We were watermen.

Or at least we were the Utah equivalent of the Polynesian term for someone whose life, as surf legend Chris Malloy once put it, is dictated by the ocean’s moods.  A waterman swims, dives, surfs, and spear fishes.  He lives in and for the sea.

Our seas were the lakes and streams along the Mirror Lake Highway in northeastern Utah.  Each summer, a sequence of family camping reunions allowed my cousins and me to escape to our aquatic Shangri-La in the Uinta Mountains for days on end.  Matt, Adam, and I learned to swim at a young age in the frigid waters of the Upper Provo River.  Our older cousins Tommy and Josh taught us how to safely ford rapids and properly acclimatize to cold depths.  Eventually we learned to fashion rafts out of driftwood and catch rainbow trout with our bare hands.

By about age 9, we considered ourselves experts.  Each morning after breakfast we’d leave camp for the river, often not to return until sunset.  We navigated miles of the Upper Provo, charting swimming holes and naming landmarks.  There was Coney Island, a large rocky islet near the Soapstone Campground.  A particularly sandy shoreline earned the title “Waikiki Beach.”

Matt had a Sony Walkman with a pair of portable speakers.  The happy, surf-centric harmonies of the Beach Boys provided the soundtrack for our adventures.  We’d belt the chorus of “Surfin’ USA” as we tossed a Frisbee over the river between Coney Island and Waikiki.  Many of our landmark names came from Beach Boys tunes.

When Uncle Garth bought a power boat, our turf extended to Rockport Reservoir, an impoundment along the Weber River.  Time not spent water skiing was passed lounging on a wide beach on the lake’s north side.  Adding to my delight was the fact that our annual trip to Rockport coincided with my birthday.  Water, sand, campfires, and birthday presents—it couldn’t get any better!

One year, Tommy’s wife, Shanna proudly gifted me a New Kids on the Block album on cassette.  Later, Tommy pulled me aside and discretely handed me another album, The Beach Boys’ Still Cruisin.

“The New Kids are hot now,” I remember him saying quietly, so as not to upstage his wife’s gift, “But The Beach Boys are timeless.”

I don’t swim in rivers much these days, but I pine for my waterman days—for the loud rush of the Provo, the glow of a Soapstone campfire, the lazy days on Rockport’s beaches.  Those times epitomized summer for me, and so did the tunes.  That’s why every year around this time, I get an irresistible urge to crank The Beach Boys and head for the mountains.

Yesterday, crews demolished the cinder block substation at the old Saltair site.  All intact remnants of Old Saltair are now gone.  I’m doing my research now and will have the story within the next few days.  Stay tuned.

If you’d like to order through my Amazon.com affiliate link, click here:
Ghost Towns: Lost Cities of the Old West (Shire Library)

Thanks to those who have already picked up a copy, and for the kind words from those who have already read it.  Thanks also to the Tooele Transcript Bulletin for the nice profile in last Thursday’s edition.  Enjoy the book and spread the word!

Clint

I’m ecstatic to announce the upcoming release of my first book, Ghost Towns: Lost Cities of the Old West, from Shire Publishing.  The book is available for pre-order now and will be released on April 17. An e-book version is expected to be released by June.

About the Book
“There comes a time in every rightly-constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.”

This quote from Chapter 25 of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer has captioned this website since its inception.  The raging desire of which Mr. Twain speaks came upon me early in life, and has sparked several passions.  Among them is the study of abandoned places.  My somewhere was the great American West.  My hidden treasure, ghost towns.

The dialog that follows the quote in Tom Sawyer is priceless.  It goes something like this:

Huck: Where’ll we dig?

Tom: Oh, most anywhere.

Huck: Why, is it hid all around?

Tom: No, indeed it ain’t. It’s hid in mighty particular places, Huck – sometimes on islands, sometimes in rotten chests under the end of a limb of an old dead tree, just where the shadow falls at midnight; but mostly under the floor in ha’nted houses.

Huck: Who hides it?

Tom: Why, robbers, of course…They always hide it and leave it there.

Huck: Don’t they come after it anymore?

Tom: No, they think they will, but they generally forget the marks, or else they die. Anyway, it lays there a long time and gets rusty; and by and by somebody finds an old yellow paper that tells how to find the marks – a paper that’s got to be ciphered over about a week because it’s mostly signs and hy’roglyphics.”

