This is the Place!

Mount Olympus (I didn't take the photos.)

Once a year we live in a million dollar property. We celebrate with floats, fireworks, marching bands, and clowns right in our front yard! Our two balconies overlook the biggest parade in the Intermountain West. The pioneers first arrived in our valley on July 24, 1847 and it's been a party ever since.

C. C. A. Christensen

People start arriving at 6:am the day before the parade, and camp out on the sidewalks to claim their viewing spot. We've had tents, sleeping bags, blankets, chairs and hundreds of people outside all day long. It was over 100 degrees this afternoon! Tonight we had a surprise (and VERY welcome!) thunderstorm, complete with lightning and car wash type rain for 20 minutes or so, just enough to get everyone soaked and raise the humidity level to miserable. Yet these brave pioneer descendants bore it with cheers and laughter, huddled together under their blankets. Every so often a firecracker goes off, and right now (after midnight) policemen are practicing a choreographed routine on motorcycles for tomorrow's events.

We have wondered if we could rent our decks out, like suites at a football game. But we have our own version of a camp out. Kids and grand kids come for a sleepover, and/or breakfast. The guys throw M & M's to the crowd seven stories below, the wimps sit inside and watch the parade on TV in air-conditioned comfort, while all the little kids sit in chairs on the deck, waving their flags, cheering and clapping from their perfect perch.

From our window we see the desert, blossoming as a rose, just like the pioneers said it would. Yes, this is the place!

Our view of the Salt Lake Valley