Cache Valley Reflections

The day I thought would never come will be here in less than a week. I still remember the first time I entered this valley between the mountains. As I crossed the summit of Sardine Canyon and rounded the bend toward Wellsville, the valley just opened up for as far as I could see to the north and the south. Not much along the eastern, nearer, side but a patchwork quilt of farms. The urban part of the area was slung along the foot of the Bear River Range on the west. It was twilight and I could see lights as well as shapes and the top of the mountains sparkled from the alpenglow of the setting sun.

That was 1992 and for some reason this place felt more like home to me than Bend did when I left. After 14 years of work and fun, struggle and ease, loss and increase our family is moving to North Carolina for the forseeable future. Cache Valley, Logan, has been the only home that we have really known, so it is hard to go. Still, the memory of the place will stay with us, and to be honest, the memory of the place will provide more joy in the future than the place itself.

As I am writing this, I can see a blanket of new snow, almost 5″ deep, that has fallen since the early hours of the day. Before long I’ll be out shovelling the stuff from my driveway, but strangely enough I think I’ll miss the snow. It turns out that they see snow once in a while in Havelock, but it is rare and exciting. I’ve always preferred the snow in the mountains, but in North Carolina the mountains are five or six hours away. So, goodbye to snowmen and snowball fights. Roxy won’t be bounding through the snow with her nose to the ground, leaving furrows punctuated with puppy paw prints every two or three feet. I recall the winter, two years ago, when we had 24″ of snow in 24 hours. Dad had shoveled a trail to the Bluebird and our friend, Marc Coles-Ritchie, actually skied to church. The kids had a six foot snow drift and loved to slide down on nylon covered tummies and the tobagan of my youth was put to good use. We will miss the mountains on both sides, white from snow and creased by canyons and chutes, but we won’t miss the accidents and the snow dams on the roof.