittingly time traveled. I would swear to you that I'm now living in 1962, and it's not just that I saw someone in a turban towel walking around their front yard. It's the unrepressed cheerfulness in a gee wilikers, golly, gee whiz way. Everything is freshly scrubbed, ruthlessly ordered, and monotonously homogeneous. These Loganites are clean living and clean hearted. I suspect that 'Happiness is a Warm Puppy' is on the bookshelves, and Mr. Ed is on the TV's in this town. I keep expecting to hear Chubby Checkers singing The Twist.
I haven't seen so many children since, well, 1962, so sex must be alive and well here. There are kids everywhere. This town is overlaid with a soundtrack of high pitched voices that say 'Mom....Mom....Mom' like birds calling. It's been a pleasure to have kids swirling around, but I know I am in an alternative universe because the concept of 'stranger danger' hasn't penetrated this town. I was in the Village Inn last week in the bathroom. Coming out of the stall, there was a little girl, about 10 years old, washing her hands at the only sink. The papers towels were in this big roll without perforations. I just tore off a section and handed them to her since it's hard to do with wet hands. I didn't speak to her because in the metroplex of any major city, if I had spoken, any savvy girl would have immediately left the bathroom as fast as her legs could carry her. Well, actually, no 10 year old in a metroplex would have been going to the bathroom in a public place ALONE. Anyway, she not only started talking to me, but stayed and tore off a piece of paper for me and then held the bathroom door for me when we left. When I said, "Thank you.", she replied, "You're welcome, Ma'am" See? 1962.
Now, you're probably saying to yourself, "And this is bad?" Not exactly, but it seems unreal. It's very relaxing, but also strangling. I find myself wondering how Loganites handle the seamier sides of life because those sides exist no matter how cheerful you are. Something to ask about. Something to find out. Meanwhile, I'll just see if I can find my saddle shoes, dig out my Kingston trio records, and find my twinsets - then, if I can check my profanity, I'll fit right in.