Like Tom’s treasure, ghost towns can be found most anywhere, especially in places that seem odd and secreted.  There they remain, mostly forgotten and in various states of decay, waiting for a couple adventurous kids with an old yellow paper.

There are many guide books available that list ghost towns by region.  This is not one of those books.  This book is a primer to the ghost town phenomenon and the ghost-towning hobby.  It’s the book you read before you pick up a guide book.  Ghost towns are best experienced with as much context as possible.  What exactly is a ghost town? How did they rise? Why did they fall? What can their remains tell us about the people that once called them home? And how can they be experienced today?

Ghost Towns: Lost Cities of the Old West answers these questions, and then some.

Pre-order yours today!

• Pre-order direct from the publisher (this earns me highest royalties): Link [make sure to set your location to USA in the top corner]

• Pre-order from Amazon.com (use this link and I get a small kick-back): Ghost Towns: Lost Cities of the Old West (Shire Library)

SLG&W Car 502 (the "Saltair Train") is loaded onto a salvage truck on February 18, 2012 (photo by Clint Thomsen)

To anybody who regularly drives the stretch of Interstate 80 between Magna and Lake Point, the “Saltair Train” was a familiar site.  Like the cinder block shell of the substation she stood near, the old passenger coach was badly blighted and covered with graffiti.  But Salt Lake Garfield & Western Railroad Car 502 was more than just a popular tag site or a hipster backdrop for bridal photographers– it was the last vestige of the original Saltair resort.

Yes, the original Saltair.  There have been 3.  The first, a grand resort pavilion, was built in 1893 and destroyed by fire in 1925. “Saltair II” was built roughly to the same scale and on the same site– at the end of mile-long long trestle, about 2 miles east of the current pavilion (Saltair III) at the freeway exit.  Saltair II itself was destroyed by fire in 1971.  When your grandmother reminisces about dancing the night away at Saltair, she’s talking about its second incarnation.

And she probably remembers riding to it on a train– quite possibly 502.  Some cars on the Salt Lake Garfield & Western line were open-air.  502 was a closed coach, and it carried happy passengers back and forth to Saltair for at least 30 years.

Saturday afternoon I was the last person to climb aboard the old rail car.  My visit wasn’t planned; I spotted the cranes on my drive home and quickly drove to the site.  A few moments later it was hoisted onto a semi truck bound for a Grantsville salvage yard, where it will be dismantled for scrap metal today.  It’s a sad end for this storied relic.

SLG&W Cars 501 and 502 at the old Saltair Site. 502 is on the left. Date unknown, Source: Grandma

502 was one of six “steel passenger motor cars” built by McGuire-Cunmings Manufacturing Co. in 1918 and shipped to Salt Lake City the following year. Cars 501 and 502 were rebuilt in 1950 as trailer cars and were given flat arch roofs.  The other cars were scrapped in 1953.  501 was displayed at the new Saltair pavilion (the one at the exit) in the 1980′s, and was scrapped in 2006.  502 was stored near the power substation at the old site.  It remained in decent shape well into the 1990′s, but has been the victim of severe vandalism and arson since.

Here’s an early, undated photo of Car 502 with its Saltair marking:

Source: UtahRails.net via Flickr

Here’s 502 in 1975:

Source: rrpicturearchives.net

In 1995:

Source: Doug Anderson, davesrailpix.com

And 2007:

Source: railpictures.net

I stood with landowner Ian Morehouse as the car two cranes lifted 502 onto the salvage truck Saturday afternoon.  Video below:

Morehouse, who also owns Saltair III, tried unsuccessfully to have car 501 preserved back in 2006.  He cited the tricky logistics and prohibitive cost of moving the car as primary reasons for nobody claiming it.  It might be said that the real demise of 502 came with the arson fire circa 2009.  Morehouse estimated that 80% of the car’s wooden structure was destroyed in the fire, making it restoration costly and near impossible.  He said it was a combination of recent pressure from Salt Lake County to clean up the site and the increased legal liability with the constant stream of visitors that prompted him to sell the car to the salvage company.

I’m not aware of any plans to demolish the nearby substation ruins, which lie on state lands.

For the record, I also made efforts to have 502 preserved about two years ago, before the land was purchased by Morehouse.  A few organizations showed interest, but none had space to store it or money to move it.  The salvage crew let me snap a few photos of 502 before the old coach made its final departure from Saltair.

