We're in Utah!

Just a few miles down the road from Downata Hot Springs, we crossed another state border. The snow skier on the Utah state sign felt right at home since they are already getting snow in the mountains here in mid-September.

We are camped for two days at a campground that accepts Passport America, situated in the northern part of Ogden, Utah. We are at Wasatch View RV Park, and we can see the Wasatch Mountains behind us.

We had great weather the day we arrived, and drove through Ogden to Canyon Drive to see the Wasatch Mountains up close. There's some fall color on the mountain. But the weatherman predicts these mountains will have snow within the next couple days.

So we stayed outside most of the first day just to soak in the blue skies and sunshine while we could. We enjoyed the miles of trails that wind through the parks along the river in Ogden. We shared the trail with high school runners at a cross country meet here in the afternoon. The flowers in the botanical garden along the trail are fading, and freezing temperatures are in the weather forecast.

We are celebrating Denisa's birthday with this beautiful weather. We started the day with chocolate-chip-cookie-dough-cheesecake for breakfast. It's a family tradition to eat your special birthday dessert for breakfast. When we had lunch at a recommended local Mexican food restaurant, Denisa didn't turn down the complimentary fried ice cream dessert. With all these calories, it looks like we should have walked more miles on that trail today.

For evening birthday entertainment, Mark managed to find a weekly dance at Union Station in downtown Ogden. That's nothing short of a miracle in the middle of Mormon country and in the middle of the week! We enjoyed two-stepping to the country music. Half the songs were line dances, and we knew almost none of the moves. That didn't keep Denisa off the dance floor, however. All the other dancers were less than half her age, and obviously come to this weekly dance so they know all the line dances. In the picture below, their arms and legs are blurry because they are moving so fast. You might notice that Denisa is more in focus because she isn't moving much because she's not sure which direction to move. It was good clean fun in a smoke-free venue, where the only beverage available was bottled water.

It was a great birthday! True to the weatherman's forecast, the next day dawned cold and cloudy. We see that fruit orchards line the foothills of the Wasatch Range north of Ogden. We also see that the baskets are piled high, as they are picking fruit ahead of the upcoming freezing temperatures. We found out that the O'Henry peaches are ripe, as are a multitude of different types of apples.

The gardeners at the local farmer's market pointed out that this could be the last of the garden tomatoes. We bought tomatoes, peaches, apples, cantaloupe, onion, green beans, corn, and something new to us--crenshaw melon--best eaten with a lime.

But the featured crop at all the road-side fruit stands were the pumpkins. It's beginning to look like autumn!

With snow predicted for tomorrow in the Wasatch mountains, we're heading another couple hours south as we continue our flight away from the snow and cold weather through Utah.