October 15, 2004 Temple Hill

A smokey haze from wildfires both in the Sierras and west of us in Yolo and Napa counties fills the valley. People with allergies and breathing problems are staying indoors as much as possible or wearing masks. Vigorous outdoor exercise is discouraged. Still, the work goes on.

Approaching the gates, we see pylons helping direct traffic flow up the hill to the left, the down side.

The new entrance road is being widened and gutters put in. The mailbox and street sign are on a temporary stand.

Meanwhile at the temple site, itself, work is about to begin. Salt Lake and the architect have agreed on the plans. Now, they just need to be reviewed again by the planning commission, but no big changes are anticipated. It is going to happen!

Right now, however, the real action is at the other end - the entrance road and additional parking area.

A small mountain range of gravel waits to fill in the new parking area.
What will happen here?

Do you remember that Joseph picked positions from which he hoped to shoot a series of pictures? Of the three, only one is left, the one by the corner of the storage/restroom building by the baseball fields. It will stay. (Shot from that building.)

He can still shoot from the position by the basketball court, but the post that was his marker is gone and a strip has been torn out of the court. (The distribution center and new caretaker's home are going to replace the basketball, tennis court area) Nothing much to see from there, yet. (Except the water trunk refilling at the moment.)

The third, is now a construction site and off-limits for insurance/safety reasons. These men are working right by Joseph's marker. "Do you think they moved my rocks?"

Despite all the construction, the turkeys continue to feed under the oaks in the picnic area. The construction didn't bother them, but they ran when I approached, not even all that close.

I need to run , also (dinner is late, the dog is muddy.), but if you want to see more pictures, there are one or two I left out. They are all in my Photobucket album

October 8, 2004 Men and Machines on Temple Hill

Whoa! things are really beginning to happen. Normally, when one approaches Mormon Center, one drives through these gates and turns right. The Hill is (was) one way traffic, counter clock-wise up and around then down the hill to come out.



Not now! Work has begun on fixing up and widening the road. In the future, I believe that we will both enter and exit through this road.

Now we go both up and down the former "down staircase". (Do you remember Up the Down Staircase?) A look up from further back down the road up which we come.

And a look back down (we come off Folsom Blvd to Alabama then up the hill via the little turn to your right) I wonder how much will be landscaped and beautified?

No pictures, but at the intersection of Folsom and Alabama where we turn to come to Temple Hill. construction crews were hard at work expanding Light Rail. Any connection to the new temple going in? It would be some hike to the temple from Light Rail.

While I am digressing slightly, if you have not already noticed this link in my margin, you might want to visit SacLDS.com Temple Update - artist rendition, arial photos, and diagrams. Lots of information. Puts me to shame!

Still, I go on.

The top of the road we couldn't come up.

Here's Graig Stones, construction superintendent, with Samson and Hercules. (Notice that the boys don't look anything at all like my Anna. Who told you that all black Labs look alike?)

Graig's construction company truck

his own truck

Lots of people on the hill today. In addition to the workers, there were a few other sight-seers and photographers, as well as the occasional joggers and walkers we often see. (Let's not get into the kind of fitness freak it must take to come from who knows where, up that long appoach road, UP the hill, around, and back again! I think it is enough to walk around taking pictures once I DRIVE up there.) No pictures of the other sightseers.

Men and machines all over the place! (We would have seen more men and machines actually working, but it was getting close to lunchtime.) What are the little logs for??

I wondered what this stuff was,

but it looks like it something they put along their little orange "fence" (to stablize it?).

More mysteries-

In the picnic area, there is sand or gravel around some of the trees.

and mounds of sawdust here and there Nothing seems to have happened with the toys since last week.

A parting look at the temple site from the center line on the near edge of the parking lot.

Unbelievably, this is not all the pictures I shot today, nor even quite all that I put up on Photobucket. So if you simply haven't had enough, here are all of these plus a couple of others

October 1, 2004 It is beginning

The first thing I noticed when we arrived at Temple Hill Friday morning, was that the church trailer had been brought up. Unfortunately, they watered the grass plenty, despite Graig telling them not to, and it got bogged down, so it is stuck in the mud in the grass for now at least.

Trees are starting to be cut down where the temple is going in.

I think this tree was cut down by a member who wants to make a wooden chain from it, and also provide firewood for some members.

The old toys are coming down. Holes are being filled in and the ground smoothed in the picnic areas. Rafael, the fellow raking and smoothing, said that he thinks that new picnic tables and toys will be brought in.

The "dirt guy" is studying plans and waiting for his big equipment which is starting to come in.

This is the caretaker's place which will be replaced, as now seen from the Mormon Center Parking lot.

and from it's driveway on the opposite side

The driveway that goes behind Mormon Center to the caretaker's place definitely must go.

What will they do with the Mormon Center patio where so many lovely receptions have been held? Will it stay? Will they still have receptions and dances?

From the area around the fireplace on the patio, looking towards the temple site. What will they do with the volleyball pit where there used to be a swimming pool?

The patio as viewed from the temple site.

Looking across the patio towards the temple site.