Photo by Clint Thomsen

Photo by Clint Thomsen

Photo by Clint Thomsen

Photo by Clint Thomsen

Sad day.

UPDATE: Commenter Gilbert below has created a Flickr group to aggregate images of 502.  If you’ve taken photos out there, head over and add to the pool.

Here are several previous pieces I’ve written on Saltair:

Ghost towns? How about a ghost resort?
Old Saltair: Ruins are all that remain of “Coney Island of the West”
Saltair in flames: Video documents the ruin of famous Utah resort
Saltair’s spooky side shines in “Carnival of Souls”
Lakeside beach resort makes for a delightful summer outing

Writing ain’t easy.  When writers say they love writing, most of them are talking about a very specific stage of the process—that magical moment of clarity that I call “The Zone”—when everything starts to gel and thoughts begin to flow smoothly from cerebrum to keyboard.   It’s the writing equivalent of a runner’s high.

Legendary nonfiction writer John McPhee put it well in a 2010 radio interview with NPR:

“What I do is go through the miserable business of a first draft, which is just, you know, masochism, and when I get it done, there’s a bit of a change comes over me, as I get a little calmer about what I’m doing.”

For a lucky few writers, The Zone comes quickly.  For the rest of us, it lies near the end of the ordeal, often just shy of deadline, when the 12-pack of Diet Dr. Pepper is just about gone and the kids are ready to trade their old Dad in for a less frazzled, non-deranged model.

When it finally comes, The Zone is heaven.  Most everything leading up to it—second guessing on sentence arrangement, the trial and error of cadence, the simple point that should take minutes to articulate on paper but inevitably takes hours—is hell (hence all the procrastination, rationalization, and distraction beforehand).

A typical writing project for me goes something like this:

1. Conduct interviews early on and research like mad, making awesome lists and notes, which I’ll read through repeatedly.  (I’m quite pleased with my performance at this stage.)
2. Wait until the last moment possible to begin writing, then justify the procrastination by rationalizing that my extra effort in research will make the writing process painless.
3. Grab a Diet Dr. Pepper.  Sit in my writing spot and stare at the blank Word doc.
4. Plink out a couple draft sentences.  Check my email.  Think about the movie I saw last night, wondering what other movies the lead actress has starred in because she seems so familiar.  Check IMDB.com and discover that, oh yeah, she was the voice of such and such character in that one cartoon, which is why I recognized the voice but not the face.  Makes sense now.
5. Back to the Word doc.  Decide the couple draft sentences I plinked out 30 minutes ago are garbage and delete them.  Plink out a couple more.  Wonder if there’s a better adjective for the second sentence.  Decide on an alternative adjective, only to remember I just used that one in a piece last week.  Am I using that adjective is a crutch?  Search past published articles and find that yes, I did use that last week.  Dang, it is a crutch.  What would Thesaurus.com suggest?  Is that the new HTC phone being advertised on Thesaurus.com?  That’s the phone my friend Tyler has, I think.  Check HTC.com to make sure.  Yep.  And it has a 12 megapixel camera, too.  I think I read a review of that phone somewhere…
6. Back to the Word doc.  Compose my lead paragraph, then agonize over it.  This calls for another Diet Dr. Pepper.  And a Pop Tart.  Better check email again, just in case my source had some last minute thoughts.  Nope, but it looks like Tyler wants to go to that German place downtown for lunch tomorrow.  Should be cold and snowy tomorrow—perfect weather for German food!  I’ll probably order the spätzle.  Good stuff.  I wonder how they make it?
7. Back to the draft because even my most optimistic analysis of my remaining time says I’ll be cutting it close.  Bribe my brain to focus by promising a break after I finish the next 3 outline points.
8. Realize after finishing the 5^th outline point that my break’s overdue.  But that’s okay, because I’ve now entered The Zone.  It’s all downhill from here.  I love this writing thing!

If there’s a shortcut to The Zone, I have yet to discover it.  I’m writing a piece for the Transcript Bulletin today and tomorrow (or maybe tonight and tomorrow—or just tomorrow) and I’m formulating my strategy.  Perhaps writing this post about the Dreadful Trinity will help to inoculate me against it.  And I might try disabling the WiFi before getting started.  Right after I grab a Diet Dr. Pepper, check my email, and watch that hilarious SpongeBob episode one last time.

