Utah - A mountain desert

On our way back home from Florida, I sat next to a contractor from Syracuse, New York, who was headed to Park City for a conference at the Stein Erickson Lodge. As we talked, I realized that he had no clue what Utah was like. He had no concept of a place where lawns had to be watered to grow, where it only rained 14 inches a year, and yet the mountains get 600 inches of snow a year. He couldn't imagine a place where mountains rose 8000 feet above the valley floor that was already almost a mile high. As we got closer to Utah, he could see the mountains and the lack of growth. He marvelled that there were no deciduous forests, and yet he could not imagine a place where the mountains held snow capped peaks with quaking aspen, alpine fir, and blue spruce. Today I was able to go bid a job at Brighton Ski Resort, taking only a couple of hours out of my work day, and was transported to a totally different environment than the valley floor. Being away from Salt Lake for a while let me appreciate what a wonderful place this is where we live. I just thought I would share a small piece of the beauty I saw this afternoon.