Block Lotto and Fort Douglas

I decided to combine a couple unrelated things into one catch-up blog post. What I really need to do is get out in the garden and take pictures of everything that’s in bloom now; our irises are spectacular. Mental note.

In the meantime, let me share a little bit about a quick visit we made last week. We were in Salt Lake City, which is really only 10 minutes away. Our purpose, after grabbing some frozen yogurt that we were craving, was to visit Red Butte Garden. It’s an arboretum in the hills above the University of Utah in an area called Research Park. It’s also adjacent to Fort Douglas. We are members of Red Butte Garden, and our purpose was to attend the members-only annual plant sale to pick up some good stuff for the garden. But we were an hour early, which was more or less planned. After getting a killer close parking spot for the sale, we walked over to Fort Douglas to enjoy the beautiful day.

In addition to being an active fort and a Utah historic site, it's where the Olympic athletes were housed for the 2002 Winter Olympics. These are the homes that were originally built for the officers of Fort Douglas. They are built in a semi-circle around a large green and a bandstand. This is the house at the center. The picture is taken facing east; the house faces west to the green, the bandstand and the view of the valley below. All pictures can be clicked to enlarge.

From the same spot, this is looking left (north).

And then looking South (right and back a ways).

This is the information on the bandstand.

Here’s a view of the bandstand from the west, looking east.

And from the east looking west, with the American Flag flying and a view of the valley beyond. You can see what a glorious weather we were having!

Here is a plaque on the little house that is the oldest building on the grounds. It was actually used as a residence until 1979! The building was locked, although in looking through the windows we could see it was furnished as possibly a museum (there were stanchions) and storage (lots of boxes in the one-time kitchen)

Here’s a picture of the cute little quarters from the front.

The side view shows that there were probably later additions to the original building.

And the back view. It’s definitely been well-maintained even if it sits vacant and unused.

And all too soon it was time to head back (uphill) to the plant sale and get in line. We’re veterans of the plant sale (if not the Fort), and were prepared with our plant cart, membership card and debit card. It’s been about five days since this sale, and I still haven’t planted everything yet!  I’ll post some spring garden and flower pictures soon.

On a sewing note, I finished these ten little modified T blocks for the block Lotto. They look more like crowns to me! Each one measures 6.5” (unfinished).

Tonight we are attending a guitar recital for our granddaughter Lauren. We’ve been looking forward to it since we found out about it last week. Life is good.