WDARC was established in 1995 as a local arm of the Utah Amateur Radio Club. Its mission is to provide education and foster a mentoring atmosphere for ham radio. The club boasts nearly 50 members — and each has their own story.

This article originally appeared in the November 10, 2011 edition of the Tooele Transcript Bulletin.

Amateur radio operator Ray Riding twists the tuning dial of the Tooele County Emergency Operations Center’s high frequency radio, catching sporadic strings of human voice as he scans the 20 meter band. The voices phase in and out of the white noise like mini movements in an ethereal symphony. It’s music to the radio lover’s ears.

Sitting next to Riding, fellow amateur operator Richard Shaw keys a repeater code into another radio while another ham, Doug Higley, translates their radio lingo into plain English. The three men are members of the West Desert Amateur Radio Club (WDARC), which promotes amateur — or “ham” — radio in Tooele County.

“CQ, CQ, KC7GMN,” calls Shaw over the air via a repeater on Farnsworth Peak. (KC7GMN is Shaw’s call sign. ‘CQ’ is a general call for contact.) It’s time, as hams say, to “chew the rag.”

Amateur radio traces its roots back to the early 20th century when private citizens began experimenting with radio transmission and wireless messaging using Morse code. The pastime continues today as both a hobby and a bastion of volunteer and emergency communication. According to Shaw, WDARC’s current president, there are more than 260 licensed amateur radio operators in Tooele County.

Exactly how the craft became known as “ham radio” is uncertain. “Ham” could be an abbreviation of “amateur,” but most hams agree that the moniker originated as a taunt from military professionals.

“Back when radio was just starting out,” explained Shaw, “the military were the ones that used it. When private individuals started transmitting with crude equipment, the military made fun of them, saying snidely, ‘They’re just a bunch of hams.’ But everybody who was private took that as a badge of honor.”

Beginning with the Radio Act of 1912, ham radio operation was licensed by the Federal Communications Commission. Currently there are three license classes: general, technician, and amateur extra. Ham radio is strictly non-commercial. Aside from emergency communications, ham transmissions consist mostly of short contacts and “rag chewing,” the ham term for casual conversation. Many hams also volunteer to provide communication infrastructure to races and other public events.

WDARC was established in 1995 as a local arm of the Utah Amateur Radio Club. Its mission is to provide education and foster a mentoring atmosphere for ham radio. The club boasts nearly 50 members — and each has their own story.

Shaw fell in love with radio at age 10 when he and his older brother received crystal radio kits for Christmas. A crystal receiver is a simple radio built primarily of wire and a crystalline mineral, powered only by radio waves in the air. Transmissions are heard through a single earbud. Shaw and his brother built their kits that very day and spent many hours listening to KDYL and KSL — the only stations they could pick up reliably from their home in Murray.

“On Sundays we’d kick it on before church and listen to the [Mormon] Tabernacle Choir,” Shaw recalled. “Mother would be listening to it upstairs on an AM radio, but we were downstairs listening to it through our little earbuds. It was a very pure form of radio.”

Riding (call sign AC7RR) has always been fascinated by radio, but his interest in emergency communications stems from a 1978 incident when he was the first responder to an auto-pedestrian accident on SR-89 in Weber County. Radio was the only form of mobile communication back then, and Riding used his Citizens’ Band radio to call for help.

“That’s why I always want to have a radio with me,” he said.

Riding is vice president of WDARC and currently serves as the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) Emergency Coordinator for Tooele County. In the event that established government emergency communications fail, Riding will spearhead backup amateur network to temporarily bridge the gap.

Ham operators also form the backbone of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ emergency communications network. Volunteer ham operators representing each ward and stake are on constant standby to facilitate communications and welfare supply delivery during disasters. During a major 1994 wildfire in Skull Valley, Shaw participated in an LDS Church-led operation to establish a communication network and full-service shelter. Though the shelter was ultimately not used, Shaw considers it a testament to the effectiveness of ham radio.

