The year's last, loveliest smile.*

 I've been remiss in recording all of the beauty around me. I stopped the car in the middle of the street to take a picture of our neighborhood's best autumn tree. Mmmm. I love this tree.

 My yard has some treasures too.

 I take a small walking loop sometimes when I just need to get out of the house, and these are some of my favorite bright sights.

 But when Kai and I went on the Bonneville shoreline trail, we saw some of the best views ever. The light was wonderful.

 The shoreline trail follows the border of a huge prehistoric lake, and goes theoretically from the border of Idaho down to Nephi --100 miles to the south of us, but there is a man in Mapleton that owns a piece of it and wants to develop it. So much so that he's been in court with our city for....as long as I lived here at least. When we got to the fence blocking his land off, we just climbed over it. Don't tell the cops.

 He's dug up some...weird thing in there.

 Old water tank?

 Kai was pretty sure it came from outer space.

 The colors on the hills (after we were out of the torn up stuff) were amazing.

 This was more of a walk than a hike, but we wanted to see something different. We've been hiking Maple canyon for a few weeks now.

 We were moving along, and Kai stopped and called me back to look at this rock. So many different kinds of lichen and moss. I was thrilled that he had connected with nature enough to be excited about a rock. It was a cool rock though.

 This was a find for me. I thought this sage looked frosted on the ends.

 There were a few of them in this field.

 I love my town.

 The kids are so happy here.

Sunset meant it was time to turn for home.

*William Cullen Bryant

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