Shepherd's Bush Trip - day 2

Day two we decided to make a trip down the mountain to visit Antelope Island State Park.  It's located in the Salt Lake.  It's the largest of the 10 islands located in the Great Salt Lake.  You reach the island by driving across a causeway and are greeted by this sign at the intersection.

We couldn't have asked for a better day to visit the island.  There was a gentle breeze and the weather was perfect!

We drove up to a lookout point up on the mountain and this was the view from there!  Isn't it amazing?  We definitely don't have views like that here!  The lake is to the left in the picture.  The water table was way down from the drought this summer.

I absolutely fell in love with these flowers on the island.  They remind me of sunflowers but I'm fairly sure they aren't sunflowers.  They may be related but I'll call them sunflowers anyway.

They grow pretty tall since I'm a shade under 5'9" and they are almost as tall as I am!  I just love the contrast of the yellow flowers and that blue sky!  On of my traveling peeps picked a couple dried blossoms in hopes of starting some from seed.

You might be wondering if we saw any antelope while on the island.  Well we did but they were too far away to get a good picture.  However, we did see this herd of buffalo!

And this guy! He was standing right by the road just watching us.  I still can't believe he was just standing there.  It was almost like he was posing!

This time we drove all the way to the end of the road and visited the Fielding Garr Ranch.  The ranch  is located at Garr Springs, one of the strongest and most consistent of the 40 springs on Antelope Island.  The Mormon Church operated the ranch until the mid-1870s.  I'm sitting on the back porch of the ranch house in this picture.

The park ranger advised us to pay special attention to the curtains in the kitchen and this is what we saw!  I think I may have to do this in my own kitchen.  Love it!

This is something else that grabbed my attention in the ranch house.  It's a Starr phonograph!  Now you might say well big deal a record player and your point is?

This is what blew my hair back!  It was made by the Starr Piano Company in Richmond, Indiana!  Who would have imagined I would travel all those miles to find something that was made in a place near and dear to my heart.  It made this transplanted Hoosier smile.  Amazing!

On our way back to the causeway this fellow crossed right in front of us!  I kid you not, I didn't even use the zoom on my camera.  I just opened the window and clicked!  He was a very impressive fella to see up close like that!  That's what I love about visiting the island, you never know what's going to cross the road right in front of you.  We definitely don't have these at home!

After leaving Antelope Island, we headed back to Ogden to visit Jill Rensel's shop for her open house.  That's Jill in the middle!  She is just the sweetest lady ever.  She's very soft spoken and makes you feel like part of her family the minute you walk in her door.

I fell in love with this sweet Blackbird Designs' piece!  It was so t-i-n-y!  It's stitched over one and I dearly love it!  I actually bought that chart the day before at The Craft Center.  Hmm...I think I see some over one stitching in my future.

Here it is with another sweet over one piece.  I don't know who designed it but I like it.  If you know, tell me in the comments.  Love that crow and jack o'lantern.

Speaking of sweet, just look at this sweetness right here!  These are Jill's babies.  Two of the cutest Yorkies ever.  They greeted us when we walked in the door.

After we left Jill's we headed back over to Shepherd's Bush shop for one more round of stash enhancement!  Yep, we didn't get enough the first time around and had to go back for some things we couldn't live without.  Oh darn!

On our way back up the mountain to Park City to find some dinner this is what we saw!  I had never seen a rainbow shoot straight up with no curve before.  It was raining in the distance and the sun was setting behind us and the mountain.  It was simply beautiful!

Here we are toasting a wonderful day at  Robert Redford's restaurant, Zoom!  It was a really nice restaurant and our waiter was from Pennsylvania of all places.  He got a kick out of chatting with us.

This is what I had, the tomato basil soup with goat cheese swirled in and their famous mac and cheese.  Everyone we talked to said we must try the mac and cheese!  It lived up to the hype and then some.  It was very cheesy with a slight peppery taste and a crunchy crumb topping.  I washed it down with a nice glass of bubbly too.  Yum!

After all that we went home thoroughly stuffed and happy!  It was a great second day in Utah and the next day promised even more good times.  Stay tuned!


More to come,

The Inspired Stitcher