Beyond emergency communications, ham radio is the model of technical experimentation and do-it-yourself electronics. Hams have made considerable contributions to the fields of science, engineering and aerospace. Numerous innovators in the technology and media industries got their start in ham radio, and most astronauts are licensed. Hams were using satellites to boost their communication as early as 1961. In the 1970s they pioneered packet radio, a precursor to modern computer networks and the Internet. In turn, ham radio incorporates modern Internet technology to extend its range and capabilities. The Internet Radio Linking Project (IRLP) enables the linking of stations worldwide via Voice over IP. Higley (KD7FXS) believes that IRLP is a key to sustained enthusiasm for ham radio.

“Basically that gives you worldwide communication — and you have access to that at entry level,” he said.

Back at the EOC, a ham in Bountiful with call sign KF7MTE responds to Shaw’s CQ call and spends several minutes chatting about equipment and getting started with ham radio. This kind of talk is typical, as are conversations about weather, traffic, news relevant to ham radio and other pleasantries.

Shaw said getting licensed can be quick and relatively inexpensive. WDARC meets monthly at the EOC and sponsors two training courses per year for newcomers. The club encourages anybody interested to contact them about training. Potential amateur radio operators must pass a multiple choice exam to prove their knowledge of radio operation and FCC regulations. There is no age limit. According to Shaw, the youngest ham operator in Tooele County is 14 years old. Equipment costs vary according to need and interest.

Listening to the WDARC guys, it’s difficult to identify a single source of their passion. Many are attracted to the emergency service aspects of ham radio. Others are drawn by a sense of community. Some crave long-distance contact and competition. Riding described ham radio as a hobby with many sub-hobbies, offering the example of building “homebrewed” radios.

“You’ll have extremely low power operations where they’ll build a transmitter out of an Altoids can or a tuna can,” he said.

Underlying all of these interests seems to be a wide-eyed fascination with the radio phenomenon and a desire to harness its potential.

“RF [Radio Frequency] is out there, and radio is a way to capture it,” Shaw explained. “Amateur radio lets you control it.”

Image courtesy NASA

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Friday, July 8, 2011—

It’s 10:30 AM.  Or so– I’m not sure because not one of my thousand glances at my cell phone’s clock has actually registered in my head.  I blame the dizzying potpourri of emotions that overwhelm me at the moment—anxiety, guarded elation, sweeping nostalgia, sorrow—and a few more I can’t exactly pin down.  I play it cool, but my mind is racing.  I wish I had paid better attention to those high school lessons on weather radar echo.  I wish I would have brought my tripod.  I wish I hadn’t forgotten to eat the sausage McMuffin I picked up on the way here.  Mainly, though, like the million other people who have converged on Florida’s Space Coast this morning, I wish the sky would clear up.  At least for another hour or so.

Dad, Mom, and my young sons Boo and West sit with me along the narrow causeway that connects the Kennedy Space Center to Cape Canaveral across the Banana River.  Northward across the water, the Space Shuttle Atlantis launch stack towers over the installation’s legendary Launch Complex 39.  Atlantis is scheduled to launch at 11:26 AM, weather permitting.  This will be her final mission and the last of the shuttle program altogether.

“This is a big deal, guys,” I tell Boo, 10, and West, 8, confident that they’ll someday come to realize the magnitude of the event.

Communications between the shuttle and Launch Control echo from tall speaker posts that line the causeway.  I have no idea what they’re saying, but hearing it makes me feel informed.  A commentator chimes in occasionally to repeat the weather forecast, which hasn’t budged in three days: a 70% chance of unfavorable conditions at launch time.  The tragic irony of making a multi-day pilgrimage to the world’s space launch epicenter, only to watch it on TV in our living room later this weekend, does not escape me.  Were the launch scheduled for this moment, the commentator now adds, we’d be “no go” for launch.

Yet Atlantis stands dutifully, eagerly, in the distance as her four member crew finalizes launch preparations.  I can hear it in their voices; they’re pumped, assured, and ready for whatever the countdown brings.  As the minutes pass the boys and I take turns watching the launch stack through Dad’s binoculars.  I’m proud of Atlantis.  32 flights over 26 years of service—that’s a pretty good run.  I’m proud of her crerw, proud of the voices echoing from the speaker posts, proud of America.

Thirty minutes to go (suddenly I’m keenly aware of time).

Were I to classify my interest in space, I’d call it casual, yet enduring.  I’m no expert on the cosmos, but I’ve looked to them in awe for as long as I can remember.  As a kid, my favorite TV shows were invariably space-centric.  When I wasn’t sketching space ships, I was playing Asteroids on my Atari 2600 or scanning the night skies for satellites.  I watched space shuttle mission coverage whenever I had a chance.  And like many of my generation, I’ll never forget the horror of watching Space Shuttle Challenger explode on our elementary classroom TV.

