Tonight's Western Sky...And What It Said To Me

I've lived on the same street for almost forty of my fifty-four years. I grew up on the mountain, constantly looking east at the familiar rock formations, the indents carved by water runoff, the patches of scrub oak trees, the open fields of grass, the entrance to Patsy's Mine, and to top it all, Flag Rock.

But, as magnificent as those views are, they many times pale to what I see looking west, especially after a storm and the air is clean and the visibility is unobstructed.

And at sunset.

Tonight was one of those almost perfect nights. I walked out on the back porch before the colors arrived, just to take in the view. Though we're not as high as some, our vantage point is just fine. I could see the entire valley, from the Oquirrhs to the southwest to Weber County to the northwest. And Antelope Island right in the middle. With a full sky of clouds, I thought the sunset would be beautiful.

And it was.

As far as color, there's been better, but the lack of color doesn't make tonight's show any less worthy. A thought came to me as I took it all in...We are constantly surrounded by overwhelming beauty. Do we block it out? Do we ignore it? Maybe we do, because to acknowledge all the amazing things in our world would cripple us almost to inactivity.

It's not a great thought, but as I looked west tonight, into the original fireworks, the stunning views reminded me again of what is there for us to see, if we only will.

The Air We Breathe...A Local TV Program

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Our local public television station produced a news program about our air. If you live here, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't live here, because of the geography in our area, we have what we call inversions in the winter. 

I'm not a scientist but I understand the basics of these inversions. When it gets cold (and there's no storms or wind for a while...) cold air is trapped by the mountains. Which means, anything that is expelled into the air is also trapped in the valleys. Of course, I'm probably missing a lot in my description here, but the point is, when the weather doesn't change, the inversions get worse.

This morning I had a chance to talk to a person involved in the film project and I asked him some questions. With a topic like this, everyone has an opinion. I don't know anyone that wants dirty air, so let's get that out of the way. How to get the air cleaner is the most important thing. In order to do that, there's a lot going on behind the scenes when it comes to cleaner air. He answered some of the questions I had, but I got the feeling that those are the same answers we'll all get when the show premieres tomorrow night at 7pm on KUED (channel 7). You can link to their site: HERE.

 The reason for shows like this is to gain knowledge about the subject then hopefully, we'll be able to help. And just a couple of things he said, if you're interested and you can't watch the show (even though I think it might be on the internet...), he said a lot of the problem comes from cars, which begs the question--are most willing to not drive and take other forms of transportation during these inversions? And secondly, he said the air is a lot cleaner now than it used to be, which many may not believe.

* Photo used without permission from: http://www.kued.org/whatson/the-air-we-breathe