September 25, 2007 by Julie.

I should be letting Ben write this blog, since he was the one with a total of 8 hours sleep in 4 nights of working on the mountain of footage that was Vermont. Over 10 hours of tape he whittled down to 7 minutes of video. That was like 80 hours of work. My husband. My hero! sigh.

Needless to say, these heroics would not do and so we had a sort of ‘realism’ conference once he was in the clear. We have once again committed as a team to try to focus a little more even as we are entering another US state so that we may find the strength not to turn the camera on every time a wonderful opportunity comes up … because they come up and up and up! It is hard not to want to shoot everything, really it is. But we won’t last a year at last week’s pace.

That said, when Mark stumbled upon a worldwide event called PARK(ing) Day we blew that commitment right out the window. It was also being celebrated right in the heart of Salt Lake City just 20 minutes from where we were staying! We 3 looked at each other and there we went. We drove downtown, fed our meter, and left Rachel in search of greener pastures - of parking spaces laid with sod, furnished with park benches and lawn chairs - with nerf football, sesame cheese doodles (from the bulk bin at Wild Oats - have i highly recommended these before?) and a book for good measure. As if we would take the time to read.

The boys played some tackle nerfootball with some locals. Everybody involved was super cool and laid back. A metermaid stopped her golf cart for a minute, made a call, then rolled away. A police officer strolling by asked what was going on and when he was given the rundown, he smiled and finally said, “Alright. Watch your meter.” We had a nice interview with Shauna Kerr of TPL (Trust for Public Land)-Utah, and I won my first ever game of croquet all while cars were driving by. A 3-pc suit carrying a briefcase stopped and asked, “What in the world are you all doing?” and when it was explained that we were all just taking a couple of hours to imagine what it would be like to have more parks and less parking spaces downtown, he just said, “Alright.” Only one accident was reported from rubbernecking motorists on Main Street. Some might call that a success.

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September 25, 2007 by Julie.

We were told Utah is sometimes called the “reddest” state, and Environmentalists are sometimes called “Treehuggers.” What happens when Republicans realize that caring for the environment can make good economic sense? Before we left Utah, we met with Rich (R) and Marsha (D), who are working together for Living Green Expo to bring awareness to this issue that affects all of us, no matter our political affiliation. As Rich noted, caring for the environment used to be part of the Conservative Party’s platform, starting way back with Ulysses Grant and carried further by Teddy Roosevelt….

We spoke with Salt Lake City’s Mayor, Rocky Anderson, who also believes that the environment is NOT a party issue (See his on-camera mayoral challenge from yesterday!)

So, I have crap internet connection here. I am not going to frustrate myself by trying to post and add pictures. I will instead say “Welcome!” to our brand new nephew, as yet unnamed, “We can’t wait to meet you in the spring when we are scheduled to be in Connecticut. So glad you are a tiny baby and will have no remembrance that we missed your first days…”

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