Space was a dangerous place.  A dangerous, mind-boggling, wonderful place.

Though I haven’t fanatically followed the space shuttle program, its imminent end is jarring to me.  It’s not like the program’s retirement snuck up on me (it was mandated back in 2004).  But the announcement of its planned successor, the Constellation Program, made the shuttle’s retirement palatable.  Not only would Constellation continue to service the International Space Station, it would send astronauts back to the moon, then Mars and beyond.  For fans of manned spaceflight (and the contractors who would make it happen), the future looked exceptionally bright.

But President Obama’s abrupt cancellation of the program last year left little time for the space community and the American public to come to terms with what will amount to, at the very least, an extended hiatus from homegrown manned spaceflight.  We’ve abandoned an expensive, yet proven spacecraft without a viable replacement.  Once Atlantis returns to Earth on July 21, America’s manned space program will amount to little more than a bunch of abstract plans and concept art.

NASA insists that its future is still bright, and they’ve got a valid point.  There were the three successful Mars rover missions.  The IIS is bustling and several private companies are racing to develop spacecraft to service it.  Even as the clock ticks down to this morning’s launch, NASA’s Dawn probe is approaching the asteroid Vesta.  A week from now it will become the first spacecraft to enter orbit around an object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.  Exciting stuff, to be sure.

Still, there’s something to be said for human space exploration.  Space is the “final frontier” only because mankind has dared to explore it in person.   Any study of the cosmos—no matter how rote or scientific—says more about us than it does about our universe.  Take man out of space and you eliminate the most interesting aspect of space.  Robotic missions will never carry the symbolic force that manned missions have.  Hopefully somebody somewhere understands this.

These are the thoughts that filter through my mind as we wait for the next weather update.  Before it comes, the small slivers of blue in the sky suddenly widen and the outside temperature jumps emphatically.  The commentator is now “cautiously optimistic.”  Even he seems amazed at the turnaround.  The collective mood at the causeway is lifted.  By 11:00 Atlantis is unofficially “GO” for launch.  The crowd cheers.  The official call will be made at T minus 9 minutes.  All eyes are trained on the launch stack.  The excitement is as intense as the humidity.

T minus 9 minutes: Atlantis is officially “GO” for launch.  I’m starting to understand the audio from the speakers.  Boo and West are mesmerized.  The last minutes pass quickly.

T minus 10 seconds: The familiar voice begins final countdown.  The crowd counts along with him.  Atlantis ignites her main engines and the two solid boosters follow.  Atlantis lifts off, seemingly in slow motion, clearing the tower with a bright orange glare and a billowing wake.  She disappears into the upper layer of clouds before the thundering sounds of its launch finally reach the causeway.

From the loudspeakers: “The space shuttle spreads its wings one final time for the start of a sentimental journey into history.”

Within an hour the sky is again dark with pregnant clouds.  For all I know, this happens with every launch down here.  I’d like to think this morning is unique, that we’ve hit a fortuitous window of opportunity that closed almost as quickly as it opened.  There’s a metaphor somewhere in all of this, but I’m too stoked to flesh it out.  The boys sketch pictures of the launch on the bus ride back to Merritt Island.  I listen to the audio transmissions on my scanner until we’re out of range.  I close my cell phone’s weather app—it’ll be a while before I need it again.

Atlantis is scheduled to land at Kennedy Space Center tomorrow, 7/21/2011, at 5:56:58 a.m. EDT.  Weather permitting, of course.

It’s so wonderfully charming when it first shows up and it turns the whole world into a magical wonderland. But by the end of March/early April it simply will not go away. It won’t listen to reason or acknowledge the obvious- that the Equinox is past, Spring has begun, and your relationship is over.

Winter, we are done. What we had was truly wonderful. But it’s over; we’ve grown apart, and it’s time for both of us to move on. I need to bike and camp and sit out on the deck, and you need to go see the penguins down in Antarctica or do whatever the hell it is you do the rest of the year.

Watcher’s analogies are unmatched. You really must click over and read the whole post in all of it’s fed up glory:

How A Utah Winter Is Like A Crazy-Stalker-Ex-Girlfriend