Photography, Travel

A Pleasant Winter

This post was supposed to be about the buffalo, the bison, that inhabit Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake. Unfortunately I had a gear problem. My Sigma 170-500mm telephoto zoom lens decided that it wasn’t going to allow me to get proper, or even decent, exposures. Something has happened to either the electronics or the mechanical f-stop mechanism. From what I can tell, it must be the electronics.

So, I decided to change subject matter – to something less dangerous that doesn’t require me to use the super telephotos. I made a trek down to the Mt. Pleasant and Fairview area on US 89. Now if you have been following me for awhile, you know I love the scenery along US 89 in Utah. As many times as I have traveled south on US 89 either heading to Manti for the Rat Fink car show, or just going south toward southern Utah, I have never spent any time at all exploring around this area.

My best photograph of the day; it made my trip. This wonderful old farmhouse is west of Mt. Pleasant on some backroads.

The original concept was to find some old barns to photograph, but that just wasn’t working out. Sometimes, ok many times, when looking for photography subjects, one must just go with the flow. Find beauty in what is available. Preconceived subjects rarely work out as hoped.

Many years ago while in college attending a week long photography workshop in the High Uinta mountains of eastern Utah, my professor, John Telford, had made us go sit apart from one another for a few hours to just become “one with the place”. He said that one cannot take great photographs until one becomes part of the scenery. To this day, I still try to follow his rule. It works. It takes time in a place to really see.

This old house that was built in 1897 sits on the west side of US 89 right in the middle of town. It is obviously well loved.

I had stopped in town to take a break and eat my lunch. While sitting in my truck in a Maverik parking lot in Mt. Pleasant, I found my first photo – this old house. I was starting to see. After lunch, I decided to just go park my truck downtown, walk around and see what comes to me. The house was the first of several promising images.

The old architecture in downtown Mt. Pleasant is spectacular. Once the COVID bug is behind us, I must return to partake of that Main Street Pizza. Small town eateries are the best.
Only in Utah will you see an old grocery store that is now a gun shop. But the building is magnificent!
My truck is parked in front of this classic old pharmacy building which is now a violin store. I really love how they painted this old building such a bold blue. The building sign reads “Palace Pharmacy 1899”.
This old house was a few blocks west of US 89 and south of Main Street. The architectural design is just magnificent. They just don’t build like this anymore. Imagine having a Moorish arch over your front porch!

Still hoping to find some older barns, I decided to head west out of town toward Moroni. (Yes, that is really the name of the next town; named after a Book of Mormon character.) Not really seeing anything good, I had decided to just take one of the unnamed farm roads. It wasn’t long before I came upon this cool old farmhouse.

Who knows when this old place was built? My guess would be in the later 1840s when the Mormon settlers first started farming here.

After photographing the farmhouse, I completed the drive to Moroni, but I didn’t find anything else that struck my fancy. On the way back home, I decided to head back down that little farm road where I found my cool house. Looking back in my rearview mirror, I caught this scene, and immediately pulled over.

This is just east of that old farmhouse looking back westward. I think this scene really captures the feeling of the day. It was quite cold, a storm was still around, and the light was beginning to fade. But, there were dabbles of sunlight peeping through the clouds.

I figured I still had some time before I really needed to be home, so on the way back I took a little detour, heading straight north out of Fairview on a little road to another tiny farm town called Milburn. Milburn lies just east of US 89 about 10 to 15 miles north of Fairview. Just as I was coming into “town” I saw this old house.

I took this shot of the old farmhouse looking mostly north in Milburn right about 4 pm. The storm had started to clear out to the north, so there was a little bit of blue sky.

Well, that wraps up my short trip to Mt. Pleasant. I will return with more time. Probably the best idea would be to bring my camp trailer down here for a few days. That way, I can spend as much time as I want exploring the endless old backroads. Who knows, maybe there is a barn out there after all.

Please know how much I truly appreciate all of my followers on WordPress. You all are great, and give me so many reasons to keep pursuing my photography hobby. Thank you so much; I have made so many wonderful friends. To each of you I wish the very best for this New Year! Hopefully by this time next year, we will be back to our usual lives and have many stories to tell.

8 thoughts on “A Pleasant Winter”

    1. Thank you! I am so glad you liked the photos.
      It was a nice day. Hopefully we will get our COVID shots before too long, and we can all be back out playing with our cars this next spring.

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